Costs Soar on NASA Communications Upgrade Program 47
schwit1 writes A new GAO report has found that NASA's effort to upgrade the ground-based portion of its satellite communications system, used by both military satellites and manned spacecraft, is more than 30 percent over budget, with its completion now delayed two years to 2019. Worse, the GAO found that this problem program was actually one of three that have had budget problems. And that doesn't include the disastrously overbudget James Webb Space Telescope. "In its latest assessment of NASA's biggest programs, the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified the Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment (SGSS) as one of three — not counting the notoriously overbudget James Webb Space Telescope — that account for most of the projected cumulative cost growth this year. The others are the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, which launched March 12, and the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, mission, the congressional watchdog agency said."
April fool day is over, man ! (Score:1)
Oh c'mon, folks, April fools' day is over !
NASA projects suffer cost overrun? Who is kidding whom?
USA being the most efficient country in the world and NASA being the most efficient government agency inside USA
What is wrong with /. these days??
Don't you guys know it yet?
Everything coming out of NASA is cost effective and under budget and they always get things done way before the deadline and everything they do never fail
NASA is so effective that even Obama got so impressed by it that he ordered NASA to bec
Cutting edge has unknowns! Who would have thought? (Score:1)
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SpaceX reaches for the sky and they manage to stretch their budget to work on a reusable booster.
If NASA is anything like the gov projects I used to work, there are too many people billing time on too few projects. But I noticed a tendency for people to reflexively defend NASA instead of asking hard questions about the budget, contract costs and staffing.
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Building something different to what anyone has built before is a bit hard to quote for, and that's the main, should be incredibly obvious point and not related to distracting comments about overstaffing.
Have you every considered that if costs go up it's possible that they were understaffed to start with and had to put more people on?
Sorry guys for quest
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Sorry guys for questioning the thought bubble where you think a manager says "get it done" and the only impediments are lazy people and not the actual difficulty of a task.
I don't see evidence that the actual difficulty of the project is relevant here or all that hard. They aren't trying to do the impossible, just scale up well-known systems a bit. Meanwhile the cost overruns are small enough that they'll probably keep being funded. I think it's just another cost plus contract being gamed a bit aggressively.
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You can't grasp the implications, so let's try something obvious. Consider scaling up an ant to horse size. It's not going to work without some redesign is it?
It's not code, and even code sometimes needs redesign to scale up.
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Building something different to what anyone has built before is a bit hard to quote for, and that's the main, should be incredibly obvious point
So about half the projects come under budget and the other half over budget? no? they all go over budget? yeah... proof that the problem isnt how hard it is to quote for, but instead how easy it is to get more than you quoted.
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I can't tell what you are trying to say because NASA funded SpaceX for several billion dollars.
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The real problem is outsourcing. Big surprise, you grant a project to one of the usual suspects (government contractors) you get the typical overruns.
SpaceX saves a ton of money by keeping the project management in the same house as the actual work.
If NASA is allowed to bring a layer or two in house they can probably start being on time and reasonably within budget too. Especially if they don't have to make concessions to pork.
Where is the problem ? (Score:1)
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I don't like fiction either at least the non science type. Well, I take that back, 1984 was pretty good. That was made up, right?
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It is only small relative to the total federal budget, but that being way out of control isnt the justification needed to call NASA's budget small.
Space, or a starving child in Africa? (Score:2)
[voiceover] For just 44 cents a day, your family can participate in the exploration of the known universe, helping solve the cosmic puzzle we live in. [/voiceover]
Business As Usual (Score:4, Interesting)
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New technology is just plain difficult to estimate. If you make the almost exact same probe or widget each time, then you can eventually make good estimates. Add a new kind of rock-zapping laser or new kind of lens polisher or new kind of parachute system, and unexpected bleep comes up.
You can hard-wire the costs into the vendor contract, but then you have no room to make changes, because any change can invalidate the original contract.
You can split the contract into sub-systems, but then the interface betw
The solution to NASA's budget problem (Score:3)
Just stop doing anything to do with space then the budget will be saved!!
OR increase NASA's budget!!
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I work at NASA and you would be surprised how accurate your statement is. The Center projects like repaving roads, tearing down old facilities, or doing something similar are always lauded for how well they were run since they are on time and on budget. Meanwhile when you are trying to do something nobody ever did before you are constantly getting threatened to have your budget cut. The real kick in the pants is when September comes and these same budget people are running around asking if anyone knows of a
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I work at NASA and you would be surprised how accurate your statement is.
That's pretty much the modus operandi for many government departments and quite a hilarious thing to watch sometimes. Have you considered positioning your projects to take advantage of these moronic times to secure the equipment you need?
I love the work NASA does, that you do - even though I don't know the specifics. I just wish your work wasn't interfered with so much and used for porq. I think the risk adversity has handicapped the organizations capacity to achieve. With the amount of interference you
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Typically during the last part of the year we get a bunch of PR's of various amounts ready to go. The money technically only has to be allocated to a PR not actually take delivery.
Still a waste of money. It should just be allowed to roll over to next year to be used on the project.
Meanwhile... (Score:1)
How to increase NASA's budget (Score:2)
There is still plenty of money when it comes to bombing brown people on the other side of the planet, but not enough for scientific research, infrastructure, or anything else that benefits the entire country.
Funding on a large scale generally only comes if either A) people are scared of something or B) people think they can make a buck. Option A is why we went to the moon. However right now the big scary thing is "terrorism" and a space program isn't vital to dealing with that. Option B applies to NASA but only indirectly to most firms outside of NASA. NASA is a research organization so they cannot predict what economic benefits will flow from their work because economic benefits from basic research are fu
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Maybe if we published some news stories about the threat from the Bugger invasion. If we don't expand into the solar system, they will attack and destroy us!
Apologize later (Score:1)
kind of a misleading article and a gripe (Score:2, Informative)
The actual GAO report is here [url]http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/669205.pdf[/url]
What it *really* says is that there are four big projects that NASA is doing that have significant cost overruns. SGSS is somewhat of a problem: while the report says they're having trouble retaining staff, I suspect the real problem is that NASA, and in particular, Space Network (who operate TDRSS and the ground stations) have a set way of doing things with existing 1970s designs and architecture and 1980s equipment. Anytime
Isn't This Just Telecommunications Equipment??? (Score:2)
This is not about trying to make something exiotic that has to last forever in hostile space environments without ability for hands-on repair.
This is ground based telecommunications equipment!
I don't understand what can make this go so far over budget and over-time. Ground based telecommunications equipment, including satellite base stations are commodity items that are off-the-shelf.
Ham radio operators have been building satellite ground stations as well as terrestrial communications equipmen