Cost Overruns and Delays: NASA's Artemis Moon Rocket Will Cost $6B More, Take Longer (space.com) 101
"An independent report looking into the development of NASA's new moon rocket has found significant cost overruns and delays that could harm the agency's plans to put astronauts back on the moon," reports Space.com.
Their article cites specifically "increases in costs related to contracts awarded to Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman for SLS's propulsion systems," citing a 50-page report published Thursday by NASA's Inspector General: Altogether, the four contracts for the rocket's booster and engine were initially projected to cost $7 billion over a span of 14 years, but are now projected to cost at least $13.1 billion over nearly 25 years. "NASA continues to experience significant scope growth, cost increases, and schedule delays on its booster and RS-25 engine contracts, resulting in approximately $6 billion in cost increases and over 6 years in schedule delays above NASA's original projections," the report found.
These significant increases were caused by a variety of long-standing, interrelated management issues impacting both the SLS development campaign and the wider Artemis program, the report notes, including "some of which represent potential violations of federal contracting requirements." The use of heritage RS-25 engines and boosters from the space shuttle and Constellation programs for the new SLS rocket was intended to bring significant cost and schedule savings over developing new systems. But the "complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated," according to the report.
To remedy this, the report makes a number of recommendations to NASA management to increase transparency, accountability and affordability of the SLS booster and engine contracts, including switching from "cost-plus" awards towards a fixed-price contract structure. However, the assessment still finds the enormous cost of SLS hard to manage for NASA and damaging to its long term "Moon to Mars" plans. "Without greater attention to these important safeguards, NASA and its contracts will continue to exceed planned cost and schedule, resulting in a reduced availability of funds, delayed launches, and the erosion of the public's trust in the Agency's ability to responsibly spend taxpayer money and meet mission goals and objectives — including returning humans safely to the moon and onward to Mars."
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared the article along with a YouTube video with excerpts from recently released high-resolution video of the rocket's last launch.
Their article cites specifically "increases in costs related to contracts awarded to Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman for SLS's propulsion systems," citing a 50-page report published Thursday by NASA's Inspector General: Altogether, the four contracts for the rocket's booster and engine were initially projected to cost $7 billion over a span of 14 years, but are now projected to cost at least $13.1 billion over nearly 25 years. "NASA continues to experience significant scope growth, cost increases, and schedule delays on its booster and RS-25 engine contracts, resulting in approximately $6 billion in cost increases and over 6 years in schedule delays above NASA's original projections," the report found.
These significant increases were caused by a variety of long-standing, interrelated management issues impacting both the SLS development campaign and the wider Artemis program, the report notes, including "some of which represent potential violations of federal contracting requirements." The use of heritage RS-25 engines and boosters from the space shuttle and Constellation programs for the new SLS rocket was intended to bring significant cost and schedule savings over developing new systems. But the "complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated," according to the report.
To remedy this, the report makes a number of recommendations to NASA management to increase transparency, accountability and affordability of the SLS booster and engine contracts, including switching from "cost-plus" awards towards a fixed-price contract structure. However, the assessment still finds the enormous cost of SLS hard to manage for NASA and damaging to its long term "Moon to Mars" plans. "Without greater attention to these important safeguards, NASA and its contracts will continue to exceed planned cost and schedule, resulting in a reduced availability of funds, delayed launches, and the erosion of the public's trust in the Agency's ability to responsibly spend taxpayer money and meet mission goals and objectives — including returning humans safely to the moon and onward to Mars."
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared the article along with a YouTube video with excerpts from recently released high-resolution video of the rocket's last launch.
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing quite like the commercial environment when the incentives are there to make it safe, make it quick, and mind the store. I get the feeling that government jobs are drawn out as long as possible and lack the expediency of the private sector. SpaceX could very well be the start of a whole new industry to replace government inefficiencies.
Do not get me wrong, NASA played a crucial role for many decades. But recently everything has been going so slow and expensive nothing is getting done - aside from space probe launches. I would love to hear other takes on this.
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It's not the commercial environment that does it. It's the incentives package.* You need one that fosters good management**. "Being commercial" is one way to try and shape that environment, but it can easily backfire.*** It certainly isn't the only tool in the box.
NASA has been around for a while so it knows how to survive in its environment. And sometimes it gets a rotten hand to play. Look at the space shuttle: That one was fantastically expensive to run, as in you could do how many commercial launches f
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
For one thing, the Space Shuttle program required a standing army of 35,000 people to keep running. Something tells me that no SpaceX vehicle takes anything like that number.
Re: Competition with Chinese rsilvergun in singapo (Score:1)
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Space Shuttle program required a standing army of 35,000 people to keep running
That's the whole kit and caboodle. In the 90s Congress had expansive goals for the jobs supplied by the program. Those goals were curtailed a bit in the aughts. By 2006, after W sank his teeth into it, the entire program was being ran by just 5,100. For SpaceX many of the one-to-ones for roles, public servants serve the role. Like NASA's weather coordinator which eventually went away, for SpaceX that's just checking in with NOAA.
So yeah, SpaceX isn't going to have the same number, they offset some of t
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Good management and government are usually incompatible. We all know what ultimately happens....a bloated bureaucracy that is neither fast nor cheap.
Musk will get to the moon long before NASA.
Like a lot of tech that we take for granted today, space flight was a product of government effort/funding, but it's time to let private enterprise take over. Sadly, shareholders are a lot less tolerant of delays and waste than voters.
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Good management and government are usually incompatible.
Usually, but not inherently. It depends quite a bit on how you organise both.
We all know what ultimately happens....a bloated bureaucracy that is neither fast nor cheap.
Notice that this happens in any large organisation, including corporations. They have stronger incentives to curtail headcount, but if left to their own devices, they'll grow until a very thin after-dinner mint is enough to blow up the whole thing.
So again it's not restricted to government (if anything, they're slower to hire, yet even slower to fire), but a property of "being organised" into an organisation with its own logic and
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It might be instructive to reconsider the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era and the 'national goal' of 'putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade'. How much of that success was a result of the urgency and commitment then to achieve the collective goal? Costs were not a significant issue then, where they could be now, but the urgency is lacking.
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"Musk will get to the moon long before NASA."
MusK will get to Mars TWICE before NASA even gets to the Moon.
There, fixed that for you.
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When I write grants for federal funding, I do my best to estimate the time different things will take. We are required to provide milestones and time lines. Invariably, these end up being optimistic, no matter how accurate one tries to make them before the fact.
Were anyone to re-evaluate these time lines halfway through the project, it would be clear that the project would be late. It is the nature of human ability to make projections about the future.
Re: Competition (Score:2)
Were anyone to re-evaluate these time lines halfway through the project, it would be clear that the project would be late.
Or that would present an opportunity to add manpower to the project. A prime motivator for many organizations where a fixed cost isn't a limiting factor. Often, the addition of staff (and the requisite budget) is the primary motivation in organizational decision-making.
I've worked on a few tasks where we were not a part of some critical path. Sometimes, just a process improvement aimed at saving time, money and/or quality over a legacy system. Had we missed a "deadline", the only adverse impact would have
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA, for better or worse, does not feel it can afford the imagery of the SLS turning into a fireball.
The idea that "commercial environment" creates an incentive of safety is so fucking blind to history that I don't really know how to address it.
Re:Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly this. As much as I want Starship to succeed and think SLS is a boondoggle with the way things re looking now we will see 2-3 SLS flights before Starship is at a point where SLS will be allowed to be scrapped, and chances are those 2-3 flights, as stupidly over-expensive as they are, will hit their mission goals.
Also people forget the environment of safety for really everything aerospace, space and flight, has it's roots in NASA, the FAA and written in blood. For as much as we can point ot the fairly sterling safety record of human Falcon9 flights at the end of the day they have to build and fly within the rules NASA sets, they didn't write the decades of historical protocols they are able to take advantage of today.
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
It's easy to criticize the cost overruns and general Government bullshit that NASA is involved in, but at the end of the day, SLS made it into orbit, and Starship became part of the breathable atmosphere of South Texas, as well as some unwanted hood ornaments on peoples cars.
Let's put this in perspective. SLS took 12 years to first launch, and will get people to space for $4 billion per launch. Starship took 3.5 years to first launch, and is expected to eventually get people to space for $10 million per launch.
I think it is safe to say that by the time Starship has been in development for 12 years, it will be launching successfully. After all, the main problem seemed to be that there wasn't a launchpad that could handle that much thrust, so the launch kicked rocks into the vehicle.
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Let's just do a full accounting while we're here.
SLS took about 12 years and $23B to get us a successful launch.
Starship is going on 4 years of development, $6-$7B in total funding, and no successful launches, but a few very spectacular fireballs.
As mentioned previously, fireballs are worse than bad for optics for NASA, they're a death sentence.
Ultimately, we can expect Starship to come in at around 5-6 years, and ~$10-12B in cost. So let
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> SLS took about 12 years and $23B to get us a successful launch.
Yeah, that's only true if you ignore all the time and money spent developing the SSMEs, SRBs, and the core section fuel tank that was repurposed from the STS program, as well as all of the design work that went into Ares. Factor those in and SLS has been in development over 20 years and cost $50 billion: https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/by-the-numbers-the-space-launch-system-nasas-next-moon-rocket/
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Though if we're being more specific, from the NLS, really.
But I mean why aren't we counting all the work that went into the Saturn V, while we're at it?
NASA build shit that tends not to explode.
SpaceX has blown up more rockets in tests than NASA has in its entire existence.
Stop comparing these two things. It's fucking stupid.
This crying over $50B is the dumbest fucking pearl
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You might want to examine US rocket & space development during the 1950s and 1960s.
If the movie The Right Stuff is any indication...the organization that preceded NASA had it's share of failures, both explosive and otherwise.
But NASA only burned up 3 living Apollo astronauts in a pure Oxygen filled capsule on a launchpad...
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You might want to examine US rocket & space development during the 1950s and 1960s.
Not at all. I'm well familiar.
If the movie The Right Stuff is any indication...the organization that preceded NASA had it's share of failures, both explosive and otherwise.
It's share?
How are we defining... share?
The literal development process of a SpaceX rocket involves no less than that rocket exploding a dozen times.
Which as I've said elsewhere- is awesome. It's the process I'd use, too.
But that's not a development process that NASA can use.
But NASA only burned up 3 living Apollo astronauts in a pure Oxygen filled capsule on a launchpad...
Sure did. Perhaps we should charge SpaceX for the knowedge they undoubtedly obtained from that event too.
The standards difference can be no more succinctly demonstrated than a failed test of the SLS,
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The standards difference can be no more succinctly demonstrated than a failed test of the SLS, which means they determined there was a problem and decided not to launch it, lest it fail its mission, and a successful test of a SpaceX rocket, which in all but the final 2 launches before it's called "good to go", involves it exploding dramatically.
AFAIK, only one Starship launch attempt [wikipedia.org] exploded during dramatically, and that was the most recent one. The others all blew up as part of the landing process, either because turning off the engines for a while caused a small fuel leak to build up until the vapor became a hazard or because for whatever reason it hit the pad hard. :-)
Remember that SLS and other NASA rockets don't even try to land, so that's not really a fair comparison. If SLS tried to reignite its engines and land for reuse, there's no rea
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The others all blew up as part of the landing process
Fair.
When I said "launch" I didn't mean strictly "the actual ascent phase of the launch", but rather "launch" as its generally used, to mean the mission as is (for SpaceX, that includes landing on tests where they are expected to land)
Remember that SLS and other NASA rockets don't even try to land, so that's not really a fair comparison.
No, it's not fair. I agree. Just as it's not fair to compare them at fucking all, particularly on their operational costs.
Not only are their missions different, who gets to define what "Success" means for both of them are different.
SpaceX is allowed to use disposable rock
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No, it's not fair. I agree. Just as it's not fair to compare them at fucking all, particularly on their operational costs.
Assuming (and this is still a big assumption) that Starship works out and is reliable, even if it ends up being unreliable for reuse, we're still talking about an order of magnitude lower operational costs for Starship, despite having twice as much thrust. I think comparing operational costs is kind of important when it comes to pointing out just how much government inefficiency contributes to this project being overpriced.
When you only have a couple of contractors bidding on a project, you're going to end
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Why are we measuring years? That's a bizarre measure for this.
Years and dollars tend to be closely related. Every year that the design process drags on, the costs go up. In the worst case, you can spend an unlimited number of dollars developing something if you never ship it.
SLS took about 12 years and $23B to get us a successful launch.
On the third (or arguably fifth) try, with two fuel-leak-related launch scrubs. Had they not scrubbed, the two fuel leak scrubs could easily have ended explosively, and not explosively in a "something went wrong, and intentionally blew it up" kind of way, but rather more in an unexpected sudden
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On the third (or arguably fifth) try, with two fuel-leak-related launch scrubs. Had they not scrubbed, the two fuel leak scrubs could easily have ended explosively, and not explosively in a "something went wrong, and intentionally blew it up" kind of way, but rather more in an unexpected sudden rapid disintegration kind of way a la the Challenger disaster, much like some of the early SpaceX Starship tests.
Gonna stop this wall of bullshit right here.
You mean much like the test that just fucking happened... or are we not including rockets that would have fallen to the ground uncontrolled, and exploded then, had they not been detonated in the air?
We certainly aren't going to have a meaningful discussion about the differences between NASA and SpaceX if you don't even exist in the same reality as the rest of us.
Remember when I said:
So, Starship: half the time, half the money, 6 gargantuan fireballs.
SLS: twice the time, twice the money, 0 gargantuan fireballs.
That's the difference here. Period. Fireballs.
Yup.
A scrubbed launch to avoid a big fucking fireball is called a failure f
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On the third (or arguably fifth) try, with two fuel-leak-related launch scrubs. Had they not scrubbed, the two fuel leak scrubs could easily have ended explosively, and not explosively in a "something went wrong, and intentionally blew it up" kind of way, but rather more in an unexpected sudden rapid disintegration kind of way a la the Challenger disaster, much like some of the early SpaceX Starship tests.
Gonna stop this wall of bullshit right here.
You mean much like the test that just fucking happened... or are we not including rockets that would have fallen to the ground uncontrolled, and exploded then, had they not been detonated in the air?
No, not remotely. A controlled detonation because the hydraulic stage separation systems were damaged is quite different from a sudden fireball where you have no idea what went wrong or why.
Both the NASA approach and the SpaceX approach would tell you if a fuel leak happened. The SpaceX approach also tells you whether such a leak actually mattered in practice or not (albeit at a cost in terms of wasted hardware, e.g. in the case of that one booster that blew up on landing because of a leak that only becam
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Starship took 3.5 years to first launch, and is promised to eventually get people to space for $10 million per launch.
FTFY. While SpaceX has a good track record on launch costs, it's a little early to count the Starship chickens.
Any per launch cost estimate runs afoul of the Accountant's Koan: when are fixed costs variable and variable costs fixed? The answer is when they're *unit* costs. In other words the amount of fixed costs you need to amortize against each launch goes up if you have fewer launches than expected. That's one reason (there were others like requirements inflation) that the Space Shuttle never achi
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It's easy to criticize Jeffrey Dahmer for being a cannibal. That doesn't make it *wrong*.
The SLS architecture was intended to eliminate program risks by re-using proven designs, even refurbishing old hardware. If this were a radical new clean-sheet design, cost and schedule overruns would be a regretable but unavoidable. But with a design which is chosen to be low risk, cost overruns and missed milestones are a failure to meet some of the program's key goals.
SLS is a low-risk program that is performing fi
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Apollo was built on nearly entirely cost-plus contracting.
I appreciate that you agree with the current Florida Man heading NASA, but it doesn't make your hypothesis correct.
Nor does my demonstration that its historicity is non-existent prove that it's wrong, though.
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> The SLS architecture was intended to eliminate program risks
Let's be honest here- it wasn't intended to eliminate program risks- it was intended as a jobs program to keep existing NASA contractors and their jobs in various congressional districts.
Re:Competition (Score:5, Informative)
What kind of silly take is this?
SLS is basically just a bunch of repurposed space shuttle parts. The center core is essentially the STS fuel tank that's been extended. The SRBs are STS SRBs with an extra segment. The engines are literally SSMEs- not similar engines- the first bunch are literally engines that flew on the space shuttle and were refurbished. SpaceX, meanwhile, started their design from scratch, including the engines.
Despite this, SLS has cost $23 billion so far: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/332275-nasa-auditor-reveals-unsustainable-cost-for-sls-launches
And if you include the failed Ares predecessor, that cost balloons to $50 billion: https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/by-the-numbers-the-space-launch-system-nasas-next-moon-rocket/
SLS has been in development since 2011 and is far behind schedule and if you factor in the Ares development, that's almost another decade of development time.
Starship, meanwhile, began development in 2019. Give Starship the extra 8 years SLS has had and it will be flying and landing regularly, let alone the 15+ years if you include the Ares/STS design work.
SLS is not reusable and won't attempt landings, Starship is meant to be fully reusable.
Starship will have almost twice the thrust of SLS.
But most importantly, they have two very different development methodologies. NASA tries to get everything right the first time, and SpaceX focuses on iterative development. SpaceX has no problem with failing- as long as they fail fast so they can learn and iterate.
So let's stop pretending like SLS is anything but the absurdly expensive boondoggle it is.
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SLS is basically just a bunch of repurposed space shuttle parts. The center core is essentially the STS fuel tank that's been extended. The SRBs are STS SRBs with an extra segment. The engines are literally SSMEs- not similar engines- the first bunch are literally engines that flew on the space shuttle and were refurbished. SpaceX, meanwhile, started their design from scratch, including the engines.
None of these things are wrong.
However, you're making the same mistake. You're trying to make something an Apples to Apples comparison that simply is not.
But for the sake of humoring it, I'll bite.
SLS repurposed exactly 4 space shuttle parts.
4.
The fact that the Core stage is similar material and structure as an STS external fuel tank isn't relevant in the slightest.
The fact that old tech was used to build a new machine is kind of precisely my point here.
NASA was building something with known speci
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> However, you're making the same mistake. You're trying to make something an Apples to Apples comparison that simply is not.
Actually I'm not trying to compare them- I'm pointing out how stupid it was to compare them because they're so unbelievably different- from mission goals, to thrust, to development methodologies.
> SLS repurposed exactly 4 space shuttle parts.
They repurposed 4 major assemblies, not 4 parts. And the SRBs and the SSMEs are unbelievably complex assemblies that took years and years
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They repurposed 4 major assemblies, not 4 parts. And the SRBs and the SSMEs are unbelievably complex assemblies that took years and years to develop and refine.
They re-used exactly 4 parts. The motors. ;)
I know the SRBs look similar to you, but I assure you, not one of them came from an STS mission
Of course it's relevant. The structure, insulation, materials, and so on had all been researched and that gave them a huge head start.
Oh, for sure. I'm told over in SpaceX, they had to re-discover the Bloomery.
Seriously- I don't know if you're trolling or not but holy shit is that a stupid fucking comment.
No, it's not. It's the exact illustration we're looking for here.
That's what happens when NASA pops one of their rockets. Everything. Stops.
You know what happens when SpaceX pops one? Musk makes a fart meme on Twitter or some shit.
Life goes on, as it should.
You're right, we should include that too.
You're a fucking moron.
I'll say it again- Challenger and Columbia.
Sweet. There
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And the RS-25 used by SLS began development in 1970's so if we're including the engines, that just makes SLS look even worse.
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Raptor started before Starship, and the SL25 is still being developed too- they literally just completed a full duration static test of a new version of it.
Re: Competition (Score:3)
Did you expect something different? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Did you expect something different? (Score:5, Interesting)
We have spent more time and money not making this happen than it took for the original Space Shuttle program to happen.
Now, for Saturn, NASA's budget was something like 4% of then-GDP. A whole lot of money was spent sending men to the Moon. But apparently we have lost knowlege and skill from both programs. This is part of the reason that the US keeps building things like aircraft carriers, because if we ever stop building them, it will be much, much more difficult to start building them again as we lose the passing-down of institutional knowledge.
Frankly NASA should have started work on using the Shuttle parts-bin for alternate launch vehicles as soon as the Shuttle demonstrated that it could fly. By waiting, and then waiting for the Shuttle program to end, the staff all got old and retired, and that institutional knowledge was just lost. We have drawings and designs, but we many not have the knowledge of why they didn't use other designs, what they thought about and ruled-out, because what's ruled-out may not be committed to paper.
That's why we're struggling now, because we keep thinking in terms of massive projects that run entirely discretely, rather than projects that keep iterating during the prior project.
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The fallacy of experience. Experience dies with those who have the experience. The shuttle program was suspended so long ago that no one with experience remains, and because it was suspended, the experience was not passed down to ensuing generations.
Re: Did you expect something different? (Score:3)
NASA's true mission remains spreading tax dollars to as many Congressional districts as possible while subsidizing defense contractors. Nothing new here.
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Better than launching it to in the air (Score:2)
And yes we do waste a bit of money on these kind of programs. That's on purpose. If you cleaned up all that government "waste" multiple State economies would collapse. This is how we do socialism in America because just guaranteeing things like food, shelter, healthcare and education is too much for us. So we come up with incredibly complex Rube Goldberg machines to accomplish the same task only much worse and with a lo
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You seem to think that bureaucracy is merely a government thing.
I can assure you that bureaucracy exists in the corporate world too, and it can perpetuate for a long time if the company doesn't spend the alternate budget to continually self-examine to weed it out.
It's dead (Score:5, Funny)
Musk will have an hotel and a gas station going on the moon before these bozos get their act together.
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Musk having a gas station is a bit ironic.
Anyways, who do you think will order the hotel and gas station? There is no money to be made doing that, there is however scientific value in getting a presence on the moon. And the ones who will finance that will be, of course, NASA (and other space agencies). NASA will also pay for the launch, most likely at a premium.
NASA is aware of its shortcomings, that's why they are supporting SpaceX. In fact, if it wasn't for NASA, SpaceX would have been bankrupt before Fal
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"Musk having a gas station is a bit ironic."
It's for Leisure Suit Larry, it has the chicken game.
"Anyways, who do you think will order the hotel and gas station? There is no money to be made doing that, "
People pay 50 million to get 300km up, for 380.000km, it will bring WAY more.
Irony (Score:2)
Musk having a gas station is a bit ironic.
What is 100x more ironic than that is Musk endorsing and support DeSantis.
Beyond ironic, painful for those of us who expect better of him.
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What is 100x more ironic than that is Musk endorsing and support DeSantis.
Why? Elon is a hero to guys like him, and vice versa.
Beyond ironic, painful for those of us who expect better of him.
I figured him out at "pedo guy", which I admit was kind of late, but you still haven't? Get with the program, feller.
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I figured him out at "pedo guy", which I admit was kind of late, but you still haven't? Get with the program, feller.
That particular utterance was only one of many that can be considered, to put it most charitably, "unfortunate." I have for much longer time than that been writing that Musk is is own worst enemy when it comes to PR.
But when you are a CEO that has turned in ROI results to the degree he has you get a lot of latitude for personal foibles.
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Prosperity theology is not a sustainable substitute for integrity.
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I don't believe Musk has said he supports DeSantis for president, although last year he said he would if DeSantis runs.
Basically what Musk has done is given DeSantis a platform where he will not be censored, for example the way ABC censored RFK, jr. I'm pretty sure Musk would welcome Biden coming on the same way.
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It's one thing to offer a candidate a platform and another to appear next to said candidate on the platform. It's doing anything and everything to endorse besides just saying it.
I'm sure Musk will say he would host Biden the same but his actions and the people he engages and surrounds himself with will make that offer seem very bad faith and disingenuous if not like an outright trap.
Musks veneer of neutrality was stopped off a while ago and frankly I prefer him to just be honest with his beliefs. Don't pr
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HUMANS going to the moon is not worth the money for its scientific value, ditto for other planets. It's all about propaganda and fun. Rather expensive fun.
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You probably underestimate the value of having humans on the Moon and other planets. The unmanned Mars rovers are really nice, but they are nowhere as capable as what a manned equivalent would be. The manned Moon rover was literally 100x faster, on the first mission, astronauts came back with 20 kg of sample, and much more later on, Perseverance sample tubes total less than a kg, and they just sit there waiting to be picked up. Of course Mars is much harder than the Moon, but it show how much more a manned
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Gas station? Don't you mean EV recharger? Also, isn't Musk a clown too? :P
Unenthusiastic (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Unenthusiastic (Score:3)
Yeah a 6 trillion dollar annual spend and 32 trillion in debt just screams austerity.
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Austerity isn't just a matter of dollars-in/dollars-out but what we do with those dollars. Even today we see things like SNAP getting cut back but guaranteed increases for the military and people negotiating to reduce the size of the IRS which is a measure that actually increases the debt. It's maddness.
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but I fear that in this neoliberal era of endless austerity measures,
That's hilarious but, I think you might have been serious. Let me laugh harder! ...it's not liberals who are pushing "austerity measures", which is the approved politically-correct conservative phrase for "giving government riches to the rich people who so desperately need the charity".
Don't say "woke"! Stay asleep, little sheep.
So, who is surprised? (Score:2)
Anyone here surprised?
LOL
Worst of both worlds (Score:5, Insightful)
In this instance NASA is forced into the worst of both worlds, they’re forced to outsource to large companies with a history of fleecing them and their management are too timid to do it accept failure themselves. This outsourced gouging is done with the support of the political class. Government can actually do this internally, or at the very least outsource smaller lower risk chunks to industry on fixed price contracts and do integration the,selves. However they’re actually encouraged to bundle the whole lot and go through big players in spite of the poor track record. An analysis of Government projects internationally found that larger contracts were more likely to fail than smaller contracts but also contracts with larger entities were more likely to fail than smaller ones. Large companies don’t care if one of their many projects fail but smaller companies need to make that big project work no matter what.
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Forced to outsource without any apparent penalties or enforcement for missed deadlines.
I mean, the reason why SpaceX is ahead here is because every failed launch is an existential threat. It's not because the government is inherently bad at managing projects or whatever, it's because they literally can't fail. They'll also never run out of money. Despite posturing on budgetary concerns, no Republican is gonna turn off the money taps when it comes to contracts that fund military companies.
The government can'
This is why NASA is a good investment (Score:2)
Senate Launch System (Score:5, Informative)
A teeny conspiracy theory (Score:2)
I was recently watching HBO's series "From the Earth to the Moon", which is great, btw, and I remember in the first episode one of the top administrators saying "If we had gotten Shepard up before Gagarin it would be over. We wouldn't be talking about going to the moon for another 20 years." Well, what if that delay was intentional in order to keep America motivated? Right now, there's very little motivation for NASA to get the lead out. They can just keep moving at a snail's pace and keep people employ
Senate Launch System (Score:4, Insightful)
Since the projects goal was to steer money to specific districts and contractors, a lot of cost overruns and delays would seem to be an expected feature of the system, not a bug. The intent of this specific project was never really to put anything on the moon, and in fact it actually working and doing so would be ultimately self-defeating.
Competition? Competition for what? (Score:2)
According to space.com, the cost for an Artemis/SLS launch is estimated to be about $4B. One launch. No reusable parts.
A SpaceX Starship cost target is $1M (that is M not B) per launch. Almost all reused. As per the same space.com article. Those numbers are corroborated elsewhere.
So a 4,000 to 1 cost comparison ratio. Even if you stipulate that Musk is off in his estimates by 100x that is still a 400 to 1 cost advantage.
Who the hell calls THAT "competition?"
It isn't.
What the "competing
Re: (Score:2)
you might have had a point but the engineers at SpaceX are such hyperfocused autists they didn't consider proper flame trenches and water deluge system for Starship, and so damaged their craft and endangered a town with chunks of concrete raining out of the sky.
In short, they're like kids with a high school science project that burned themselves and set the home on fire.
Maybe they can't make a serious lanuch system, maybe their toys remain toys.
Re: (Score:2)
Each starshp launch will cost more than $100M for foreseeable future anyway, even if they succeed in something that gets to orbit without doing the Sodom and Gomorrah thing, your investor / marketing hype number is utter BS
Re: Competition? Competition for what? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they can't make a serious lanuch system, maybe their toys remain toys.
They have had over 35 successful Falcon 9/Heavy launches so far this year -- basically one a week. All perfect. On track to do upwards of 100 launches in 2023.
Perhaps you can share with us what you think a "serious" launch system looks like.
Re: (Score:2)
You ask too easy a question.
The booster of Starship, the Super Heavy, is as tall as an entire Falcon Heavy.
That was the first test "flight" of Starship.
For a serious water deluge and fire trench system look no further than what NASA uses for manned flight. SpaceX has no excuse to have ignored over half a century of such tech.
FAA is now all over SpaceX like stink on shit for their shoddy tunnel vision causing disaster and endangering human life and town. If SpaceX fucks up utterly once again the company is
Re: (Score:2)
Easy to make a $100 million manned heavy launch shaped thing that is only good as firework or WMD. Oh look, it's cheaper than the traditional system that doesn't do loop de loops 20 miles up after half destroying itself on the ground!
You misunderstand (Score:2)
SpaceX is operating with an entirely different methodology: Move fast and break things.
They were not a gaggle of idiots who had no idea they needed a better scheme for handling the rocket plume of the Super Heavy; they had plans in place to upgrade the launch mount after the first launch. It was a gamble to launch the first time without the upgrades to the pad, but it was also an opportunity to learn. The fact that other rocket builders presumed a need for flame trenches and built and used them is proof the
Lost In Space (Score:2)
NASA has a long history of disorganization and money mismanagement. There was even a book about it called the title of this post.
SLS will never FAIL (Score:2)
It’ll just collapse the USA, USD and NASA.
olde saying - “ What would a Farmer do if you gave him a million dollars?”
“ He’d Farm until it was all gone”
Shut it down (Score:2)
Re: Shut it down (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're right, Starshup hasn't got that far, but then again, Starship hasn't been that long in development yet, and still at a fraction of what that first testflight of SLS has cost alone. But then again even the last test version of Starship could already carry a much larger cargo as the SLS ever can. And one of the reasons why it takes so long (but then agian, still a fraction of time compared to SLS development) with Starship is because they weren't allowed to do testflight because of surveys of their fli
Re: (Score:2)
SLS is working as designed: Funnel tax payer money to corporate interests.
The fact that NASA will get something that works in return in merely a possibility.
Reduce cost and shorten schedules? (Score:2)
The use of heritage RS-25 engines and boosters from the space shuttle and Constellation programs for the new SLS rocket was intended to bring significant cost and schedule savings over developing new systems.
That may be NASA's goals, but pretty sure their contractors would favor the opposite for profits and job security -- so, duh, it's going to cost more and take longer. /cynical
SLS had its place. (Score:2)
It grossly overpaid for SLS to do that.
SNAFU.
But the second Starship gets to orbit, there is no need for SLS.
NASA must prepare for that. NOW.