Today’s selection of space policy/politics related links:
- The Space Review:
- Letter | Bolden Right To Fight Pork-driven Policy – SpaceNews.com
- Int. space issues:
- Editorial | U.K. Proposal To End Satellite Insurance Tax is Right Thing To Do – SpaceNews.com
[ Update:
- U.S. Suspends Defense, Satellite Exports To Russia – Aviation Week
- RD – 180 The Russian Backbone of the US Space Program – ASP
- Cold war in space? What NASA’s Russia boycott means – New Scientist
- Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Powers Up in Cook Haven and in Fans’ Minds | The Planetary Society – mostly about Opportunity rover science but also a discussion of funding for the project to allow it to continue.
- Library: A Round-up of Reading | Res Communis
Update 2:
- Mikulski: President’s NASA Budget Request Just “Advisory,” Will Work to Get More – SpacePolicyOnline
- NASA missions bid for extensions: Scientists must show projects’ potential to secure funding. – Nature
]
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I recently came across this interesting 1985 article describing a discussion of Shuttle launch costs during a Congressional hearing: L5 News: Shuttle Pricing and Space Development.
Commercial launch was in its infancy at the time and the new industry had to deal with the fact that NASA wanted the Space Shuttle to provide launch services for commercial satellites. The commercial guys did not have the clout to stop this government competition (after the Challenger disaster, commercial satellite launch was taken away from NASA) but they pushed for NASA to at least charge enough to cover the cost of a Shuttle mission.
In 1985 and in 2014, NASA implements a favored government agency technique when asked for the cost of its services: obfuscation. The most basic, straight-forward estimate of the cost of a launch is simply the annual cost of the launch program divided by the number of launches annually, plus some increment from an estimate of the amortization of the development costs. NASA always rejects this basic accounting method and insists that launch cost requires very complicated calculations by teams of accountants and analysts who must determine what internal services, materials, etc are included. What eventually emerges from the agency is their famously fantastical marginal cost numbers that ignore program and development costs and instead only include estimates of materials, fuels, services, etc consumed during a launch.
As Rick Boozer notes in today’s Space Review article, NASA is giving an absurd $500M marginal cost number for a SLS launch. The SLS program will cost tens of billions in development and require an annual cost in the $3B +range. NASA will be lucky to average one SLS flight per year. So even if development costs are ignored, an SLS flight will cost $3B+.
Congressional hearings on NASA are always dominated by Congresspersons representing states and districts with NASA centers. Thus, today as in 1985, actual launch costs are ignored and NASA’s marginal cost fantasies are still treated seriously. Unfortunately, they are seldom called on this by the press or the space policy establishment.
The total money spent on the Space Shuttle program was $209 B (in 2010 dollars) and thus the average cost of the 134 flights was $1.6B. NASA, of course, still claims a Shuttle flight cost below $500M.
(It’s not just NASA that obfuscates to its advantage. The GAO recently gave up trying to determine what an EELV launch costs the US Air Force. )
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Here’s a video of a recent panel discussion event at the Marshall Institute in Washington D.C. with the theme : Moon’s Challenges and Opportunities for Human Space Exploration –
On Tuesday March 25, 2014, the Marshall Institute and the Space Enterprise Council brought together a panel of experts to discuss the pressing scientific, technological and economic issues involved in human settlement on the Moon.
The panel speakers are:
* Dr. Paul D. Spudis, Planetary Geology and Remote Sensing, Lunar and Planetary Institute.
* Mike Gold, Director of D.C. Operations & Business Growth, Bigelow Aerospace, LLC
* Dr. Haym Benaroya, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers University
Additional details at http://marshall.org/events/human-settlement-in-space-the-moons-challenges-and-opportunities/