Why $104 billion?

[wvbraun]

I don't understand this cost estimate for the VSE. Development of the CEV and the CEV launcher taken together is estimated to cost $10 billion. The HLV will cost another $10 billion to develop (NASA's estimate is $5-10 billion). So development of the EDS, the lunar lander and other equipment plus operating costs are expected to amount to more than $80 billion? <br /><br />Also, I find it curious that Griffin testified before congress (before he became NASA administrator) that a return to the moon using the FLO architecture could be done for about $40 billion total...<br />Am I missing something?

 

[shuttle_rtf]

Of course, as you'll know, the cost of the VSE is not $104 billion, it's a hell of a lot more. $104 billion gets us up to the point of the first manned sortie mission to the moon.

 

[wvbraun]

Right. But to get there NASA needs to develop the afore mentioned components. It doesn't add up. Maybe vishniac is right and the Shuttle and ISS are to blame (again)....

 

[gofer]

Inflation factored in. $5billion will buy a lot less in 2011.

 

[shuttle_rtf]

I think it's just excuse central for the bashers to blame the STS. I thought it was pretty clear that it's not the case in the VSE presentation.

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>The majority of the 104billion takes the form of Shuttle missions to the ISS. <<br /><br />Prove it. I'm getting really sick of this unfounded comments.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Of course, as you'll know, the cost of the VSE is not $104 billion, it's a hell of a lot more. $104 billion gets us up to the point of the first manned sortie mission to the moon.</font>/i><br /><br />It is the "first can of soup" issue. To get the first can of soup produced at a new factory will require tens of millions of dollars -- the land has to be purchased, the factory designed and built, the people trained, the initial batch of raw material purchased. Subsequent cans of soup are considerably cheaper.<br /><br />The first sortie beyond LEO is going to be expensive, but subsequent ones will be considerably cheaper.</i>

 

[shoogerbrugge]

Im always a bit scared when NASA says something is going to cost a specific amount of money, even when measured in billions.<br /><br />Last time I checked the long term financial forcasting of NASA has been of the mark by a mere 25%. (how much were those shuttle flights going to cost, predicted say 10 years before the first flight actually happened?)<br /><br /><br />But off course its almost impossible to predict how much something is going to cost, why try. They could have suffice to say that its going to cost a helluve lot more then originally planned. All senators are fine with that, because its going to be spent in their states anyway<br /><br /><br />Big government is back, and featured by the republicans, lovely

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Of course, as you'll know, the cost of the VSE is not $104 billion, it's a hell of a lot more.</font>/i><br /><br />The VSE is open-ended. Its like asking, "How much is science going to cost?" Science is never ending, as is exploration. No matter how much you spend, you are never done.<br /><br />The big change (initially started under O'Keefe) is that NASA isn't asking for a certain amount to achieve a given task (develop STS or build ISS), but it is asking for an annual budget. The $104 billion is therefore more a measure of time to achieve a given milestone.<br /><br />In 10-12 years from now Griffin will deliver to the American people the ability to move humans and a given amount of mass beyond LEO. At that time there will be a different President, different Congress, different conflicts, different natural disasters, different fiscal issues, different knowledge about the Moon, NEOs, and Mars. The decision about what to do with this new capability for the next 10-12 years after that will belong to the people of that time (which hopefully will still include may of us).</i>

 

[josh_simonson]

'Development costs' probably don't include operating and production costs once the components are developed.

 

[nacnud]

Perhaps this might help in working out where the $104B came from.

 

[wvbraun]

I read that this chart (which was leaked to nasawatch) was produced very early in the process. These are not the numbers NASA is using now. <br /><br />Griffin decided to launch the ISS commercial crew/cargo services porgram when it became clear that business as usual would be too expensive (see the chart).

 

[nacnud]

I didn't know that, in which case I have no idea.

 

[frodo1008]

What you are going to get here are the usual shuttle and ISS bashers. They are going to predictably enough blame the shuttle and ISS for these costs.<br /><br /> The truth is that the number of future flights to the ISS by the shuttle is going to be less than twenty flights. So if each flight amounts to some $1 billion each (a relatively high amount) that would make the total some $20 billion. <br /><br />As to the rest of the support for the ISS it comes out to less than $500 millon per year. Yes, the greatest amount of money to be spent on the ISS is indeed in the transport costs of the shuttle, but there is currently no other way to get the rest of the already completed components of the ISS up to the ISS.<br /><br /> As the flights to the ISS of the shuttle will end by the end of 2010 (and this $104 is funding through 2018) this would mean that even if Mike Griffin has already included the entire costs of the shuttle and ISS in this budget it would only come to about $26 billion of the $104 billion. Now how is $26 billion the greatest share of $104 billion, now you tell me, I would like to know! <br /><br />I have also heard from other sourses that the $104 billion dollar figure that Griffin has put forth dose NOT include any of the costs for finishing the ISS. This makes some degree of common sense, as the costs to the US for its remaining support for the ISS after 2010 will be less than $1 billion per year ( I have heard the figure of $500 million per year). Even if we take the higher amount of some $1 billion per year, this comes to an additional $8 billion from 2010 to 2018 for ISS support. And as the shuttle itself will have been retired by the end of 2010 ALL the rest of the NASA manned space budget for some 8 years will be free to spend on this project. Now as the beginning years of any such project are usually the cheapest years (large quantitys of material are not yet needed), this also makes sense. So basically (except in some minds) very little of

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Im always a bit scared when NASA says something is going to cost a specific amount of money, even when measured in billions.</font>/i><br /><br />The primary difference between this plan and past plans, including STS, NASP, and X-33/VS, is that this one is based on mostly mature technology, and even for the new technology (e.g., methane/LOX engines) there are fallback plans to known technologies.<br /><br />With far fewer unknown variables, this estimate will probably be much more accurate.</i>

 

[wvbraun]

The cost estimate for Apollo was pretty accurate. I have read though that Jim Webb simply doubled the official estimate right before presenting the numbers to the politicians because he had a gut feeling...Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">The truth is that the number of future flights to the ISS by the shuttle is going to be less than twenty flights. So if each flight amounts to some $1 billion each (a relatively high amount) that would make the total some $20 billion.</font>/i><br /><br />The numbers have not been broken out as far as I know, so we are basically guessing. The following are my guesses based on a number of numbers and facts provided by Griffin.<br /><br />In 2004 NASA was planning on devoting $60 billion to completing and operating ISS through 2016 ($28 billion in shuttle operations + $32 billion for ISS). That would be approximately 60% of the projected ESAS budget.<br /><br />Historically, I don't think there is a strong correlation between number of flights and the shuttle budget. Whether NASA flies 0, 1, or 6 flights per year, the budget has been pretty steady at about $3.5-4 billion. The reduced number of flights seem to be more of a realization of the expected flight rate post Columbia and not an effort to save money.<br /><br />During the Q&A for ESAS someone asked if attrition could be used to reduce the headcount for the shuttle program. Here is Griffin's response:<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>... there will be attrition. But if we're going to continue to fly the shuttle safely, some of that attrition--I'm tempted to say most of it will have to be made up for with newer, younger people, because you know, we're not padding the shuttle program today with excess people who can just be allowed to go away and continue to fly the shuttle as if nothing happened.<br /><br />We need the shuttle workforce that we have.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />There doesn't seem to be much of a plan to seriously reduce the shuttle workforce, and therefore its costs. Even if ISS support was cut by 1/3 (not sure how that would be done), the STS/ISS still represent approximately 45-50% of the budget.</i>

 

[shuttle_man]

" The majority of the 104billion takes the form of Shuttle missions to the ISS. "<br /><br />Wrong again you very foolish young lad.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">So, here's the link we'll use:</font>/i><br /><br /> /> <i><font color="yellow">http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/nasa.html</font>/i><br /><br />Say what you will about Orrery, but he does Google well. I paarticularly like the ISS treaty he dug up the other day.<br /><br />FYI: Here is another potentially useful link (it was done during the O'Keefe era, so the numbers may have changed)<br />http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/<br /><br />It shows projected budget for the existing manned system (ISS, Shuttle, support) through FY 2010 at $29.7 billion. By the way, the O'Keefe "sand chart" showed ISS funding at about $3 billion per year FY 2011-2016, for a run of about $18 billion.<br /><br />So the budget NASA has provided from FY 2006-2016 for ISS is about $48 billion. This jives well with Griffin's earlier estimates given about 2 years before ($60 billion at that point).</i></i>

 

[tmccort]

<br /><font color="yellow">Wrong again you very foolish young lad.</font><br /><br />Shuttle_Man sure is fond of calling people fools yet failing to contribute anything to the actual conversation.

 

[shuttle_rtf]

I think Shuttle Man finds it hard to contribute to a subject matter that has BS involved.<br /><br /> />The majority of the 104billion takes the form of Shuttle missions to the ISS.<<br /><br />Is simply not true, period.<br /><br />It really is turning into the Iraq War threads on Free Space on M&S. It wasn't like this a six months ago.<br /><br />It's a real shame to see some of the replies to an Ex-Apollo and current USA engineer on some threads.

 

[frodo1008]

You have just made my point here. After 2010 (and yes, I would have to agree with the shuttle negativists that if the shuttle does not fly anymore than it has in recent times another way will have to be found to launch what we have already built for the ISS up to the ISS) there will be no more shuttle flights. This should result in all the rest of the funding for manned space going towards the VSE. The only thing that I can see remaining of the shuttle would be those parts which Griffin intends to use towards the VSE. After all, completely reinventing the wheel here would cost even more. But other than this, which from what has been said will be just the propulsion portions of the shuttle, such as the SRB's and possibly the SSME's. This frees up most of the manned budget for the VSE and going on to the moon from 2010 until at least 2018 (after all, if it takes a couple of years more, so what!).<br /><br />Now, as to the ISS, I will take your figures to be somewhat accurate. So at this time the ISS portion is some $1.8 billion. But remember that if the shuttle can indeed get its act together this ISS budget also includes some of the assembly of those components already on the ground. So if we were just in a pure maintenance mode then it is not unreasonable to drop the $800 million for assembly. So from 2010 on out a sum of some $1.0 billion is all that I can see being spent by NASA on the ISS. At this time as the station itself should be done as far as the assembly from the US is concerned, and the other partners will have their own laboratories on the station, I would think that they will be spending more themselves, and our portion may even drop more.<br /><br />So all of these enormously inflated figures for our participation in the ISS just don't pan out. Now if the shuttle is unable to finish our portion of the station by 2010, then I would still not agree that we have to abandon the station entirely. I would hope that much of the already completed parts

 

[franson_space]

Did you even read the chart Nacud posted? That's figures, not your guesswork.

 

[spayss]

"It is the "first can of soup" issue. To get the first can of soup produced at a new factory will require tens of millions of dollars -- the land has to be purchased, the factory designed and built, the people trained, the initial batch of raw material purchased. Subsequent cans of soup are considerably cheaper"<br /><br /> Not really. Soup might work that way or proven widgets but not new technology. Shuttle flights haven't become 'cheaper' but more expensive. Government agencies, bureaucracies, etc. don't work like the Campbell soup company.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Not really. Soup might work that way or proven widgets but not new technology. Shuttle flights haven't become 'cheaper' but more expensive. </font>/i><br /><br />It took 9 years of development costs before the first shuttle could be launched. I am not certain of the development costs (for discussion, say $45 billion), but in 1972 some could have said, "It will costs $45 billion to launch a single shuttle flight!" That is a true statement; NASA had to spend $45 billion to fly the first mission. But subsequent missions were much less ($500 million - $1 billion).</i>