That letter is remarkable in how little of the original article it actually addresses.QuoteNASA has not yet completed the work of estimating the costs of the mission and is not facing funding difficulties, let alone a crisis.Nothing in the article suggested that WFIRST was currently short of funds.
NASA has not yet completed the work of estimating the costs of the mission and is not facing funding difficulties, let alone a crisis.
implying that a review to make sure cost and scope are in alignment is not a standard part of early project development. Every engineering project needs to balance cost, schedule, and scope.
Quote from: Lee Jay on 01/10/2017 01:16 pmThis is a fundamental problem with our funding approach - if you price something at what it's going to cost, it'll never get funded. If you price it to get funded, you're going to get criticized - or cut - when it ends up costing what it actually costs.Except your phrasing assumes that it is easy to know what something is going to cost. It's not. These are estimates based upon a lot of unknowns, with a lot of assumptions and large error bars.Disavow yourself of the belief that everybody is lying and deceitful and just trying to get something approved so that they can blow the budget later. I realize that's the stereotype, but the real world is not so clear-cut. This is a complicated and iterative process, meaning that they estimate, they proceed, then they estimate again. There are ways to improve the accuracy of that process, but it's not possible to create an entirely accurate estimate of costs for many of these things. (Oh, and it is the same way in business too, they just don't air their dirty laundry.)Also, cost is an important factor, but it is not the only factor, nor is it necessarily the most important factor. That's true in everyday life too. If it wasn't, then everybody would drive only inexpensive cars.
This is a fundamental problem with our funding approach - if you price something at what it's going to cost, it'll never get funded. If you price it to get funded, you're going to get criticized - or cut - when it ends up costing what it actually costs.
I don't think the title of the article counts as "little." That sentence you quoted refers directly to the title of the article.
The new study will help NASA evaluate how to preserve as much of WFIRST’s scientific capability as possible while remaining within budget, says John Gagosian, the mission’s programme executive at NASA headquarters in Washington DC. But he sees no reasonable scenario “in which the current mission scope and requirements (including the coronagraph) can be implemented for $3.2 billion or less”.
Last August, a review of NASA’s progress towards its 2010 decadal priorities singled out WFIRST as at risk of ballooning costs.
This review was recommended by the National Academies in 2014 and again in 2016, and is not motivated by the mission's current status.
Quote from: meberbs on 08/09/2017 06:52 pmI don't think the title of the article counts as "little." That sentence you quoted refers directly to the title of the article.It refers to a misinterpretation of the title which should be very obvious to anyone who read the article.
In other words, there's significant reason to believe NASA can't do all the things it wants to do with the amount of money it wants to spend. It should be clear this is the "cost crisis" identified in the title. Losing the coronagraph for example would be a major setback.
You can argue the headline is sensationalized, but it's very clearly referring to the apparent trajectory of the programs cost and requirements, not some current overrun.To rebut this, Zurbuchen statesQuoteNASA has not yet completed the work of estimating the costs of the mission and is not facing funding difficulties, let alone a crisis.Technically true, but the crisis rebutted bears no resemblance to the one described. Worse, it implies the author made an egregious factual error (a cost overrun on a program that hasn't even been funded!) that they did not.
From the article:QuoteLast August, a review of NASA’s progress towards its 2010 decadal priorities singled out WFIRST as at risk of ballooning costs.(my bold again)And from ZurbuchenQuoteThis review was recommended by the National Academies in 2014 and again in 2016, and is not motivated by the mission's current status.No doubt technically true, but clearly avoiding the fact that WFIRST was singled out for concern by the last review, and subject to concern by others involved.
It is beyond sensationalized, and is flat out wrong. The use of the would crisis in any sense except "no crisis" is wrong. Specifically referring to a cost crisis when the cost estimation hasn't even been completed doesn't even make sense, and you are now talking about the "apparent trajectory" of a program that is still too early to do any reasonable estimate of its overall performance.
Tangentially related to this, the Nature News article also repeats the story of JWST cost growing from $1 billion to current $8.8 billion, but that's not really a fair comparison. That $1 billion was not a real cost estimate, just some sort of notional 'cost wish' and when JWST was approved, it was clear that the price tag was going to be much higher. Sure, even after that JWST has gone through huge cost growth (IIRC the cost estimate before moving to phase C was close to $4 billion), but it's not quite as ridiculous as some stories make it sound.
I have no idea how or why you are jumping to the "lose the coronagraph" scenario.
Also the coronagraph was an addition, not part of the original mission proposal, so calling losing a bonus feature (however useful) a "major setback" doesn't make sense.
At NASA’s direction, the 2015 SDT report adopted the coronagraph as a (descopable) part of the baseline WFIRST-AFTA mission, rather than an optional addition, and adopted a 6-year prime mission lifetime.
It was "singled out" for being a large program.
Quote from: meberbs on 08/10/2017 02:43 pmI have no idea how or why you are jumping to the "lose the coronagraph" scenario.Based on a direct quote from the NASA program executive which suggests that is a likely outcome. Notably, Zurbuchen's rebuttal didn't dispute that statement, or indeed address it at all.
QuoteIt was "singled out" for being a large program.The review was recommended specifically in response to how WFIRST has evolved into a much higher risk concept than the one in the decadal, not for being large.
No, the quote only says that he expects the cost with coronograph to exceed $3.2 billion, jumping to "lose the coronograph" is entirely on you.
Also, you have not addressed my main point and the apparent main point of the response to the article: claiming there is a "cost crisis" is simply wrong.
NASA team passes major technological milestone for characterizing exoplanets
Working in concert with the coronagraph, an integral field spectrograph, or IFS, such as PISCES, would be able to separate the exoplanet’s light by its wavelength and record the data, revealing details about the planet’s physical properties, including the chemical composition and structure of its atmosphere.
“We are not done yet and are still trying to get to higher contrasts, but the 100 million-to-one over 18 percent of the optical wavelength band is an important and significant milestone,” said Maxime Rizzo, a postdoctoral student who is working with McElwain and his team to advance PISCES. “With the increased bandpass, we can get many colors at once. This enables us to identify more molecules in the atmospheres and get a big picture.”
We present a community-led assessment of the capabilities of NASA's Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) for Solar System science. WFIRST will provide imaging and spectroscopic capabilities from 0.6-2.0 μm and will be a potential contemporary and eventual successor to JWST. Observations of asteroids, the giant planets and their satellites, Kuiper Belt Objects, and comets will be possible through both the Guest Investigator (GI) and Guest Observer (GO) programs. Surveys of minor bodies and time domain studies of variable surfaces and atmospheres are uniquely well-suited for WFIRST with its 0.28 deg2 field of view. Previous use of astrophysics assets for Solar System science and synergies between WFIRST, LSST, and JWST are discussed. We also provide a list of proposed minor modifications to the mission, including non-sidereal tracking of 30 mas/s and a K-band filter (∼2.0-2.4 μm).
So the latest cost estimate is $3.6 billion, while target is $3.2 billion. The plan is still to include the coronagraph in the design, but apparently it will be treated as a technology demonstrator instrument (not sure what this means in practice, maybe less testing?) and it will be descoped in some way. There are also some less specific possible cost savings identified.
* Reductions shall be taken in the widefield instrument.* The cost of science investigations shall be reduced.
I am directing the Goddard Space Flight Center to study modifying the current WFIRST design, the design that was reviewed by the WIETR, to reduce cost and complexity sufficient to have a cost estimate consistent with the $3.2B cost target set at the beginning of Phase A....If the result of this study is the conclusion that WFIRST cannot be developed using the current 2.4m telescope architecture within the $3.2B cost target, I will direct a follow-on study of a WFIRST mission consistent with the architecture described by the Decadal Survey.
Who knew a "free" telescope could be so expensive