Author Topic: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters (May 2023)  (Read 19344 times)

Offline joek

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4870
  • Liked: 2783
  • Likes Given: 1097
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #60 on: 06/01/2023 02:24 am »
It's very simple ...
You have it backwards. Senator Shelby, Administrator of the Northern Alabama Space Administration (ret.), made the call. And it has gone exactly to his plan.

Online VSECOTSPE

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1476
  • Liked: 4670
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #61 on: 06/07/2023 08:17 am »
Artemis inherited SLS and Orion.

That doesn’t absolve Artemis or NASA of the program’s lousy mission rate and high transport cost per mission/astronaut.  If I’m dumb enough to drive the farm tractor that I inherited from my grandfather  instead of selling it and taking the subway, I can’t use that as an excuse for being late to work every day with the boss.  Everything else in the program is highly restricted by a tiny mission rate of four crew for a few weeks every 2-3 years and very constrained by the $4.3B and counting cost of getting them there.  Artemis is not worth $8B/yr. and tens of thousands of aerospace careers for that.  There’s literally nothing they can do or that would grow out of their activities that would ever be remotely commensurate with those costs.  It’s a really expensive stunt.

Quote
The rest of Artemis: the Artemis Accords, HLS, the Spacesuits, CLPS, the LTV are all great programs or agreements that can and should survive SLS and Orion.

The Accords, CLPS, and the Starship half of HLS all largely exist independently of the program.  The Artemis budget could disappear tomorrow and those three elements would continue based on rounding in the HQ overhead budget (Accords), what Planetary Science wants/needs (CLPS), and StarLink revenue/SpaceX deep pockets (Starship).

If they’re only going to be used once every 2-3 or 4-6 years, the suits, the second lander, and the LTV aren’t worth it.  Yeah, they’re fixed-price contracts so the government’s downside is limited unlike Orion/SLS.  But that doesn’t mean that the money being spent on them can produce anything commensurate with their costs under such limited usage.  And to be realistic, even these fixed-price contracts don’t open up frontiers without a SpaceX-like organization on the other end.  Antares and Starliner attest to that, and so far there’s no other company with SpaceX’s combination of organizational drive, technical competence, and deep pockets amongst these contractors.  (As much as I wish we were not relying so much on SpaceX.)

The only reason to keep Artemis going in its current form is if the White House wants a grossly expensive hedge against the PRC ever announcing and putting renminbi behind a human lunar landing.  And even if/when that happens, I’m not sure that the White House will care. 

Quote
The Moon to Mars goals and strategies are fine but in the end what really matters are the programs that are associated with these objectives and the programs are good.

There’s no clarity or consensus on what Artemis is supposed to concretely achieve.  NASA has produced dozens of bullets of really bad engineering process speak, but precious few actual goals.  And the few bullets that actually express goals are just generic, self-licking ice cream cones.  No one higher than the Deputy Administrator buys into her WBS, which is what those documents actually are.  There’s certainly no ownership in Congress or the White House.

The program has no drivers, and that actually is important independent of the quality of the programs.  The program is likely facing 7% cuts starting in 2024, and the Deputy Administrator’s documents provide no clarity on where priorities lie and what should go and what should stay.
« Last Edit: 06/07/2023 02:31 pm by VSECOTSPE »

Offline yg1968

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17267
  • Liked: 7123
  • Likes Given: 3065
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #62 on: 06/07/2023 01:08 pm »
Artemis is not worth $8B/yr. and tens of thousands of aerospace careers for that.  There’s literally nothing they can do or that would grow out of their activities that would ever be remotely commensurate with those costs.  It’s a really expensive stunt.

I disagree that it is a stunt and I think that it is worth it even at $8B per year. Having said that there is room for improvement including the rate of missions (having a commercial HLV program in addition to SLS would help in that respect).

Quote
The Accords, CLPS, and the Starship half of HLS all largely exist independently of the program.  The Artemis budget could disappear tomorrow and those three elements would continue based on rounding in the HQ overhead budget (Accords), what Planetary Science wants/needs (CLPS), and StarLink revenue/SpaceX deep pockets (Starship).

If they’re only going to be used once every 2-3 or 4-6 years, the suits, the second lander, and the LTV aren’t worth it.  Yeah, they’re fixed-price contracts so the government’s downside is limited unlike Orion/SLS.  But that doesn’t mean that the money being spent on them can produce anything commensurate with their costs under such limited usage.  And to be realistic, even these fixed-price contracts don’t open up frontiers without a SpaceX-like organization on the other end.  Antares and Starliner attest to that, and so far there’s no with SpaceX’s combination of organizational drive, technical competence, and deep pockets amongst these contractors.  (As much as I wish we were not relying so much on SpaceX.)

Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful. The jury is still out on Starliner; it is supposed to be used for Orbital Reef. Even if Dragon and HLS-Starships are the only ones to be successful at finding non-NASA clients, the commercial crew and HLS programs will have been a huge success.

Quote
The program is likely facing 7% cuts starting in 2024, and the Deputy Administrator’s documents provide no clarity on where priorities lie and what should go and what should stay.

Where do you get your 7% cut? From what I have read discretionary spending will be frozen in FY24 and will get a 1% increase in FY25.

Online VSECOTSPE

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1476
  • Liked: 4670
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #63 on: 06/07/2023 02:29 pm »
I disagree that it is a stunt and I think that it is worth it even at $8B per year.

What will 2-4 Artemis crew on the lunar surface for a couple/few weeks at a time every 2-3 years deliver, create, produce, etc. that is worth $8B/yr?  That’s $16-24B per mission or $4-6B per astronaut.  What can they possibly do that is commensurate with these costs?  These costs per astronaut are on par with the entire annual budgets of the National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, or the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.  To say nothing of the tens of thousands of technical careers tied up doing such negative-return work when we need those folks elsewhere in the economy.

I accept the sunk cost fallacy argument that Artemis inherited Orion/SLS.  But Orion/SLS imposes such ginormous costs and such a low mission rate on Artemis that the program still looks insane just on the numbers going forward.

Quote
Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful.

I’d argue that’s a bad yardstick or goal for Artemis.  Taxpayers shouldn’t spend $8B per year just so SpaceX can sign up another dearMoon or Polaris customer.  Or so that Blue Origin or another company can do the same.  The program has to achieve something more worthwhile than that for those kinds of dollars.

But there’s little sense in making that argument in the first place because it’s already happened without Artemis.  SpaceX has the dearMoon and Polaris customers for Starship.

Quote
Where do you get your 7% cut? From what I have read discretionary spending will be frozen in FY24 and will get a 1% increase in FY25.

Artemis goes up in FY24/25 compared to FY23 in the President’s FY24 Budget Request.  Holding Artemis flat in FY24 and to +1% in FY25 will require nearly $1.1B in reductions from the President’s Request over those two years, a more than 7% cut.

Offline Coastal Ron

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8862
  • I live... along the coast
  • Liked: 10199
  • Likes Given: 11934
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #64 on: 06/07/2023 04:26 pm »
Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful.

So for the RS-25 and booster overruns to be looked at as good investments, and not corporate pork, all we need is for SpaceX to sign up a non-NASA customer? And then all sins are washed away?

And yeah, you may have been WAY off topic and talking about things not related specifically to the SLS cost overruns, but it is all related. Because as long as the SLS is justified as being required for the Artemis program, then massive cost overruns will continue to be ignored.

When do rational people get a voice in all of this? When will Congress do their job and ask NASA to reassess their use of the SLS due to the enormous cost and likelihood of lower cost alternatives?

THAT is the topic being debated here.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline yg1968

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17267
  • Liked: 7123
  • Likes Given: 3065
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #65 on: 06/07/2023 04:40 pm »
Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful.

So for the RS-25 and booster overruns to be looked at as good investments, and not corporate pork, all we need is for SpaceX to sign up a non-NASA customer? And then all sins are washed away?

And yeah, you may have been WAY off topic and talking about things not related specifically to the SLS cost overruns, but it is all related. Because as long as the SLS is justified as being required for the Artemis program, then massive cost overruns will continue to be ignored.

When do rational people get a voice in all of this? When will Congress do their job and ask NASA to reassess their use of the SLS due to the enormous cost and likelihood of lower cost alternatives?

THAT is the topic being debated here.

My comment was in the context of what VSECOTSPE said about Boeing and Antares. It's not the only criteria for success but it is important in the sense that the services should be cheaper if the service provider has non-NASA customers. In any event, Cygnus has all kinds of derivatives including HALO that are useful to NASA, so I wouldn't call it a failure at this point. I don't think that Starliner will be a failure either since I believe that it will be used for Orbital Reef. It's easy to be negative about everything but when someone does that other people will generally ignore them because they will find that this person either lacks objectivity or is pushing an agenda.

Offline Coastal Ron

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8862
  • I live... along the coast
  • Liked: 10199
  • Likes Given: 11934
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #66 on: 06/07/2023 08:15 pm »
Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful.
So for the RS-25 and booster overruns to be looked at as good investments, and not corporate pork, all we need is for SpaceX to sign up a non-NASA customer? And then all sins are washed away?

And yeah, you may have been WAY off topic and talking about things not related specifically to the SLS cost overruns, but it is all related. Because as long as the SLS is justified as being required for the Artemis program, then massive cost overruns will continue to be ignored.

When do rational people get a voice in all of this? When will Congress do their job and ask NASA to reassess their use of the SLS due to the enormous cost and likelihood of lower cost alternatives?

THAT is the topic being debated here.
My comment was in the context of what VSECOTSPE said about Boeing and Antares.

Yes, and the Starliner, Cygnus, and Orbital Reef programs are NOT the topic here, the RS-25 and boosters are. There are other threads for those programs.

Do you have anything to say about the SLS program RS-25 or boosters cost issues the OIG uncovered?
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline yg1968

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17267
  • Liked: 7123
  • Likes Given: 3065
Re: OIG report on SLS RS-25 and boosters
« Reply #67 on: 06/07/2023 09:34 pm »
Only one company has to succeed in finding non-NASA clients for the program to be successful.
So for the RS-25 and booster overruns to be looked at as good investments, and not corporate pork, all we need is for SpaceX to sign up a non-NASA customer? And then all sins are washed away?

And yeah, you may have been WAY off topic and talking about things not related specifically to the SLS cost overruns, but it is all related. Because as long as the SLS is justified as being required for the Artemis program, then massive cost overruns will continue to be ignored.

When do rational people get a voice in all of this? When will Congress do their job and ask NASA to reassess their use of the SLS due to the enormous cost and likelihood of lower cost alternatives?

THAT is the topic being debated here.
My comment was in the context of what VSECOTSPE said about Boeing and Antares.

Yes, and the Starliner, Cygnus, and Orbital Reef programs are NOT the topic here, the RS-25 and boosters are. There are other threads for those programs.

Do you have anything to say about the SLS program RS-25 or boosters cost issues the OIG uncovered?

You and VSECOTSPE brought up the discussion that Artemis as a whole should be cancelled and my point was that there is a lot to like in the Artemis program even if you don't like SLS and Orion. That's how we got into this discussion.

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
0