NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 5

[DanClemmensen]

SLS/Orion has quite a lot to do with Mars. SLS/Orion funding has suppressed a viable NASA Mars program and will continue to do so for at least a decade, providing the Chinese an opportunity to put the first humans on Mars.

Assuming Starship works as planned (after recovering from unplanned hiccups I'm sure), SpaceX will proceed to Mars - without NASA if necessary. For heaven's sake that is the entire reason that SpaceX even exits at all - to go to Mars! He did not design and build Starship for NASA's use - he built it for SpaceX's use! If NASA is ready when he is, he'll invite them to go along for the ride but he's NOT going to wait for them, he's just not going to do that! For the life of me I just can't picture Elon asking NASA for permission to go to Mars, nor waiting for NASA to be ready to become part of the mission. THAT is why he did not even bother seeking NASA funding to develop Starship; he plans to just go ahead and do it! IMO anyone who thinks Elon will wait for NASA before heading to Mars is smoking something illegal.

Yep, that's why I said "viable NASA Mars program". The Chinese will be in competition with Elon/SpaceX, not NASA. I see SpaceX remaining viable in the long term, but its Mars vision is driven by Elon, who is a single mortal. A Mars Exploration contract from NASA could add stability to a SpaceX Mars program, but that won't happen until SLS/Orion dies. (NOTE: this is wildly speculative, so feel free to ignore.)

[Greg Hullender]

I'm having an orbital mechanics problem with this.  Using a Gateway in NRHO or another other cislunar orbit might make sense if you have a pure-SEP system for getting to Mars orbit but, otherwise, why would you tack on an extra 475m/s of delta-v to get into an orbit that would allow you to use a small amount of chemical prop and a large Oberth effect at perigee to get you all the way to a Mars transfer orbit?

I could also see using Gateway if you had a base on the moon generating lots of O₂ (even if not methane). Then your vehicle could refuel there relatively cheaply. After that, it could do a trans-Earth injection, with the plan of doing the main burn at perigee (i.e not landing on Earth!) (I'm not really sure this pencils out--I had trouble finding a source giving delta-v from Gateway back to Earth.)

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
......The Chinese will be in competition with Elon/SpaceX, not NASA. I see SpaceX remaining viable in the long term, but its Mars vision is driven by Elon, who is a single mortal. A Mars Exploration contract from NASA could add stability to a SpaceX Mars program,.....

As long as the NASA Exploration contract is buying just a service. Probably after SpaceX established a Mars surface base. Presuming the current US planetary protection protocols will be drastically scaled back or be eliminated.

[Zed_Noir]

I'm having an orbital mechanics problem with this.  Using a Gateway in NRHO or another other cislunar orbit might make sense if you have a pure-SEP system for getting to Mars orbit but, otherwise, why would you tack on an extra 475m/s of delta-v to get into an orbit that would allow you to use a small amount of chemical prop and a large Oberth effect at perigee to get you all the way to a Mars transfer orbit?

I could also see using Gateway if you had a base on the moon generating lots of O₂ (even if not methane). Then your vehicle could refuel there relatively cheaply. After that, it could do a trans-Earth injection, with the plan of doing the main burn at perigee (i.e not landing on Earth!) (I'm not really sure this pencils out--I had trouble finding a source giving delta-v from Gateway back to Earth.)

For the foreseeable future. Sending Oxygen up from Earth will be cheaper and easier than sourcing it from the Lunar surface.

With cheap heavy lift. Sending up propellants from Earth is cheap compare to setting up infrastructure required to mined, refined, stored and transporting just ISRU sourced Oxygen back from the Lunar surface.

The reason why the Gateway uses the NRHO is for Orion to be able to reach it and get back to Earth.

[clongton]

The reason why the Gateway uses the NRHO is for Orion to be able to reach it and get back to Earth.

Because Orion is literally incapable of entering low lunar orbit and sending itself back to earth. Apollo did that over 50 years ago AND carried along its own 2-stage lunar lander to boot. SLS/Orion does not impress those of us who personally remember Apollo. The Artemis program can't even pretend, in its wildest dreams, to be able to duplicate what we did back in the 1960's. That's why this entire Artemis "thing" (I won't dignify it by calling it an exploration program) is so disappointing to us.

[TheRadicalModerate]

(I'm not really sure this pencils out--I had trouble finding a source giving delta-v from Gateway back to Earth.)

For your dancing, dining, and computing pleasure, might I suggest the Gospel According to Whitley and Martinez, and this preso, which details some of the HLS trade studies that NASA did back in 2019 or so.  This was accidentally published and then pulled down, but I copied it while it was available.  Lots of good delta-v numbers.  I suggest p. 41.

[yg1968]

The reason why the Gateway uses the NRHO is for Orion to be able to reach it and get back to Earth.

Because Orion is literally incapable of entering low lunar orbit and sending itself back to earth. Apollo did that over 50 years ago AND carried along its own 2-stage lunar lander to boot. SLS/Orion does not impress those of us who personally remember Apollo. The Artemis program can't even pretend, in its wildest dreams, to be able to duplicate what we did back in the 1960's. That's why this entire Artemis "thing" (I won't dignify it by calling it an exploration program) is so disappointing to us.

Artemis does not equal SLS and Orion. Artemis also includes HLS and CLPS, LTV, etc. Furthermore, the decisions about the service module were made when Orion wasn't going to the Moon. What would be disappointing is cancelling a lunar program, just because it isn't exactly what you want. I am OK with people arguing that SLS and Orion should be replaced by a commercial option but cancelling the entire program would be another Journey to Mars situation where we would not be going anywhere.

[TheRadicalModerate]

The reason why the Gateway uses the NRHO is for Orion to be able to reach it and get back to Earth.

Because Orion is literally incapable of entering low lunar orbit and sending itself back to earth. Apollo did that over 50 years ago AND carried along its own 2-stage lunar lander to boot. SLS/Orion does not impress those of us who personally remember Apollo. The Artemis program can't even pretend, in its wildest dreams, to be able to duplicate what we did back in the 1960's. That's why this entire Artemis "thing" (I won't dignify it by calling it an exploration program) is so disappointing to us.

Artemis does not equal SLS and Orion. Artemis also includes HLS and CLPS, LTV, etc. Furthermore, the decisions about the service module were made when Orion wasn't going to the Moon. What would be disappointing is cancelling a lunar program, just because it isn't exactly what you want. I am OK with people arguing that SLS and Orion should be replaced by a commercial option but cancelling the entire program would be another Journey to Mars situation where we would not be going anywhere.

Who's arguing for the cancellation of Artemis?  I won't speak for others, but my argument is that, as-is, Artemis will be cancelled, not that it should be.  That argument is based on its extreme expense in return for very little that's interesting.  It's basically a large, slow-moving pot of money, propped up by a fairly small group of legislators who profit from it but have less power than they used to.  That's a recipe for attracting congressional predators.

To prevent its cancellation, it needs to be a cheaper, more agile target.  You can do that by giving it stuff to do, rather than spending all the money on giving it a place to go.  Right now, 90% of the cost is tied up in transportation and 10% in doing stuff.¹  Get that to 50/50 without spending more money (and maybe spending a bit less), and it has a shot at being viable.

_____________
¹FY24 Deep Space Exploration Systems Budget Request:
$4252M:  Common Exploration Systems Development (SLS, Orion, EGS).
$3235M:  Artemis Campaign Development, of which only $440M isn't HLS or Gateway
$49M:  Human exploration requirements/architecture.
$162M: Mars campaign development.

So 8% of the budget isn't involved with SLS/Orion, HLS, or Gateway.

[Coastal Ron]

The reason why the Gateway uses the NRHO is for Orion to be able to reach it and get back to Earth.

Because Orion is literally incapable of entering low lunar orbit and sending itself back to earth. Apollo did that over 50 years ago AND carried along its own 2-stage lunar lander to boot. SLS/Orion does not impress those of us who personally remember Apollo. The Artemis program can't even pretend, in its wildest dreams, to be able to duplicate what we did back in the 1960's. That's why this entire Artemis "thing" (I won't dignify it by calling it an exploration program) is so disappointing to us.

Artemis does not equal SLS and Orion. Artemis also includes HLS and CLPS, LTV, etc. Furthermore, the decisions about the service module were made when Orion wasn't going to the Moon...

No, Orion was supposed to be going to "deep space", so I'm not sure what you were implying. The SLS+Orion combo is not as capable as the Apollo transportation stack that was used for the Moon, and you think it will be a good idea to use for Mars? 

What would be disappointing is cancelling a lunar program, just because it isn't exactly what you want.

The Artemis program has to serve the needs of America, which includes $cost/outcome. Going back to the Moon is a luxury, not a necessity, so at any time Congress could decide that the money being spent on Artemis is not worth the results NASA is getting, and that won't be the fault of NASA, but the result of all the wasteful decisions that have been made as part of the SLS, Orion, and other parts of Artemis.

I am OK with people arguing that SLS and Orion should be replaced by a commercial option but cancelling the entire program would be another Journey to Mars situation where we would not be going anywhere.

NASA is not ready to go to Mars, and isn't even ready to return to the Moon. As I stated about Artemis above being a luxury applies to ALL peaceful things we do in space. The American government doesn't have to send government employees to Mars, or anywhere. Nothing in the constitution states that. Sure it would be nice, but we don't yet know what model will be used to expand humanity out into space.

[VSECOTSPE]

A few comments related to your post. Bear in mind that the surface habitat on Artemis IX was for the foundation surface habitat. NASA is expected to change that plan to smaller mobile habitats in the architecture that will be released on April 18th at the Space Symposium. That should save some money.

The point isn’t whether Artemis can stay in budget.  Something can always be delayed or cut.

The point is that the program is steadily shrinking the duration of lunar stays and moving the longer stays further and further over the horizon.  Artemis has gone from 60- to 45- to 30-day stays and that long-term stay capability, whatever form it takes, has moved from landing circa 2032 to somewhere over the planning horizon in the Artemis schedule for the FY24 budget request.  New developments require budget growth, but the part of the FY24 budget request needed to develop such a long-stay capability is shrinking.  And that’s before any FY24 congressional budget reductions.

About the only new surface capability left within the planning horizon is the pressurized rover and that’s barely hanging on in 2031.  Between continued Orion/SLS cost growth, Artemis mission delays, congressional budget reductions, and JAXA delays, that is likely to disappear over the planning horizon by next year.  Once that is gone, in terms of surface capabilities, Artemis will do little more thru the decade than replicate Apollo at a cost somewhere around $100 billion since its announcement.  Outside of jobs or (maybe) a PRC lunar challenge, it’s hard to see how that’s a program worth supporting.

What the IG meant by not sustainable is that $4B per mission for SLS and Orion is too expensive. But NASA agreed with that conclusion and has been taking steps to reduce the per mission cost. It is not entirely clear how successful NASA has been so far on that front.

See post #160 in this thread.  In the FY24 budget request, Orion/SLS costs grew by more than $4 billion over last year’s budget runout.  And the time between missions grew.  Orion/SLS costs are going up on both a total and per mission basis.

We know that contract consolidation doesn’t reduce costs from the USA and ULA experiences.  There’s no reason to believe that Orion and SLS contract consolidation will be any different.  Only competition creates downward cost pressures, and Orion/SLS has none of that.

[VSECOTSPE]

As an example, the Artemis IV mission would be “substantially delayed” if NASA was capped at FY2022.

Alternatively, if the agency was cut 22 percent, NASA would have to “restructure or terminate currently ongoing major development work for Artemis IV” including Gateway, SLS Block 1B, Mobile Launcher-2 and the second SpaceX Human Landing System contract, and prioritize continuation of Artemis II and Artemis III “with potential delays to those flights.”

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nelson-details-devastating-impacts-if-nasa-funding-capped-at-fy2022-level-or-less/

[yg1968]

As an example, the Artemis IV mission would be “substantially delayed” if NASA was capped at FY2022.

Alternatively, if the agency was cut 22 percent, NASA would have to “restructure or terminate currently ongoing major development work for Artemis IV” including Gateway, SLS Block 1B, Mobile Launcher-2 and the second SpaceX Human Landing System contract, and prioritize continuation of Artemis II and Artemis III “with potential delays to those flights.”

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nelson-details-devastating-impacts-if-nasa-funding-capped-at-fy2022-level-or-less/

Nelson assumes a 22% cut from FY23 which seems unlikely. In any event, here is the entire letter:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Nelson-to-DeLauro-FY24.pdf

[jadebenn]

Nelson assumes a 22% cut from FY23 which seems unlikely. In any event, here is the entire letter:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Nelson-to-DeLauro-FY24.pdf

He's not pulling that number from nowhere.

However, Nelson postulates that if the Department of Defense and the Department of  Veterans Affairs are exempted and the goal remains keeping total discretionary funding at the FY2022 level, deeper cuts would have to be made in the other parts of the discretionary budget, a reduction of up to 22 percent. That would give NASA just $19.8 billion, Nelson wrote.

In reality, while this wouldn't be 22% across NASA, as the House would try to minimize the impact there since support is relatively bipartisan... you can't trim 22% from discretionary spending and not impact NASA, so it would be affected.

[VSECOTSPE]

Nelson assumes a 22% cut from FY23 which seems unlikely.

There are a couple different scenarios in the letter.  That one is based on the Republican goal of holding discretionary spending to FY22 levels minus military and VA.

In reality, while this wouldn't be 22% across NASA, as the House would try to minimize the impact there since support is relatively bipartisan...

NASA’s problem on the Hill is that it lost its key defenders on appropriations starting in this Congress:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the two top members of the full Senate Appropriations Committee, retired last year. They’ve been replaced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Shaheen and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) continue as Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate CJS subcommittee.

Shelby represented NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and had a strong influence on NASA’s budget.  Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), whose district is close to Marshall, is on the House Appropriations Committee and was expected to chair the House CJS subcommittee. Instead he’s chairing a different subcommittee and Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) is chairing CJS. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), who chaired the subcommittee in the last Congress, is Ranking Member now. Rep.  Kay Granger (R-TX) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) are Chair and Ranking Member of the full committee.

What all that means is that none of the top eight people who decide on NASA’s appropriations directly represent a NASA center, which could make a difference in what is certain to be a stressful budget year. Granger is from Texas where Johnson Space Center is located, but her district is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, not near Houston.

On top of that, the staff is changing. Toal Eisen and her Republican counterpart, Allen Cutler, have left after many years on the committee. Cutler will become President of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration next week. On the House side, Ben Turpen is the brand new Republican staffer handling NASA. His background is defense budgeting at DOD and the Office of Management and Budget. Toal Eisen noted that none of the staffers who wrote the reports for NASA’s appropriations last year are doing that now.

With House Republicans demanding dramatic spending cuts, committee and subcommittee members who have less of a vested interest in NASA than in the past, and new staff, NASA has its work cut out to get that 7 percent increase.

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/space-policy-experts-caution-nasa-increase-merely-keeps-pace-with-inflation/

you can't trim 22% from discretionary spending and not impact NASA, so it would be affected.

Even with the schedule slip to Artemis IV, the Artemis Program needs a 6%+ increase in FY24 to stay on track.  Orion/SLS had $4B+ of cost growth over last year’s runout that the program has had to absorb.  The President’s FU24 budget has the budget for certain program elements going down when they should be going up to support development.  Congress doesn’t actually have to cut the program.  Just not meeting the increase will induce further delays and content reductions.

[woods170]

Even with the schedule slip to Artemis IV, the Artemis Program needs a 6%+ increase in FY24 to stay on track.  Orion/SLS had $4B+ of cost growth over last year’s runout that the program has had to absorb.  The President’s FU24 budget has the budget for certain program elements going down when they should be going up to support development.  Congress doesn’t actually have to cut the program.  Just not meeting the increase will induce further delays and content reductions.

Agreed. It is just a matter of time before the growing bow wave will lead to a cutting-and-gutting excercise as ISS experienced around the turn of the century. If the House succeeds in pressuring the Senate to staying close to FY22 levels, such a cutting excercise will IMO come sooner, not later.

[yg1968]

Nelson assumes a 22% cut from FY23 which seems unlikely. In any event, here is the entire letter:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Nelson-to-DeLauro-FY24.pdf

He's not pulling that number from nowhere.

However, Nelson postulates that if the Department of Defense and the Department of  Veterans Affairs are exempted and the goal remains keeping total discretionary funding at the FY2022 level, deeper cuts would have to be made in the other parts of the discretionary budget, a reduction of up to 22 percent. That would give NASA just $19.8 billion, Nelson wrote.

In reality, while this wouldn't be 22% across NASA, as the House would try to minimize the impact there since support is relatively bipartisan... you can't trim 22% from discretionary spending and not impact NASA, so it would be affected.

Yes, I know. Nelson is answering the question that is being asked by DeLauro and she is asking what would happen in the worst case scenario. There is a number of articles that say that Republicans say privately that they don't really want such cuts to discretionary spending. If the budget were to be reduced to FY22 levels, budget cuts to non-discretionary spending would also be necessary. However, Republicans don't want to say that publicly because a lot of the non-discretionary spending programs are very popular programs.

Nelson's letter is political, it tells DeLauro what she wanted to hear, especially about Artemis. I take this letter with a grain of salt. This type of response to budget cuts is called the Washington Monument Syndrome (Artemis being the equivalent to the Washington monument):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome

All of the Democrats have to do is to stick to a CR and they will get FY23 levels instead of FY22 levels (and thus no cuts). That is the more likely scenario.

[yg1968]

Even with the schedule slip to Artemis IV, the Artemis Program needs a 6%+ increase in FY24 to stay on track.  Orion/SLS had $4B+ of cost growth over last year’s runout that the program has had to absorb.  The President’s FU24 budget has the budget for certain program elements going down when they should be going up to support development.  Congress doesn’t actually have to cut the program.  Just not meeting the increase will induce further delays and content reductions.

I agree that it will be difficult for NASA to get a 7% increase this year. The most likely scenario is a 0% increase. We will see what happens., Budget cuts aren't always a bad thing, it sometimes forces NASA to be more creative in saving money. One possibility is that it may force NASA to order another iCPS which wouldn't be a bad thing. In a CR environment, spending would be frozen to FY23 level. A year long CR could have an impact on new programs such as habitats, LTV and Appendix P. My own view is that Appendix P should be funded at the same level as Option B and if that is not enough funding for Blue or Dynetics then they shouldn't be selected.

[yg1968]

Updated Orion/SLS budget history with FY24 budget out today.  The bow wave keeps moving right.  In the FY23 budget, FY24 was supposed to be $3.6B.  In the FY24 budget, it is now $4.5B.  (Congress will probably hike that to $4.7B if prior appropriations are any guide.)  Over five years, FY23 thru FY27, there is $4.4B of cost growth going from the FY23 budget to the FY24 budget.

                                             Annual Orion/SLS/EGS Budget Requests ($B)

              FY17   FY18   FY19   FY20   FY21   FY22   FY23   FY24   FY25   FY26   FY27   FY28

FY19      3.9      3.9       3.7      3.8       3.8      3.7       3.8

FY20                 4.4       4.1      3.4       3.4      3.5       3.8      3.7

FY21                             4.1      4.6       4.0      4.0       4.1      3.8      3.6

FY22                                        4.5       4.5      4.5       4.4      4.2      3.9      3.9 

FY23                                                    4.5      4.5       4.7      3.6      3.1      2.8      2.4

FY24                                                               4.6       4.7      4.5      4.2      4.0      3.6      3.6   

Latest Growth                                                 0.1       0.0      0.9      1.1      1.2      1.2
(FY24 Minus FY23)

I would guess that the Artemis IV slip to 2028 is related to this, as well as the weird budget profile for Advanced Cislunar/Surface Capabilities.  More impacts will probably emerge as the budget gets reviewed.

I am not sure what you mean by bow wave. You are not using the right numbers. You have to add the numbers for Common Exploration Systems Development and Exploration Operations in order to make apples to apples comparisons between the FY23 and FY24 requests.

In the FY23 Budget request, NASA was going to split the budget for SLS and Orion to provide some of the funding for development (under Common Exploration Development) and some of the funding for its operations (under Exploration Operations). In the FY24 Budget request, there is no longer a split between these two items. I believe that is because of the 2022 NASA Authorization bill which forces NASA to have a Moon to Mars program which means that this program will remain under Jim Free and will thus never be transferred to Kathy Lueder's directorate (if you recall, when the HEOMD directorate was split up, NASA had indicated that SLS and Orion were going to be transferred to Kathy Lueders once they were operational).

See page 1 of the FY23 Budget request under the line Exploration Operations:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy23_nasa_budget_request_full_opt.pdf

See page 1 of the FY24 Budget request where the funding for Exploration Operations has been zeroed out since it is now combined with Common Exploration Development:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa_fy_2024_cj_v2.pdf

[VSECOTSPE]

Budget cuts aren't always a bad thing, it sometimes forces NASA to be more creative in saving money. One possibility is that it may force NASA to order another iCPS which wouldn't be a bad thing.

Bad idea.  That’s like wasting time pumping blood into a patient with a severed artery that’s bleeding out before you’ve clamped their artery.  The fundamental problem is that NASA has little/no control over Orion/SLS costs.  Adding more Orion/SLS content and cost via another upper stage or launch isn’t going to bring Orion/SLS costs under control.

It’s probably also a bad idea because Delta IV is winding down and building another DCSS derivative either isn’t in the cards or would be wildly expensive for NASA to maintain alone.  (Someone closer to Delta IV can confirm or correct me.)

Budget cuts aren't always a bad thing, it sometimes forces NASA to be more creative in saving money... A year long CR could have an impact on new programs such as habitats, LTV and Appendix P.

I might be more Pollyanna-ish on a budget reduction if:  Artemis III wasn’t already on the path to 2026+; Artemis IV hadn’t already slipped to 2028; the surface hab hadn’t already passed over the planning horizon; the pressurized rover wasn’t right on the edge of the planning horizon; Orion/SLS costs were under control; and/or if the program had a procurement path off Orion/SLS.  But with all these things going wrong in the program, there’s not many degrees of freedom left to absorb a budget cut in a program that had too few degrees of freedom to begin with.

In a year or so, Artemis III will be out in 2026+ and the pressurized rover will have slipped over the planning horizon.  This is my opinion, I don’t see much point in a program that will spend something on the order of $100 billion to essentially recreate Apollo much more slowly over the next decade.  Maybe it could be justified if the White House wants some very expensive geopolitical insurance against a PRC lunar push.  But I’d also argue that there are less expensive and faster ways to put a few astronauts and an unpressurized rover on the Moon if that’s all the Administration is after.

My own view is that Appendix P should be funded at the same level as Option B and if that is not enough funding for Blue or Dynetics then they shouldn't be selected.

This won’t happen, for better or worse.  Nelson staked too much on getting that second lander.  And even if he left tomorrow, NASA’s hands are probably tied by the existing budget and maybe procurement documents.

I am not sure what you mean by bow wave.

For years now, the five-year budgets for Orion/SLS have predicted that Orion/SLS costs would shrink and that annual budgets would approach $3.5 billion and change.  They never have.  In each fiscal year, Orion/SLS costs have risen to or stayed around $4.5 billion.  Adding in Exploration Ops in FY23 (below) doesn’t change the nature of this budget bow wave. 

                                             Annual Orion/SLS/EGS Budget Requests ($B)

              FY17   FY18   FY19   FY20   FY21   FY22   FY23   FY24   FY25   FY26   FY27   FY28

FY19      3.9      3.9       3.7      3.8       3.8      3.7       3.8

FY20                 4.4       4.1      3.4       3.4      3.5       3.8      3.7

FY21                             4.1      4.6       4.0      4.0       4.1      3.8      3.6

FY22                                        4.5       4.5      4.5       4.4      4.2      3.9      3.9 

FY23                                                    4.5      4.5       4.7      4.4      4.1      3.9      3.4

FY24                                                               4.6       4.7      4.5      4.2      4.0      3.6      3.6   

I’m not the only person to observe this.  Here’s a prettier fishbone plot of the same (hat tip to su27k for finding this):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1b6kJQRBEtZCjQZ2QgncHPOOiufBNF-5oJ4wm67YEBHI/htmlview

The last time I saw this phenomenon on a program this large was ISS in the late 90s.  When the Bush II Administration came into office and decided they would not tolerate such poor cost management, it directly led to the termination of the CAM, X-38/CRV, TransHab, etc. (and the resignation/firing of JSC Director George Abbey).  With Artemis tied at the hip to Orion/SLS, the program runs the risk of major content being taken out of the program to pay Orion/SLS bills.  (Gateway is also becoming another bill creator for Artemis.)

[JHošek]

                                   Annual Orion/SLS/EGS Budget Requests ($B)

                                   FY22    FY23    FY24    FY25    FY26   FY27   FY28

FY23                            4.5       4.7      3.6      3.1      2.8      2.4

FY24                            4.6       4.7      4.5      4.2      4.0      3.6      3.6   

Latest Growth               0.1       0.0      0.9      1.1      1.2      1.2
(FY24 Minus FY23)

I am not sure what you mean by bow wave. You are not using the right numbers. You have to add the numbers for Common Exploration Systems Development and Exploration Operations in order to make apples to apples comparisons between the FY23 and FY24 requests.

                                   Annual Orion/SLS/EGS Budget Requests ($B)

                                   FY22    FY23    FY24    FY25    FY26   FY27   FY28

FY23                            4.5       4.7      4.4      4.1      3.9      3.4

FY24                            4.6       4.7      4.5      4.2      4.0      3.6      3.6   

Thank you for the correction.

Afer correction:
Latest Growth              0.1    0.0    0.1    0.1    0.1    0.2
(FY24 Minus FY23)