A reminder that the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee will host a hearing today at 10 am on “Key Issues and Challenges Facing NASA: Views of the Agency’s Watchdogs”. The hearing is not explicitly about the FY2011 budget proposal issued Monday, and the hearing charter states that “Separate hearings are planned to address NASA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request as well as the administration’s human space flight strategy after they are announced”, although one would expect that questions about the change in course for the agency will come up at some point in the hearing.
One subject that will come up is a GAO report on management of large-scale NASA projects released on Monday. The report found that 9 of 10 projects that have been in an “implementation phase” for several years encountered cost growth of up to 68 percent and launch delays of up to 33 months. “Many of the projects GAO reviewed experienced challenges in developing new or retrofitting older technologies, stabilizing engineering designs, managing the performance of their contractors and development partners, as well as funding and launch planning issues,” the report’s summary notes.
PLEASE NOTE on the GAO report. Nothing in Constellation is in the 9 projects over-growing. Orion and Ares1 aren’t in the considerationfor this report.
A lot of the stuff that IS in it isn’t much surprising, if changes in direction from top brass happen a lot…
“PLEASE NOTE on the GAO report. Nothing in Constellation is in the 9 projects over-growing.”
Only because, as the report states, “NASA has not released official cost and schedule estimates to complete [Ares I and Orion].” NASA couldn’t provide cost estimates to GAO for Ares I and Orion, so GAO couldn’t state whether they were overrunning (or not).
“Orion and Ares1 aren’t in the considerationfor this report.”
They are in the GAO report.
On Ares I, the GAO points out (among other things):
“Technical and design challenges within the Ares I project are proving difficult, costly, and time-intensive to resolve. As a result of technical challenges and design modifications, the cost of Ares I developmental contracts has increased over $500 million since 2007.”
On Orion, the GAO points out (among other things):
“Technical challenges, mass growth, and design issues delayed Orion’s preliminary design review by 12 months to August 2009. In December 2008, NASA decided to defer work on Orion’s lunar mission requirements in order to focus on developing a vehicle that can fly to the ISS.”
FWIW…
@Loki and aremisasling:
Remember our exchange on http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/01/27/the-moon-is-dead/#comments
If you’re reading this from Major Tom above you now know what I meant about ISS vs. Moon version for Orion and where the focus was… Again here below:
“Technical challenges, mass growth, and design issues delayed Orion’s preliminary design review by 12 months to August 2009. In December 2008, NASA decided to defer work on Orion’s lunar mission requirements in order to focus on developing a vehicle that can fly to the ISS.â€
ah, yes, MT, I meant that they aren’t on the list of over growth in the projects they were looking at specifically IE. the 9 that definitely are over, which is what you might figure the hullabuloo over FY2011, those that are over running. Not to say that they wouldn’t over run in the future, tho…
Common Sense, that re-plan stung a little…
“I meant that they aren’t on the list of over growth in the projects they were looking at specifically”
Fair enough. Apologies if I misinterpreted.
FWIW…
@nonymouse:
I am sure it did but did you not see it coming? I can’t believe you would not! Good luck to you though!
500 mil over? Sheesh, it’s more like they just moved money around to Orion to cover growth cost which is typical for LMCO. Ares is not over budget. It’s underfunded. Big difference! Look at JSF (Joint Strike Fighter). Now that is a program is this WAAAAY over budget and oh! it’s operated by LMCO. Go figure! Commercial contractors have a way of saying they can do one thing for a certain cost and schedule. The problem is that those cost and schedule assumptions are based on lack of knowledge and experience. Mark my words, commercial outfits will not be so apt to do this when they get the human rating requirements a couple years down the road (since they don’t exist yet).
“Ares is not over budget.”
Wrong. Among other references:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-04-02/news/constellation02_1_constellation-program-nasa-rocket
FWIW…
er, yeah I have to point out generically that a lot of scope creep happens when you spend a year or more deciding on land-landing vs. water for example… and the people actually building the thing have to accept that lack of directional fortitude as a matter of course. This also speaks to common sense’s point about re-plan. when you change a mission profile when a lot of planning and design work has been complete, you can’t just adapt, a lot of times you have to go back to square one more or less…
about that new budget and how we will be finding new technologies etc… etc… etc… um. It’s a cipher in my opinion. If people sqwak about the price of something using established tech, how do you think it will work when you use a technology that is totally unproven? Go look up various X-planes and when you get into the 30’s you’ll start noticing where everything gets scaled back or cancelled because they couldn’t stay on budget, because they were inventing new stuff. It isn’t cheap, certainly NOT cheaper than using what you already have. Using established methods ain’t cheap either, naturally. Going to space ain’t like building a chevy… But we sure treat it like one.
Funny thing about doing all this commercial, is? Who do you think builds it now? NASA isn’t a manufacturer, they are a management group, and scientists. The first time the govt. pulls a contract for non-completion from a smaller company it has dire cinsequence. Ask Rocketplane Kistler.
“when you spend a year or more deciding on land-landing vs. water ”
Yep if they wanted to re-do Apollo then they knew what to do. They did not because they wanted it tto be different. What with all the nonsense of sending the Navy to retrieve the capsule??? What with the airbags? The retro-rockets? No can’t do that it’s too russian… What with the ever eluding reusability nonsense? Soyuz is reusable? What is the cost of Soyuz vs. Orion again?
“how do you think it will work when you use a technology that is totally unproven?”
The new plan will creat new technologies that do not require a specific destination, e.g. the Moon. We know that the hardware required to go to the Moon will not be that to go to Mars. It should be obvious to anyone! Day trip vs. month trip. Come on! We need new propulsion system for human exploration. Save for a few nutcases, who wants to stay 6 month in a can to Mars??? And then another 6 months back…
“Using established methods ain’t cheap either, naturally.”
It can be made cheaper very easily. Most of the technologies Constellation could have been passed to the private sector and some have. In esssence SpaceX is doing its own mini Constellation, at what price again? LVs and RV both. NASA cannot do it cheap because it requires an army of people, including the contractors. These contractors btw being on cost-plus contract are more like another branch of the government than any commercial entity. I hope you can see why.
“Going to space ain’t like building a chevy… But we sure treat it like one.”
No we don’t treat it like one and I’d rather refer to Honda or even better Hyunday. This is where we need to go to save money.
“The first time the govt. pulls a contract for non-completion from a smaller company it has dire cinsequence. Ask Rocketplane Kistler.”
Very much so but what was the cost of Kistler vs that of Constellation? How often can you restart Kistler with the money wasted on Constellation? That is the problem NASA is facing today and has faced for some time.
One small thing about constellation… it isn’t monolithic, in terms of who the build was awarded to. There are LOTS of different companies involved both large and small. ALL of them are commercial companies. So the tech is ALREADY in the hands of commercial space. They don’t have a commercial reason to go into space. What they have is a reason to build stuff for the govt. That’s my main beef. saying we should be building things commercial is a cipher. We already do that… it’s just that the only customer in town is the govt. If you had a mining claim on an asteroid somewhere, then you would have a truly commercial reason to go there.
Also? The point I was making on RpK was how contracts get pulled if you can’t make things happen. They weren’t bidding on Constellation, rather on cots2…AND it was supposed to be a public/private venture… and they could never get the private money together. Nobody thought it would be profitable, and they were right.
You talk hyundai, but are you forgetting that their early cars were garbage? They have had years to get it all right, and a LOT of growing pains. I see a lot of that strange mindset in the arguments surrounding this issue. “You spent 9B, but you have nothing to show for it…” Like there is no R&D and planning involved with making anything. All of that other stuff costs money up front, BEFORE you build anything. And that is for ALL of Constellation, not any subsystem.
To your point on the moon/mars architecture… actually it IS being designed for both, depending on the what external modules are hooked to it. But, I would point out, that almost ALL of that work was to be done in out years. Even for moon only you would be hooking up to a lander in orbit before heading to the moon. It would be similar with mars. Like a truck with various campers depending on where you are going. That is why a program has such a long cycle. It is priced to do things stepwise. If you did everything at once it would cost all of that in a year. Nobody wants to fund at this level, how would they pay for 10x at the same time…
SpaceX is doing cool stuff, but they can do things different because they are planning themselves and building themselves, NOT for anyone else. If they were to win a bid, they would have to correspond with the same rules as everyone else, and that is where your cost driver is. A lot of money is spent just making sure that rules are followed.
Some of the tech that is in some of the commercial companies is “protected” under some proprietary claims because they are hooked to some actually proprietary stuff, therefore not avaialble to others.
I know for Kistler. Such is life but still the premises of COTS are good. But Kistler lost and OSC and SpaceX won, so?
Of course not I am not forgetting their early cars but look now… And compare with Chevy…
We all know there is planning and R&D BUT Constellation was supposed to live within its means and it did not, period. Planning, technical and financial, was just plain wrong.
No Constellation IS NOT being designed nor planned for both Moon and Mars. Show a transfer stage to Mars, and EDL vehicle for Mars and an ascent stage from Mars, etc. There is no such infrastructure that would support both Moon and Mars when the focus is i) ISS ii) Moon and iii) Mars. People do claim though it can do all without any analysis whatsoever or any supporting document. Please prove me wrong and send me a link and I’ll profusely apologize.
We’ll see how SpaceX and the others do, so far so good. They did win CRS.
Well of course you don’t see the trans stage or anything else for mars because it wasn’t ever to be happening for 20 years even in the original goal for space. BUT when you start basic designs you identify the worst possible environment and design to that, since the other ones are easier. Why do you think it’s suffering from a mass problem just to go to station? Maybe because you have to design in all the redundencies needed to go into a light atmo, with gravity? Ever wonder why it has windows? They weigh a lot and pierce the structure. X-38/CRV didn’t have them because it didn’t need them. I can’t obviously provide more than that, because NASA didn’t release more than the original plan. But YES you must take into account the end goal when you are building the starting vehicle, even if you never build the mars stuff… It’s acedemic to discuss mars at this point when they don’t want to go beyond Leo except in some far off future time, as if the problems that exist at this point won’t exist then.
“because it wasn’t ever to be happening for 20 years even in the original goal for space.”
So how do you claim the infrastructure is being built for a Mars trip? You should knoww very well that it will entail a whole lot of new design. Including Mars EDL and departure vehicles. Orion may not even be able to come back from Mars and enter Earth’s atmosphere just as it is. In any case there is no evideence so far that Orion was designed as part of a Mars architecture. A few years ago if memory serves Congress even banned it from NASA.
“because it wasn’t ever to be happening for 20 years even in the original goal for space.”
So how do you claim the infrastructure is being built for a Mars trip? You should know very well that it will entail a whole lot of new designs iIncluding Mars EDL and departure vehicles. Orion may not even be able to come back from Mars and enter Earth’s atmosphere just as it is. In any case there is no evideence so far that Orion was designed as part of a Mars architecture. A few years ago if memory serves Congress even banned NASA.
“It’s acedemic to discuss mars at this point when they don’t want to go beyond Leo except in some far off future time, as if the problems that exist at this point won’t exist then.”
No one said they don’t want to go. Just not right away. Furthermore Constellation would never have gone within a reasonable budget and timeframe and that is that. And the focus was on ISS. Period. And I am sure you know it. Don’t claim a design can do something when there is no, absolutely no, evidence it can. Credibility is important and it was not credible.
Sadly Constellation might have worked but the imposed designs ruined everything. This was the most shortsighted vision ever.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree then… ISS was a side trip from the start. Ask yourself why LIDS is fitted and not APAS, requiring a new module or adapter on the ISS… And that IS built into the nose structure, you can’t swap them on the ship. Sometimes you have to look at the implicit, when you cannot state the explicit.
LIDS