NASA IG: Isaacman’s decision to cancel Gateway and SLS upgrades saved billions
According to a report released yesterday [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general, the decision by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to not only “pause” the Lunar Gateway station (killing its HALO module) but also cancel SLS’s upgraded upper stage (EUS), its related stage adaptor (USA), and the giant mobile launcher (ML-2) needed for that taller upper stage, saved the taxpayer billions in additional cost overruns, and has likely accelerated the Artemis program significantly.
NASA’s reformulation of the Artemis campaign to meet the President’s National Space Policy and increase its cadence of missions by standardizing the SLS heavy-lift rocket resulted in the termination or repurposing of several Artemis-related systems, including the EUS, USA, ML-2, and HALO.
Over the course of their life cycles, the combined contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion and NASA extended their contracted delivery dates by up to 7 years. However, our projections indicate that if NASA allowed work to continue to completion, the systems would have cost more and taken longer than what was on contract.
Specifically, the IG estimated that the overruns for the upper stage, the stage adaptor, and the mobile launcher would have ended up costing four to five times their original budgets. Gateway’s HALO module was less out of control, but it was still going to go more than 30% over budget. Overall, all four projects would have cost NASA almost $5 billion in additional expenses, with all four likely to also be considerably behind schedule. The upper stage and mobile launcher were certainly not going to be ready when needed.
The IG made no recommendations. It released this report to provide NASA, the White House, Congress, and the public the information so as to properly judge the agency’s actions, as well as provide guidance to the agency itself.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
WHOOP!
Are these Artemis contracts (canceled and not canceled) the last Cost Plus contracts?
Attacking the part of Artemis that actually works–dumb
I really think you think money grows on trees. Did you not read the IG report? Isaacman cut programs that were vastly over budget and years behind schedule. None were delivering what he needed, when he needed it, and all were wasting gobs of money he needs for other things.
That you seem entirely clueless to the idea of money, I wonder how you survive day-to-day. Are you on a government dole? Do you rely on others for your earnings? Anyone who works understands the basics of financing. You certainly do not. To you, everything is free and costs nothing!
The general idea I get from SLS advocates is that there is no amount of other people’s money that is too great to spend on the SLS, and questioning the value of the rocket means one of a few things: said person is a moron; said person is greedy; said person is a libertarian; said person hates NASA, and so on. There are few substantive replies to any discussion about the rocket’s value. Based on how Jeff and other supporters talk, it often seems to be more of a religious artifact than a launch vehicle, and thus completely beyond the bounds of discussion.
JW also has a bit of inversion w.r.t. the time value of achievements: To JW a promise – regardless of credibility – of some fantastic future achievement/accomplishment/activity is just as valuable if not _more_ valuable than something actually happening right now or already achieved.
And then there are his SLS comments that are on the order of: “If we had a 3lb steak from Omaha Steaks we could easily have a great BBQ dinner, if we only had a grill …”
To a degree. If MSFC makes the promise it’s as good as gold. Others… the results vary.
“Works” is something that can only be properly evaluated when placed against requirements. NASA’s long-term requirement for a “Moon Rocket” is that it be able to affordably and expeditiously support construction of, and sustained human presence on, the lunar surface. SLS-Orion cannot do these things because it cannot launch with sufficient frequency and costs far too much.
SLS-Orion is, in many ways, comparable to the German Tiger tank of WW2. Like SLS-Orion, the Tiger “worked,” in the narrow sense that it mechanically functioned as designed. But like SLS-Orion, it was very expensive and time-consuming to build so there were never anywhere near enough of them to decisively contribute to any military objective. Compared to actual military requirements, the Tiger did not “work.”
The Tigers were also prone to mechanical breakdowns and were not engineered for easy repair – something that has also proven historically true of SLS-Orion stacks.
Jeff
It doesn’t work if it doesn’t have a job.
Without the full Gateway system its nothing but a craft looking for a mission. What can it do that something we already have can’t do?
pzatchok,
That was Jeff’s point. SLS looks like it will be successful when there is ample additional hardware in the pike that will help make it look successful. Now that this hardware is cancelled, Jeff has an excuse for SLS’s complete failure, and someone to blame for its failure. He thinks it doesn’t work because someone destroyed its job. In truth, it doesn’t work because someone gave it a job that it is not suited for. (I’m not sure what job it is suited for, because ten years ago, when NASA asked for projects to use SLS on, all they heard was crickets.)
Jeff is not a big-picture guy. He looks at details and science papers with concepts that might someday be useful to spaceflight (but probably not) and thinks that space exploration is about to take off due to that new concept, and damn the expense. If a rocket flies, then it works. If it orbits, then it works. If it lands again, then it works, and no other evidence is necessary to prove success and usefulness. This is why he is so enthusiastic about a return of Buran or any similar spacecraft. The rest of us want to know whether Buran could carry living passengers, how much payload it could take to orbit, what the turnaround time and cost would have been, and what it cost to launch in the first place.
Jeff does not care for practical applications. If it looks cool, it is good. If it does something cool, then it is good. The rest of us look for things that will successfully advance us into space and keep space an economic powerhouse, because we understand what makes an economy run.*
Jeff is obviously used to an echo chamber where unrealistic space ideas are floated and admired. Fortunately, we have more realistic aspirations, such as being overjoyed that one of the space station companies is going to try to make a spinning space station in order to simulate lower levels of gravity than we have on Earth. This is no longer fantasy but a probable future reality.
Jeff is a dreamer. This is a good thing, because without dreamers we would make no progress. Jeff’s main problem is a lack of ability to make the dreams come true. Beck, Bezos, and Musk were able to make their dreams come true, and they are doing this right now.
When von Braun and Disney wanted a space station with artificial gravity, they dreamed of a toroidal shape. At that time they didn’t have the ability to make that dream come true, but they told everyone about it. Now someone has the wherewithal to make it come true. Mostly. The rotating space station that is proposed these days is not that sophisticated, but it is practical to launch as modules and to assemble. The dream will become reality, just not quite the way it was dreamed.
_________
* Marxists, tyrants, and many others who govern are also clueless about economics, which is understandable, because it is insanely complex — for them. If there is a good supply, prices decrease. If there is a high demand, prices increase. Increased prices encourages more production. It sounds simple, but that is where Keynesians fall into their trap, because production does not increase when the high prices reduce demand because of lack of money to buy the higher priced goods or services. Keynesian Economics fails at that point.
I am not the dreamer here—due to one simple fact that escapes the notice of NewSpace apologists for Starship.
SLS doesn’t have to be an acrobat to work. SS/SH does.
Yes I know that money doesn’t grow on trees—that’s why SS/SH should be considered unsustainable.
One of the fiercest critics of SLS admitted that it cost 37 billion. Complete—two lunar flights, proven. Starship is half-way there.
Cutting conventional success is the loss you inflict upon America in killing what works.
If it is indeed true that each year NASA generates seventy billion dollars—that means that every year, or every two years—more money is generated than spent—thus the idea of killing SLS saving anything is false.
Some question the seven-to-one return of Apollo—but it still exceeds Dubya’s tax breaks.
I think hate-government types cannot stand an example of government that works, thus it is ideological purity—not engineering—that is behind the blind hatred of the one man-rated moonrocket that has proven itself to all that are willing to see.
Every SH launched Starship has gone into the ocean, same as SLS.
Now, I want re-use too—it is just that it is more realistic to take a high-volume stage-and-a-half coke can to orbit as a wet workshop, than to teach a TSTO how to do acrobatics like Dick Grayson’s Robin.
I know you look at SLS like Amtrak…but I’d still rather ride that than Elon Hubbard’s roller coaster.
Jeff,
You wrote: “SLS doesn’t have to be an acrobat to work.”
And now we are back to your warped definition of “work.” SLS cannot do the job that has been assigned to it, and no one wants it for any other job, either. It may fly, but it does not accomplish goals. It has reached the objective of lofting two Orions to fly near the Moon, but it cannot sustain a lunar base — the goal that this objective is intended to support.
“One of the fiercest critics of SLS admitted that it cost 37 billion. Complete—two lunar flights, proven. Starship is half-way there.”
Except that for less than half of that price, Starship also developed and built the spacecraft, the ground support equipment (GSE), all the facilities from scratch, and all the manufacturing facilities — also from scratch. SLS started with existing rocket hardware, GSE, facilities, and manufacturing plants. Trying to compare the two is a losing proposition for you, which you should have learned by now.
Adding the spacecraft, the price of SLS’s lunar flights increases significantly. You keep losing this argument, so, maybe “dreamer” is the wrong descriptor for you.
“If it is indeed true that each year NASA generates seventy billion dollars …”
No. $70 billion is SpaceX’s IPO, not NASA’s revenues. Indeed, it is not the revenue for anyone using NASA’s rockets or space station for their business plans, because NASA does not allow its payloads to make anything for sale. NASA has been a hindrance to business, not a help.
Then you conflated NASA and SLS. Benefits of having NASA include far more than the benefits that SLS supplies. For example, NASA does aeronautic research, SLS does not.
“Some question the seven-to-one return of Apollo …”
Apollo was advancing technology in a big way. SLS and Orion both regress technologies to those we had and used four to six decades ago. On the other hand, Starship is advancing technologies in ways not dreamed of before, including the ability for large rockets to do gymnastics in order to defeat the tyranny of the rocket equation. Had SLS worked on beating the rocket equation, it might have been better at accomplishing its mission.
Instead, SLS can barely get Orion to the Moon, and even then it almost comes close to nearly putting it in a high lunar orbit.
SLS is yet another example of government failing to work, making a moon-rocket that cannot get to the surface of the Moon.
Every SH launched Starship has gone into the ocean, same as SLS.
Except SLS is operational, and Starship is still in development. Your inability to comprehend this difference is why many of your comparisons, Jeff, fail so spectacularly.
“it is just that it is more realistic to take a high-volume stage-and-a-half coke can to orbit as a wet workshop, than to teach a TSTO how to do acrobatics like Dick Grayson’s Robin.”
If this is true, then why has no one done the former, but we have the latter in existence. This portion of the Starship project is now past the development phase, and SpaceX is now optimizing for capabilities and costs. SLS never optimized for anything, which is why it is such a failure and such a demonstration of the demise of NASA’s technical prowess. NASA has been riding the glory days of the 1960s, resting on its laurels.
In the 1960s, NASA had been the bastion of innovation and technology, but that reputation had been lost during the Space Shuttle era. SpaceX has replaced that function, boldly making revolutionary improvements in methods and technologies in space access and operations, and it isn’t doing it for national prestige or to win some space race, and it isn’t costing taxpayer money. It is doing it for profit, finding efficiencies and new technologies. No wonder the company is so successful.