Want to know why it will cost somewhere between ten and a hundred times more for NASA to develop a launch system/crew module than SpaceX? Things like this:
The NASA Inspector General said that during the three-day conference in Baltimore in 2008, the 317 attendees snacked on soda, coffee, fruit, bagels and cookies at a cost of more than $62,000.
As the article notes, that comes to over sixty bucks per day per person. And the ironic subject of the conference? Procurement.
Figures.
Now why did NASA have to go to a hotel in Baltimore (with travel, per diem, etc) to discuss procurement? Think vendors (prospective, or actual) wouldn’t have gone to Houston?
Perhaps the GSA should include floating office space and conference rooms in their buildings – so government boondoggles like this will be able to utilize them instead of hotels with outrageous catering costs.
That $62,000 only covered snacks. How much was air fare, hotel costs, rental car costs and per diem for the 317 attendees? Odds are, the total cost was somewhere around $500K to $1 million. Don’t forget to add in their labor hours used for travel days, too.
Ever hear of teleconferences, NASA?
“why it will cost somewhere between ten and a hundred times more for NASA to develop a launch system/crew module than SpaceX?”
How did you arrive at these figures?
SpaceX has spent less than half a billion to date on Falcon 9 and Dragon. Ares I/Orion were projected to ultimately cost up to fifty billion to develop.
So, this was like your average flight home for Nancy Pelosi.
Can we send thank you rewards to IG’s without running a-foul of some law? 8)
Rand, that was cheap, comparatively speaking. I worked for a DOD contractor who provided small sandwiches made by the company that ran the cafeteria for frequent conferences with client reps. One of the sandwich makers told me that the company billed the contractor $10.00 for each sandwich. Heaven knows what the contractor billed the DOD. These meetings were held 7-8 times per month that I knew about, probably a lot more for non-engineering areas.
The worst part was that the sandwiches were tiny; she told me that she could make about 100/hour. No spices, cheap mayo, so on.
The best part was that I brought in my own lunch on the few times that I had to attend one of these meetings.
Oh, and beverages. Cheap soda, at $2.50/each.
If that was at the BCC, I’m surprised the catering cost was that low. Arramark’s catering schedules can be extortionately expensive. They probably went for the cheapass menu, and not the $1200-per-four-pizza sets Arramark likes to push on green room pinheads.