Clark Lindsey has some more perspective on what a waste of money the Shuttle program is currently, given that we aren't even flying it (and perhaps even if we were):

* Elon Musk has spent about $100M so far on developing the line of SpaceX Falcon launchers. The first Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for 2007. He hasn't said how much more money it will take to reach that launch but I doubt it could be more than another $100M.

* Kistler says it needs a few hundred million dollars to finish its fully reusable two stage K-1 vehicle.

* T/Space said it can build a CEV system capable of taking crews and cargo to the ISS for around $500M.

* LockMart once promised to build the VentureStar for $6B. If they had a 100% overrun that would still be less than $13B.

So what's so different with the Shuttle system when it was flying several missions a year? I'd say the only difference is that now the "Powers that be" can't claim that it's safe, even though it never has been. So the expense is derived from the politics, not the technology.

K: the difference is the flight rate is even lower. It wasn't worthwhile even at the earlier higher flight rate, but now the cost is so outrageous that even politicians can't sugarcoat it.

I don't fully understand these odd accounting methods, but I suppose the shuttle would be cheaper per flight if they removed the crew alltogether and flew it as many times per year that they could even with the foam problems, just as long as they could launch it 6-8 times a year.

Or strap an Atlas V to the side of the ET instead of the shuttle. :)

BTW- Is there any way for NASA to avoid these accounting traps in the future, where they have to rack up costs even when they're not flying?

How could they restructure their accounting or launch methods to where they're not subject to such out of control costs for non-use?

The easiest way to avoid another 'accounting trap' would be to buy rides. no ride no bucks.

BTW- Is there any way for NASA to avoid these accounting traps in the future, where they have to rack up costs even when they're not flying?

How could they restructure their accounting or launch methods to where they're not subject to such out of control costs for non-use?

My take is that the shuttles have a tremendous amount of infrastructure that needs to be maintained and manpower that needs to be paid whether or not the shuttles launch. Either the shuttles should be used, and used a lot. Or they should be shelved. NASA has very serious problems. But a key one is simply that its projects aren't compelling. They can't convince people with the purse strings that a manned program is worth the expense.

In comparison, NASA has been considerably more successful with its unmanned space probes in large part because they generate a lot of useful knowledge which is interesting to a large portion of the voting population. The Hubble Space Telescope generates a lot more value and electoral goodwill than the ISS.

My take is that a lot of programs simply get mangled by the political ebb and flow. Big ones with poor justification are far more likely to turn into toy programs with little activity.

Horrific is right. Oh, we're not talking about the ref's stealing of a Seattle touchdown?

Whose brainchild was the cost-plus contract anyway? True open competition breeds efficiency. You want to see things get done. Post one year, one million rewards for a thousand different goals. At the end of the year:

1) Pay the winners.
2) Decide which goals to drop (only because no one has registered to be competing for it.)
3) Double the amounts for another year of each goal you retain.
4) Add new one million, one year goals as budget permits.

Let them keep fighting about which goals are worthy. If a goal takes ten years and a billion dollars, that's about right. If someone wants to wait another year for it to become 2 billion they might just lose it all to another company that can do it this year. Just about any goal would then be achievable in 15 years or so.

The x-prize would have been won in 4 years for 8 million or 5 years for 16 million... either way, it would have generated more excitement and probably more investors willing to take a risk.

The only drawback would be for stupid silly goals, but that's mitigated by the fact that no business would go after them or lot's of business's would get in on the one million level which would save us all in the long run.

For my next trick I show you how to evenly divide a pie between two people that don't trust each other...

BTW- Is there any way for NASA to avoid these accounting traps in the future, where they have to rack up costs even when they're not flying?

Well, yes, there are ways.

There's an old joke, how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to _want_ to change...

The first step in the process would be for NASA to want to avoid those sorts of accounting traps.

At the moment they're embarking on a new launch architecture where falling into those exact traps is a design requirement.

After their last great architecture wallowed in that trap for thirty years.

What was so great about going to the moon? Was the whole country and world behind it like every movie and miniseries I've seen about the subject? Was it popular just because we were racing the russians? If you think or prove that it was a wonderful event to land on the moon, I don't see how landing on Mars is any different unless you think any space endeavor should be evaluated with the question: "did we beat the russians?" Honestly, If the moon was so great, why wouldn't Mars be also? Why can't we say we are going to Mars and just do it?

Whose brainchild was the cost-plus contract anyway?

Brainchild of government officials who want to dictate every step of the process.

IIRC, UK had tried fixed-cost contracts for Navy projects. British Navy ended up hating it, because under cost-plus they could stick their oar in at any time and change specs, and the contractor did not care. Whereas under fixed-cost, every change in specifications had to be re-negotiated; the contractor took such things very seriously (as they would in "real world"). Eventually they went back to cost-plus.

Question - everyone who talks about keeping the shuttle flying talks about 2 things - Hubble and the station. Now, I have my own thoughts on hubble, but concerning the station - is there any major challenges in using some unmanned rockets in place of the shuttle to boost the modules to orbit? I know you'd need some sort of tug/OTV, but the Russians have used one for Mir, and I know the Europeans were working on one - so, why is there not serious discussion about some variation on this?

> Whose brainchild was the cost-plus contract anyway? True open
> competition breeds efficiency.

The problem is with only one customer, all the competitors who lose the contract are run out of busness. (You'll notice in the '70s we had about 40 main aircraft developers that could big on something like a shuttle - now we have 2-3?) Also companies don't know what it will cost to build a craft no one ever built before - and the customer is redesigning as they try to build it, and telling them how to do there job ever 30 secounds. So the gov (and other custom equipment customers) pay cost plus.

>> BTW- Is there any way for NASA to avoid these accounting traps in the
>> future, where they have to rack up costs even when they're not flying?

> Well, yes, there are ways.
>
> There's an old joke, how many psychologists does it take to change
> a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to _want_ to change...

As a nit its not a accounting problem - they really are wasting that much money per flight.

As to the problem: they don't want to change because their customer (congress and the public) want the waste more then the shuttle program or NASA). Most of that waste is the saleries of the standing armies of technicians needed to maintain the labor hog shuttles. You could easily fix or replace the shuttles with something needing orders of magnitude less servicing per launch (See the DC-X program) but then you'ld be laying of thousands to tens of thousands of techs in those congressional districts, and that would go over like a brick.

So NASA is under a lot of pressure to watse money. Which explains why Griffen keeps talking up how ESAS will maintain the (bloated) suttle workforce.

Elon musk has overrun his initial target by 400%. His early statements were that he could get the Falcon flying for less then $25 Million. SpaceX has also not flown anything yet. Until they have flown for a while, the system is grossly unproven.

Kistler has wildly overrun their cost targets also.

T/Space, isn't Gary Hudson involved in this?

LockMart on the VentureStar. Well, they also promised to build X-33 for a Billion. 50% past that target they didn't have hardware or an engine. David Urie the PM for that is also
running Rocketplane.

Cost numbers are easy to promise hard to deliver.

Cost numbers are easy to promise hard to deliver.

This is true. I find it telling that these potential players (with the exception of VentureStar) aren't quoting figures even within an order of magnitude of the three year cost of the Space Shuttles though.

Didn't Lockheed even solve the composite LH2 tank problem in the end?

>>Didn't Lockheed even solve the composite LH2 tank problem in the end?

Chris, the answer is yes and no. There was an article back in January posted at NasaSpaceflight.com about it

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=4180

Specifically, it solved it by going to an aluminum tank. But the aluminum ended up being lighter than the composite.