Someone finally spoke out loud about the real price.

ERIK BERGER - 03/01/2022, 23:03

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NASA Inspector General Paul Martin (Paul Martin) acted as an independent expert on the activities of the space agency. For nearly his entire tenure as inspector general, since his appointment in 2009, Martin has overseen NASA's development of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft.

Although his office has, in the meantime, issued about a dozen reports on various aspects of these programs, he never briefly summarized his thoughts on these programs until last Tuesday.

Speaking at a House Science Committee hearing on the NASA Artemis program, Martin disclosed for the first time the operating costs of the launch vehicle and spacecraft. What's more, he chides NASA and especially its major aerospace contractors for their "very poor" performance in developing these vehicles.

Martin said the operating costs for a single Artemis launch alone — for the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems alone — would be $4.1 billion per mission. This, he says, is "a price that seems unacceptable to us." With this comment, Martin essentially throws down the gauntlet and argues that NASA, at this price, cannot have a long-term research program based on SLS and Orion.

Cost layout

Later in the hearing, Martin detailed the flight costs that would apply to at least the first four missions of the Artemis program: $2.2 billion to build one SLS rocket, $568 million for ground systems, $1 billion for the Orion spacecraft, and $300 million dollars to the European Space Agency for the Orion service module. NASA, Martin said, has verified and confirmed these figures.

What's striking about these costs is that they don't include the tens of billions of dollars that NASA has already spent developing the Orion spacecraft since 2005 and the Space Launch System rocket since 2011. If you factor in these development costs for the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft, the $4.1 billion figure for the mission Martin named would easily double.

This figure is much higher than NASA had previously calculated. Five years ago, a senior NASA official told Ars that the space agency would like to reduce operating costs per mission per year to $2 billion or less. Another source at the time said the agency's internal target was $1.5 billion per mission.

How much will an SLS and Orion flight cost? Finally some answers

Martin also said that NASA is hiding the costs it spends on the Artemis program and that overall, his office estimates that NASA will spend $93 billion between 2012 and 2025 on the Artemis program.

"Without NASA's full accounting and accurate reporting of the total cost of current and future Artemis missions, it will be much more difficult for Congress and the Administration to make informed decisions about NASA's long-term funding needs - the key to making Artemis a sustainable project," Martin said.

All OK

Later during the hearing, U.S. Representative Brian Babin (R-Texas) asked if the additional cost would be reduced by flying more than one Artemis mission per year. Martin said he didn't know for sure. Moreover, NASA does not plan to launch more than one Artemis mission per year, so the question is somewhat abstract.

Martin, however, seems to have had doubts that significant cost savings would be achieved due to the inefficiency of the program and its large aerospace contractors.

“Part of the funds goes to improve the efficiency of major contractors such as Boeing,” Martin said. “One of the problems that we saw with the development of the SLS and Orion is, of course, complex development – ​​but we also noticed very poor contractor work on the part of Boeing, poor planning and poor execution.”

Then, without prompting, Martin went on to criticize the space programs created by Congress to fund the development of rockets and spacecraft. Members of the House and Senate advised NASA to use cost-plus contracts, which ensure that companies involved in the development and operation of these systems cover all of their costs plus fees. This tends to reduce incentives to complete work on time and within the budget. (Notably, NASA was encouraged to continue using cost-plus contracts even after the development program ended.)

“We saw that the cost-plus contracts that NASA used to develop the SLS-Orion space system worked in the best interest of the contractors, not in the interest of NASA,” Martin said.

It didn't sound like a deafening explosion, but in a congressional hearing with hard-nosed bureaucrats like Martin, it was definitely fireworks.Congressman Babin did not initiate the SLS and Orion programs, as he only entered Congress in 2015. But his county includes the Johnson Space Center near Houston, so he consistently supports these programs. If he was surprised by Martin's revelations about the cost of the SLS and Orion or their poor handling, he didn't say so. Instead, he said, “OK,” and then moved on.

Concerned about privatization

In reality, no one should expect Congress to worry about the high cost of the SLS and Orion program. The legislature itself created the programs in this way.

In fact, NASA has been criticized by key members of Congress every time the agency has attempted to move away from cost-plus contracts and take a commercial approach through "fixed-price contracts." This Congressional skepticism persists even as the commercial approach bears fruit. For example, as tensions with Russia rise, NASA only has independent access to space thanks to the Crew Dragon spacecraft built with this approach.

However, there are supporters of an alternative approach in Congress. House Science Committee Chairman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) praised NASA's commercial space efforts in his opening remarks at the hearing. The context of her statement concerns NASA's desire to acquire commercial services for spaceflight in the future, rather than control their development in-house, as was the case with SLS and Orion.

“I think the outcome of past actions is very troubling,” Johnson said. "And that raises the question of whether NASA will retain the capacity and agency workforce that would be required to get US astronauts to Mars if all these privatization plans go ahead."

At least we know about Congress's priorities at this time.

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