The end of NASA

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

Read further than just a headline:
"With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the shuttle program."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

Compare this with:
Saturn IB $0.322 bln
Saturn V $1.16 bln
SLS $5 bln per flight! <- my new favourite, I am sure it will get funds and will fly :-)

 

You are comparing the cost per flight of a rocket with the the total expenses of a program (including facilites - i.e. every single penny ever spent under the cost center "Space Shuttle Program", including snacks and coffee).

I think that you need to learn about Projects, Programs and Cost Centers.

The launching cost of the Space Shuttle was about 450M. We had 135 lanches, total 60.75B USD in launches. The whole program had cost about 196B, where 60.75 was due launches, so we have 135.25B USD that were spent on the facilities, salaries, insurances, rents, the 6 Shuttles themselves and their testing, and goes on.

Your numbers are meaningless, you just don't understand how to contextualize them.

Had we had 270 Space Shuttle Missions instead of 135, that 1.5 B you are claiming would had dropped to somewhat near 950M USD. And this number would still drop more as yet more missions would be launched.

Real numbers, however, are beyond us because NASA doesn't broke down the expenses, so we don't really know how much of that 135.25B are recurrent costs (i.e., happens every month during the program life-span, as salaries, facilities maintenance and cleaning, and insurances) and how much was nonrecurring (i.e., the VAB, that they paid for only once and used forever).

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias
fixing my math.

[YNM]

13 minutes ago, Lisias said:

You are comparing the cost per flight of a rocket with the the total expenses of a program

I'd argue that's a better way to look at it. R&D are sunken costs.

But then, every single program that utilizes the derived technology should count as being part of it. (and so spreading the costs more, which makes it costs less.)

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

Read further than just a headline:
"With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the shuttle program."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

Compare this with:
Saturn IB $0.322 bln
Saturn V $1.16 bln
SLS $5 bln per flight! <- my new favourite, I am sure it will get funds and will fly :-)

 

You're not making the right comparisons.

Assumining Wikipedia's numbers are correct, then the 42 billion (2018 value) spent developing the Saturn V makes each of the 13 launches cost 3.2 billion.

And that's not including the added costs of payload hardware, or installation operation, or mission support, or anything else. Meanwhile, the 1.5 billion for the Shuttle does take that into account, since we're dividing total program cost by the number of missions. And the main driver for cost is having 20 thousand people working on it. That's billions of dollars per year, even when there were no launches.

[YNM]

36 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

the 42 billion (2018 value) spent developing the Saturn V makes each of the 13 launches cost 3.2 billion.

That probably helped the Shuttle itself to be a reality. (J-2 engines is later developed into HG-3 which then developed into RS-25 SSME.)

This is why engineering-wise people don't do much different. But vision-wise it is very different.

And we haven't even talked of the benefits that NASA gives off to other countries. When I did hydrologic modelling where I live I'm still using NASA SRTM heightmaps. They're still the best heightmaps publicly available. The military would've given zero fraks. Hubble Space Telescope has their images up for free, which the military would've turned the other way (towards Earth) and they would only release it like what, 4 decades after it was taken ?

Think more than just the engineering. Think about the social-economical aspects of it. NASA more than makes up what the US doesn't give in direct aids (like some other countries).

[Cassel]

I am comparing data from wiki:

Cost per launch$185 million in 1969–1971 dollars[2] ($1.16 billion in 2016 value), of which $110 million was for vehicle

What does $110 million means? It is cost of making 1 Saturn V rocket?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

"In 1972, the cost of a Saturn IB including launch was US$55,000,000 (equivalent to $322,000,000 in 2017)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB

"Cost per launch US$ 450 million (2011)[4] to 1.5 billion (2011)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

Also wiki says that "Project cost US$ 210 billion (2010)" so today that would be more or less like $250bln?

51 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

You're not making the right comparisons.

Assumining Wikipedia's numbers are correct, then the 42 billion (2018 value) spent developing the Saturn V makes each of the 13 launches cost 3.2 billion.

And that's not including the added costs of payload hardware, or installation operation, or mission support, or anything else. Meanwhile, the 1.5 billion for the Shuttle does take that into account, since we're dividing total program cost by the number of missions. And the main driver for cost is having 20 thousand people working on it. That's billions of dollars per year, even when there were no launches.

This $42 bln is for Saturn V only? Or entire Saturn rocket family?

[Lisias]

17 minutes ago, Cassel said:

"Cost per launch US$ 450 million (2011)[4] to 1.5 billion (2011)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

More numbers to play:

Quote

Q. How much does the Space Shuttle cost?
A. The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1.7 billion.

Q. How much does it cost to launch a Space Shuttle? 
A. The average cost to launch a Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html#1[

These are real numbers given by NASA.

Now I have some more concrete info to play with. The Endeavor flew 25 missions, so 1.7B / 25  = 68M per flight. Since each launch had costed 450M, the total cost per launch of Endeavor was 68M + 450M = 516M.

Again, less than two launches from Saturn B, that what we would need to do in order to accomplish the same mission: launching up to 20t of cargo to space with a working crew.

[Cassel]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

More numbers to play:

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html#1[

These are real numbers given by NASA.

Now I have some more concrete info to play with. The Endeavor flew 25 missions, so 1.7B / 25  = 68M per flight. Since each launch had costed 450M, the total cost per launch of Endeavor was 68M + 450M = 516M.

Again, less than two launches from Saturn B, that what we would need to do in order to accomplish the same mission: launching up to 20t of cargo to space with a working crew.

If that is true then how it is possible entire program cost was over $196 bln?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program

"When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg (approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO."

 

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/566250main_SHUTTLE ERA FACTS_040412.pdf

"For Fiscal Year 2010, the average cost to prepare and

launch a shuttle mission was approximately $775 million.

Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace shuttle Challenger,

cost approximately $1.7 billion to build. The life of the shuttle

program has cost $113.7 billion. (Not adjusted for inflation)"

 

[Lisias]

36 minutes ago, Cassel said:

If that is true then how it is possible entire program cost was over $196 bln?

@Bill Phil hinted: costs on salaries, and I add others recurring costs as insurances, food, vehicles needed by moving personal and equipment (as tje SCA). Pile all that for 30 years.

Let's take 60.000 USD/year as the mean salary for someone working on the Program (and I'm pulling out this number from my hat). With 20.000 people in the payroll, we have 20k * 60k = 1.2B USD year. In 30 years, that's 36B USD only in salaries.

You need to fix and keep clean all the buildings. You need to pay for the electricity (Dude, the electrical bill for the VAB should be huge!). You need to pay for the Shuttle's storage when they are not flying. You need to pay for Insurances, and saddly, also for the compensations to the families of the victims of the accidents (and also the burial services). And also the expenses for the subsequential investigations about the accident's cause.

And the list goes on. For the 30 years of the Program's life span.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias
Typos

[Bill Phil]

8 minutes ago, Lisias said:

@Bill Phil hinted: costs on salaries, and I add others recurring costs as insurances, food, vehicles needed by moving personal and equipment (as tje SCA). Pile all that for 30 years.

Let's take 60.000 USD/year as the mean salary for someone working on the Program (and I'm pulling out this number from my hat). With 20.000 people in the payroll, we have 20k * 60k = 1.2B USD year. In 30 years, that's 36B USD only in salaries.

You need to fix and keep clean all the buildings. You need to pay for the electricity (Dude, the electrical bill for the VAB should be huge!). You need to pay for the Shuttle's storage when they are not flying. You need to pay for Insurances, and saddly, also for the compensations to the families of the victims of the accidents (and also the burial services). And also the expenses for the subsequential investigations about the accident's cause.

And the list goes on. For the 30 years of the Program's life span.

Longer than that. Development work started in 1969, and began to ramp up in the early 70s.

[Lisias]

One argument in which you could be right about the Saturn B, is that probably this rocket would need less people to operate. (I don't really know, I'm brainstorming). Let's guess that 10.000 people would be necessary to this hypothetical Program. That's half of that 36B,  we would had saved 18B on this.

That would cut 133M usd from that gross cost of 1.5B per launch, that we have by dividing the total budget ofnthe whole space shuttle program by the 135 missions they flew.

The Shuttle program was expensive, but not exactly due hardware (the Shuttle) and launching costs, but due the huge costs to keep things between the launches. And the accidents... 

[Cassel]

34 minutes ago, Lisias said:

@Bill Phil hinted: costs on salaries, and I add others recurring costs as insurances, food, vehicles needed by moving personal and equipment (as tje SCA). Pile all that for 30 years.

Let's take 60.000 USD/year as the mean salary for someone working on the Program (and I'm pulling out this number from my hat). With 20.000 people in the payroll, we have 20k * 60k = 1.2B USD year. In 30 years, that's 36B USD only in salaries.

You need to fix and keep clean all the buildings. You need to pay for the electricity (Dude, the electrical bill for the VAB should be huge!). You need to pay for the Shuttle's storage when they are not flying. You need to pay for Insurances, and saddly, also for the compensations to the families of the victims of the accidents (and also the burial services). And also the expenses for the subsequential investigations about the accident's cause.

And the list goes on. For the 30 years of the Program's life span.

Launch was not possible without those people, right? So this is part of launch cost. If you need to hire 1000 people to operate something then salaries for those people are cost for whatever you are doing. If space shuttle was able to start with single operator, great, show me mission where it was launched with single operator and then we can change costs.
Maintenance is also cost, just like fuel is cost, so if you invent rocket that doesn't require maintenance it is going to be cheaper than competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

"Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc.) by the number of launches. With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the shuttle program.[25] A 2017 study found that carrying one kilogram of cargo to the ISS on the shuttle cost $272,000 in 2017 dollars, twice the cost of Cygnus and three times that of Dragon."

Maybe some space shuttles were cheaper, like you said Endeavour, but other could be more expensive and average is $1.5 bln. Which is fraction of estimated cost of SLS single launch $5bln and you people still wonder why I am for NASA to die and be replaced by Space Force? :-)

I don't mind doing same (program cost/flight number) with Saturn, but we should distinguish what version of Saturn we are talking about. Because making 42 bln $ per 13 flights of Saturn V, if that was budget for entire Saturn rocket family would be very wrong calculation.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Cassel

[Toonu]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

 

Maybe some space shuttles were cheaper, like you said Endeavour, but other could be more expensive and average is $1.5 bln. Which is fraction of estimated cost of SLS single launch $5bln and you people still wonder why I am for NASA to die and be replaced by Space Force? :-)
 

 

I won't dig into your calculations of launch cost, because I also think, only launch cost should be included (not vehicle costs, maintenance and other stuff mentioned before) , not cost of whole program divided by launches. The problem is, do you really think it would get better with new administrative of so called Space force? You know how hard is to push trough new (expensive) programs too and how much it get ovet their budgets at the military. (Looking at you F-35 and other programs...)

[Cassel]

21 minutes ago, Toonu said:

 

I won't dig into your calculations of launch cost, because I also think, only launch cost should be included (not vehicle costs, maintenance and other stuff mentioned before) , not cost of whole program divided by launches. The problem is, do you really think it would get better with new administrative of so called Space force? You know how hard is to push trough new (expensive) programs too and how much it get ovet their budgets at the military. (Looking at you F-35 and other programs...)

Without taking into account the overall costs, you make a mistake.
If you come up with a space shuttle, which after each flight does not need to have changed 20,548 parts, then the cost of maintenance and single flight of such a vehicle will be cheaper.
Space shuttle had to change 20,548 unique elements of the heat shield (each part was unique! like puzzle element), which generated cost in work force and salaries, but without this service cost every shuttle was single use only.

On the occasion of searching for data for calculations, I saw somewhere information that space shuttles program between 2004 and 2006 cost was $ 13bln, and then only three flights took place. How do you want to determine the cost of a given technology without considering all costs?

F-35 began around 1990? The first flight is probably around 2005, and you want to compare it with people who have been deciding for NASA for 2-3 years and are talking about the creation of Space Force?

If the Space Force arises in such a form that it will replace the entire NASA, it will be more efficient, I have no doubt about it.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

Without taking into account the overall costs, you make a mistake.

Again, you need to learn about Projects, Programs and Cost Centers.

Some costs are amortizable, some others are pure expenses. Some Costs are split with others Programs, some don't. Some assets would be reused by new programs, some don't.

And so on.

 

3 hours ago, Cassel said:

Because making 42 bln $ per 13 flights of Saturn V, if that was budget for entire Saturn rocket family would be very wrong calculation.

And yet, it's exactly what you are doing to the Space Shuttle Program.

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

On the occasion of searching for data for calculations, I saw somewhere information that space shuttles program between 2004 and 2006 cost was $ 13bln, and then only three flights took place. How do you want to determine the cost of a given technology without considering all costs?

We were not talking about the costs of the technology. We were talking about the costs of USING that technology.

Two absolutely different things.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Cassel said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

"Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc.) by the number of launches. With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the shuttle program.[25] A 2017 study found that carrying one kilogram of cargo to the ISS on the shuttle cost $272,000 in 2017 dollars, twice the cost of Cygnus and three times that of Dragon."

In order to talk about budgets, you need to understand about budgets. I suggest you learn about this.

Granted, you are not the only one doing such mistake.

Additionally, you (well, not you. The guy you quoted) also put ISS on the mess. Somehow, someone thought it would be a good idea to use the cost per Kilogram of a Project to be used to "unjustify" the budget of an entire Space Program, disregarding all changes that such project had imposed to the Program that would not be needed if such project wasn't accepted.

And yet somehow, you are still ignoring the fact that such decisions weren't from NASA, but from the very same people that would make decisions for Space Force. And you expect that Space Force would do differently?

Essentially: someone on the Company decided it would be a good idea to buy Lamborghinis to deliver groceries. Now that the expenses blew the roof, that very same guy is blaming the Lamborghinis, and now he is planning to ditch the whole division for a new one. Where this very same guy plans to deliver groceries using Ferraris.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Lisias
better phrasing.

[magnemoe]

On 10/19/2018 at 12:05 AM, Spaceception said:

Yep

NASA is important to have, because they do a lot of R&D, and exploration that private companies don't have much interest in, and that other countries are comparatively lagging behind in. Militarizing space won't do much peaceful exploration or discovery. The space force and NASA have very different goals, so it doesn't make sense to merge them. And a lot (Or even all) of what they would develop would have to have some military application to be made in the first place. After skimming the article, I don't think we need another arms race. Especially one in space. The space force right now won't have much more to do than its already done with things like the Air force space command. And meanwhile, NASA should stick to scientific discovery.

There's enough room for the both of them, but we need to err on the side of caution when it comes to stuff like the space force.

(I hope I didn't get too political)

This so much, totally different goals. Military space is about recon satellites and and communications, might get into space combat but guess that would be ground launched for an long time. 
NASA is about science, they also do plenty of non space stuff like silent supersonic who is critical for future supersonic passenger planes.
Still NASA should pull out of the orbital launcer business, still do science around it but its not something they need to do any more than running an airline

[Cassel]

15 hours ago, Lisias said:

Again, you need to learn about Projects, Programs and Cost Centers.

Some costs are amortizable, some others are pure expenses. Some Costs are split with others Programs, some don't. Some assets would be reused by new programs, some don't.

And so on.

It is not important since I want to compare few project with same measure.

 

Quote

 

And yet, it's exactly what you are doing to the Space Shuttle Program.

My previous calculations were with dollar value not from 2018 , inflation calculator used http://www.in2013dollars.com/2011-dollars-in-2018?amount=1

Per flight (after inflation in 2018)

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-16_Apollo_Program_Budget_Appropriations.htm (shame nobody made table like this for other programs)

Saturn I budget - $1,777,226,180 / 10 (flights) = $0.177 bln (payload 9t to LEO)
Saturn IB budget - $7,624,684,320 / 9 (flights) = $0.847 bln (payload 21t to LEO) (more than 12 rockets were build, so I would say closer to $0.635 bln)
Saturn V budget - $36,511,791,150 / 13 (flights) = $2,8 bln (payload 140t to LEO)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program

Space Shuttle budget - $219,520,000,000 / 135 (flights) = $1.626 bln (payload 27.5t to LEO)

---
Single vehicle cost (after inflation 2018):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_I

Saturn I - $??? bln (payload 9t)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

Saturn V - $0.716 bln (payload 140t)

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/satstg2.html

Saturn IB - $0.123 bln (payload 21t)

Space Shuttles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Endeavour
Endeavour ($2.2bln in 1992 year) - $3,960 bln (payload 27.5t )

Atlantis -
Discovery -
Columbia -
Enterprise -
Challenger -
 

EDIT:
I think that Saturn I and Saturn IB would be enough to replace Space Shuttle in single mission.

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Cassel
added payloads and Saturn I

[Lisias]

[about Projects, Programs, Cost Centers and Budgets]

Just now, Cassel said:

It is not important since I want to compare few project with same measure.

It's of the upmost importance, because without this, absolutely NOTHING you are saying has any relevance or the most remote chance of being valid.

And then, it's worthless spending time debating with you.

[StrandedonEarth]

My 2 cents (in 1969 dollars):

Overall program cost divided by number of flights will give an average cost per flight from an overall perspective. The marginal cost of adding another flight to the manifest was much lower, around that $450 million figure or less. Using the yearly human space flight budget divided by flights that year give a year-by-year idea of flight cost. 

And no, the Shuttle did not have to have all the tiles replaced after every flight, just the ones that were damaged or missing. That number was highly variable.

Edit: Getting back to the topic,  NASA isn’t going anywhere. The only thing they have in common with the proposed Space Force is getting to space. 

Given that commercial interests are now taking over the launch business, this clears NASA to get back to their NACA roots, namely developing and advancing technologies, like life support and other nascent techs. Their HSF regulatory duties could be handed off to (perhaps a new department of) the FAA

Edited October 22, 2018 by StrandedonEarth

[Exploro]

Recalling what I know about the idea of a Space Force it that the existing Mil-Space assets of the DOD; which is spread across several branches of the Armed Service and defense agencies would be consolidated into one entity. That is it. Assuming a Space Force is established by Act of Congress this branch would more or less do what Mil-Space presently already does. None of what I have read has given any consideration to or entertainment of the idea of merging NASA into this new branch. And why would it? The mission of the Space Force would be to maintain the US Military's space-based capabilities. This mission does not require a manned exploration component nor any need for robotic deep space scientific missions or earth monitoring research. And lest we forget; NASA is also charged with fostering R&D for advancing aeronautics; such as developing self-repairing flight control systems or techniques for distributed electric propulsion system. Thus there is enough importance to having a a civilian agency not subservient to the needs to the military to accomplish space exploration and it aeronautical role.

[Cassel]

Looks like Saturn design was more modular than I thought.
 

 

[Lisias]

About the end of the Space Shuttle Program, I found this:

 

Spoiler

 

 

[YNM]

On 10/24/2018 at 3:22 AM, Cassel said:

Saturn design was more modular

"Apollo Applications Program".

Edited October 27, 2018 by YNM

[SpaceCube2000]

Blasphemy! In all honesty, NASA should serve as an oversight to private endeavours like SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. They should also provide payloads and astronauts. Maybe the Donald thinks that creating a Space Force would boost American leadership in space, but I don't know. 

 

[wumpus]

On 10/23/2018 at 4:22 PM, Cassel said:

Looks like Saturn design was more modular than I thought.

Considering how SLS is turning out, I'd expect that SAS (SApolloS) would have as many issues and would probably have to be entirely redesigned with similar engines.  Each stage had to be fairly modular, they typically were all built by separate contractors, but there's no reason to believe that paper rockets can ever be built as smoothly as they claim.

I'd still expect it to work better than how the shuttle did, but I'm also absolutely certain it would never get 135 manned missions before being cut.