Skip to main content
HobbySpace - Space Log - Space For Everyone:
"Space myths of all kinds... Keith Cowing corrects Rick Tumlinson on his claim during the Senate Committee hearing this week that NASA vastly overpaid for a device to attach tethers during spacewalks: The Danger of Perpetuating False Urban Myths in Space - SpaceRef - Jan.30.04.

Keith makes a number of good points about being careful on such claims since analysis and experience may indeed show that there were excellent reasons for using an expensive, custom designed device instead of a cheap-off-the-shelf (COTS) item. Space is a whole new environment that can pull very unexpected and dangerous tricks on those designing equipment for space.

However, I think there is also a danger of encouraging the opposing myth held by many within NASA that whenever there are claims that a launch or space system could be done cheaper than they are doing it, this never holds true under detailed analysis. In fact there are several cases that can now be cited where the usual NASA and standard aerospace industry design and procurement system is shown to be far more expensive than necessary.

For example, just yesterday I was meeting with Pat Bahn who was back from Norman, Oklahoma where his TGV Rockets company now has a group of engineers doing detailed design studies of their Michelle B vehicle. While looking at cost estimates for their vehicle he decided to plug the numbers for the DC-X into the NASA Mission Operations Cost Model. (Pat should have the details of the DC-X since he has several former DC-X team members working as consultants.)

The NASA model predicts a development cost of '$4.461 Billion dollars, and a unit production cost of $68Million dollars.' A RAND airframe cost model was not as pessimistic, coming in at a mere $510M.

The entire DC-X design and production was actually completed for less then $70 million in 1989 dollars according to Pat. The DC-X program was famous for being run by Pete Conrad in a tightfisted X vehicle project style with a very small team and using COTS parts and software wherever possible. I've heard similar such estimates before at presentations made by DC-X managers who said the project cost was a factor of ten or so below what would have been the 'normal' price for such a project."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Jodie Lane Project Responds to City Council Testimony

The Jodie Lane Project : New York, NY -- February 12, 2004. The City Council Transportation Committee held a hearing today to investigate the causes of Jodie S. Lane’s tragic electrocution death on January 16th. The testimony revealed a startling lack of oversight on the part of the Public Services Commission, charged with overseeing Con Edison’s compliance with the National Electric Safety Code, last revised in 1913. With only 5 inspectors at their disposal, the Public Services Commission relies entirely on Con Edison to report safety problems. Because Con Edison only reports incidents resulting in injury or death, the PSC was aware of only 15 shock incidents in the last 5 years. Con Edison has acknowledged that it actually received 539 reports of shock incidents in the same period, effectively admitting to misleading the PSC by an order of magnitude. It is not only this discrepancy that is alarming, but also the fact that the Public Services Commission, charged with ensuring

New York Post Online Edition

news : "December 29, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad - considered the most dangerous city in the world - now has a lower murder rate than New York. The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Bush administration and outside experts are touting these new figures as a sign that, eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, major progress is starting to be made in the oft-criticized effort by the United States and coalition partners to restore order and rebuild Iraq. 'If these numbers are accurate, they show that the systems we put in place four months ago to develop a police force based on the principles of a free and democratic society are starting to