Andy Pasztor has an article at the Journal today about NASA’s budget problems that is very misleading in its use of the word “Constellation.” For instance:
By casting doubt on Constellation’s progress, the report may provide ammunition for lawmakers and others hoping to extend the life of the shuttle past its current retirement date of 2010. Extending the life of the shuttle could reduce the gap between the last shuttle flight and the initial operation of Constellation. Lockheed Martin Corp. is the prime contractor for the project.
No, Lockheed Martin is not the prime contractor for Constellation, which consists of a number of system elements, starting with the Ares 1 launcher and Orion capsule. LM is only prime for the Orion. ATK is the lead for the Ares 1.
And then he writes:
Accelerating Constellation to 2013, as some inside NASA have advocated, would require significantly larger budget hikes, according to the report. NASA officials project the total cost for Constellation at around $30 billion
It’s not “accelerating Constellation,” which won’t be complete for many years, as it includes things like the Ares V heavy lifter, earth departure stages, the Altair lunar lander, etc., development of which haven’t even begun. It’s only accelerating Ares/Orion, which is what is required to close the dreaded “gap” (assuming that they don’t instead just do COTS D and hope that SpaceX comes through with Falcon 9 and Dragon).
And there’s no way that the total cost for “Constellation” will be only thirty billion. The GAO recently estimated that Ares 1 alone is going to cost at least seventeen billion, and Orion was going to cost at least twenty, with top estimates of twenty and twenty-nine respectively, which would mean close to fifty billion for Ares/Orion alone (and that’s just development costs — it excludes operations).
With all the numbers floating around out there, it’s easy to get things confused, but the words do mean things. Ares/Orion are not Constellation — they are a subset of it and only the first planned elements.
Rand,
Ever since Chomsky and Derrida became the touchstones of modern thought, the phrase “words do mean things” no longer means anything.
Gnorp plot kalattu cronx wevey. Ney?
I recall when various people commented that the VSE was going to cost a trillion dollars and require over $100 Billion in hardware developement up front. NASA and it’s fellow travelers utterly derided that.
Well It’s at $44 Billion and rising.
I bought a book on X-planes last week that brought back memories of the late 90’s. I’m sure I read somewhere that the estimated development cost for Venturestar was around $6 billion. Can someone explain to me why Ares 1/Orion is going to cost over 8 times that much?
Yes. because the trillion-dollar estimate was insane, with no basis of estimate.