John Schwartz of NYT has written “NASA Is Said to Loosen Risk Standards for Shuttle” published today. My cost benefit analysis is here.

The statistics can be simplified. What are the failure modes? What are their probabilities? How much do those probabilities overlap? What rate is it OK for the shuttle to fail? How much does it cost to mitigate the failure modes? Stack rank them according to the highest increase in safety for the lowest cost. Go to work.

So we have a failure mode of about 1% based on 100 trials. So far it has cost $2 billion to mitigate it. That implies that NASA is acting as if the value of the orbiter and crew on each flight is $7 billion or more to make the benefits of the fix outweigh the cost ($2 billlion to achieve a less than 1% reduction in the probability of a fail in 28 flights. $2 billion/(28 * 1%) = $7 billion). The families of the 9/11 victims each received $2.1 million. To compensate the families of astronauts who may die at the same level would cost $15 million. At commercial prices of $16 million for a Falcon V which delivers about 1/4 of a shuttle’s worth to the ISS, we could buy 443 flights for $7 billion not counting range and payload costs or over 100 shuttles flights’ worth. Even using the Ariane at $4,000/lb according to Futron’s 2002 price estimate we could buy 28 shuttle flights’ worth of Ariane payload for $5.6 billion. With viable outside commercial options that are less expensive to build and operate than the shuttle is to just operate, the sale price of the shuttle would be zero. We should not be treating it like a $7 billion asset. So perhaps the cost/benefit analysis is a little off at NASA.

Or maybe the following quote from AWST, 4/11/2005 (subscription required) will give you a better feel for what is really going on at NASA:

“We had one place in the backpack where, because of the confined space, the wire bend was tighter than the specified engineering limit was. And the EVA folks said it will cost us $100,000 to fix this,” [Wayne Hale, the deputy shuttle program manager] said. “Well, in the space business, $100,000 is not a lot of money, so I said go fix this.”

This man should be relieved and someone put in place someone who can explain cost-benefit to the public.

Not that I’d noticed, but apparently today is the thirty-fifth Earth Day. Jim and Cooky Oberg said a year ago that the proponents of the day are thinking too small. Nothing’s changed since, apparently.

The president’s science advisor says that Mike Griffin will ride to the rescue, and save us from the dreaded gap.

Unlike Senator Hutchison, though, who unaccountably thinks gaps are a national security crisis, Dr. Marburger is more sanguine about them. Too much so, in fact, for my taste:

…more gaps in access were likely in the future of the U.S. space program. These gaps are to be viewed as a fact of life in space operations, he suggested.

“There will be future gaps from time to time. The thing to remember is that the president’s plan is a long-term, sustained commitment.” Gaps, he suggested, were simply a part of the continuing process of space exploration.

While I don’t in fact think that “gaps” are that big a deal, given the trivial things that we’re currently doing (and even planning) with our civil manned spaceflight program, I’m quite disturbed by the notion that they are an inevitable feature of space operations. Imagine if he’d said, “there will be future gaps from time to time in our ability to get into the air,” or “there will be future gaps from time to time in our ability to cross the oceans.”

Clearly, this isn’t an attitude that would be acceptable if we were actually doing anything important with humans in space. The fact that he can make such a statement is a window into his perception of the importance of being a space-faring nation, a goal at which the current plans for VSE still fall far short, for decades.

Senator Hutchison is going to be a distinct downgrade from Sam Brownback, when it comes to space policy, though she’ll probably be good news for JSC. It also means that one of her nicknames should be “Senator from ISS.”

In an article in which Bill Readdy says that NASA plans to accelerate the development of the CEV (not intrinsically a bad thing, given that it’s going to be built at all, and certainly in line with the new administrator’s desires), note this:

Sen. Kay Hutchison (R-Texas), subcommittee chair, said that NASA must work to avoid being caught without the ability to launch its own human missions to the ISS and low-Earth orbit.

Mike Griffin wrote Marshall a blank check yesterday.

As Keith points out, this doesn’t exactly square with his previous (laudable) statements about having more (needed) competition between centers.

[Afternoon update]

Clark Lindsey isn’t very impressed, either:

MSFC is rewarded for all those successful launch vehicle development projects it carried out in the past couple of decades

Here’s an interesting bit from Will Whitehorn’s (of Virgin Galactic) testimony this morning on the Hill:

Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to the question the Subcommittee asked about what preparations we presently are undertaking for the use of the spaceships we plan to purchase from Mr. Rutan. We are focused on complying fully with the letter and spirit of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004. Scaled Composites will have sole responsibility to certify the spacecraft. However, together, we are engaged in an active dialogue with the Federal Aviation Administration on other aspects of our business.

Emphasis mine.

This does not compute. If he complies with the CSLA, there will be no spacecraft certification–just a launch license. So the question is, was this a deliberate attempt to insert the C-word into the discussion (since Burt has been agitating to do this for some time), or was it simply sloppy usage by someone who doesn’t know better? One would think that company lawyers would vet a submitted Congressional testimony from someone representing a company like this, but it could be that they didn’t realize the significance of it. And in fact, it may have no significance at all, and I’m just being hypersensitive.

Sorry I didn’t notice this earlier, but Clark Lindsey has been live blogging this morning’s commercial space hearing. There seems to be a common (and worthy) theme here–reform ITAR.

[1 PM update]

Keith Cowing has the prepared testimony.

I don’t know if they read this or not, but Virgin Galactic appears to be taking money.

I got the following link in an email confirmed for all to see here.

Go quick. $20,000 refundable deposit only costs about $1200 in interest costs at today’s money market rates. No word if the deposits are transferrable.

Mike Griffin seems to agree with me about Shuttle upgrades:

Asked at his first news conference if he would allow Discovery to fly despite some reservations by the independent Stafford-Covey Commission, which monitors NASA progress on safety recommendations after the Columbia disaster, Griffin replied, “In concept, yes I would.”

…”Advisory groups advise. We need to take our advice very seriously …,” Griffin said. “But at the end of the day, the people wearing government and contractor badges charged with launching the vehicle will be the ones who are responsible and accountable for their actions.”