CEV Hearing Notes

Editor’s note: GAO’s Allen Li cited a $230 billion cost over two decades for VSE, said that he was disappointed at NASA’s initial response to GAO’s reccommendations, and that he still feels that NASA has gone further than he thinks it should have gone in making contractual committments for the CEV in lieu of firm cost estimates.

When Doc Horowitz was asked by Rep. Gordon if he was prepared to accept a formal cost cap for the CEV, Horowitz claimed that he already had one given that he had to complete his tasks within a given amount of money. When Gordon repeated the question, Horowitz said that he did not see any reason why he couldn’t accept a fixed cost cap – but that he’d check on this back at NASA.

Doc Horowitz spoke of a $200 million cost per CEV flight. Allen Li said that he did not have confidence in that number and that it would not be known until 2008.

When asked about personnel cuts Horowitz stated that there was a fixed budget and therefore a known number of people – yet he was unable to say how many people would be retained or laid off – nor could he describe the sorts of jobs that would be retained and those which would no longer be needed. He also said that he was 100% confident that cost overruns cold be avoided if he was able to implement the tools that he wants to put in place.