NASA Still Has No Idea What A SLS Launch Will Cost
NASA SLS manager John Honeycutt pushes back against audit, AL.com
“I will certainly say that the SLS rocket is not going to come at a cost of $4 billion a shot,” Honeycutt told an SLS media briefing at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.”
Keith’s note: OK, so John Honeycutt, the NASA SLS manager, is certainly in a position to know what the real cost of a single launch is, right? What manager would not know such a thing about their main product? And if he says that it is “not … $4 billion” then he is certainly basing this on knowledge of the actual cost, right? Otherwise how would he know that the cost is “not … $4 billion” unless he knew the real cost, right? If he knows the actual cost then why can’t he tell us? Or … does he (NASA) not know what the cost is and wants to deflect from that fact? Just trying to inject some logic into this. I’d ask PAO but they either ignore me or send me useless sentences that give me a headache.
Oh, it’s probably even way more $$.
As a taxpayer, I am appalled at the waste of our money.
As a space fan, I cry for what we could be doing if we spent that money wisely.
I’m as frustrated as anyone else about the cost, delays, regressions, and obsfucation.
But to be fair – the $4.1B number from OIG is a total mission cost, which includes Orion & its support. “only” about 1/2 is attributed to SLS.
It seems likely that Honeycutt is talking only about “his” part – the rocket, not the payload. Not sure it’s unreasonable for his SWAG to be that it’s unlikely for what’s attributed to him to double, “this close” to the (currently advertised) end.
Then again, that cost has doubled before 🙁 And silos are the enemy of system knowledge and efficiency.
The NASASpacefiight forums have discussed this at length, and are worth reading if you have the time to browse. (e.g. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=48676)
So why did he specifically mention that $4 billion figure, when he knows it is inapplicable? His statement is designed to be factually correct (a SLS doesn’t cost $4 billion) while falsely implying that the $4 billion figure (for everything) is incorrect. The OIG has previously criticized NASA for running Artemis as multiple, parallel projects (SLS, Orion, EGS, etc.) both for the inefficiency and because it conceals the true, total cost.
I never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, or context.
The article doesn’t make it clear whether the quote came from Honeycutt’s prepared remarks, or from a media question about the OIG report that he potentially hasn’t read. If the latter, it could, maybe, have been a question that misstated (or he misunderstood) the $4.1B as the cost of an SLS rather than the cost of a mission.
I don’t want to be seen as defending him. I wasn’t there. I don’t know him. Just giving the benefit of the doubt. The civil servants that I know do their best to serve their country honestly withinn the constraints set by their political masters. And, unfortunately, the organizational silos frequently prevent a program level view. When there is a program – the OIG report noted that Artemis is not managed as a single program.
I think it’s more than fair to criticize the program design, the political forces that shaped it, and its execution.
I don’t think it’s fair to assume what Honeycutt knew or that he spoke with deceptive intent. If you know what he knew, please indicate how.
I wish the media present had been sufficiently awake to ask the obvious question: “When you said that ‘The SLS rocket is not going to come at a cost of $4 billion a shot,’, did you realize that the IG’s $4B estimate is for the mission cost, not just SLS’s contribution, which he estimates at $2.1B? Do you agree with the $2.1B?” That would have settled that part of the issue.
I think that the SLS program has turned out to be a criminal waste, with a poor (considering opportunity cost, negative) ROI. And a competent and independent manager would recognize the sunk costs, terminate it, and use the resources for a better solution.
Given the political constraints, it’s not clear that anyone in NASA has the independence to do that.
As a taxpayer I’m deeply disappointed.
The OIG know their job.
If they say the cost of SLS is $2.1B and a full up mission is $4.1B then their estimate is close enough to preclude debate.
Musk is offering Starship at (he says) $2M a flight. if he’s out by an order of magnitude it’s still only $20M a flight. Even if he’s two orders of magnitude out you’d still get 5 flights of Starship for the cost of SLS.
And Starship hardware has already flown. SLS hasn’t.
Scrap SLS now.
Mr. Honeycutt statement is technically true but disingenuous. The Inspector General’s statement was that each Artemis mission would cost $4.1 billion. He specifically said that included everything. SLS, the Orion capsule, ground systems, operations, etc. So it’s correct to say a SLS by itself will not cost $4.1 billion. SLS is “only” a bit over $2 billion of the total.
Since the OIG’s $4.1B number is only for the operational cost. Wonder how much is added to the cost of each SLS launch if you included their share of the development cost of the SLS, Orion and the EGS (ground infrastructure).
I don’t know if it is $2 billion or $4 billion. Actually if the program is costing $4 or 5 billion each year and you can only get one of these rockets off every year or two, then that means the cost of one vehicle, one flight, is really between $4 billion and $8 billion. Whether it is $2 billion or it is $8 billion, it is ridiculous to waste this kind of money when there are much less expensive alternatives already available. Remember Augustine’s 16th law, that by 2054 the entire budget will purchase only a single vehicle? It is 2022 and Human Space Flight has already reached this milestone.
I should have said this applies to NASA Human Space Flight. A lot of others seem to be working more effectively for a lot less. NASA has outclassed itself on this one.
While I was only a very small cog in a very large wheel, this is one of the reasons I retired last year. I liked what I was doing and I think we did some good work helping to digitally transforming SLS business process systems (still with remnants of Apollo business process steps!), if I raised my head up to 10,000 feet, the view was not pretty and was personally hard to justify being part of that large wheel.
So Orion is 1 Billion a copy? SLS (hardware only) is 3 Billion and the ground system is about 550 Million.
So he’s right. It’s not 4 Billion a launch. Its 4.5 Billion.
But honestly, Orion cost 1 Billion a copy?
Also SLS cost will jump after the 3rd flight when the existing stock of SSMEs is existed. But that won’t happen until 2030.
KLL SLS NOW.
Good luck. This is a “zombie program”, you couldn’t kill it even if you wanted to. Much like the F22.