NASA Watch Budget Question for Charlie Bolden
Keith’s note: Questions at this afternoon’s budget press conference can be tweeted with the hashtag #asknasa. NASA will try and answer some of them. Here’s my question:
“Mr. Bolden: one of features of this budget are dramatic cuts to NASA’s planetary program – specifically, to Mars exploration. This comes at a time when NASA has to cover $1 billion in cost overruns for the Webb Space Telescope. Meanwhile, Mars Science Laboratory is on its way to Mars, itself a billion dollars over budget and 2 years late. Space Station, NPOESS, and other projects with multibillion dollar cost overruns orbit overhead. When is NASA going to stop rewarding large projects that overrun by paying whatever it takes to complete these missions – thus taking funds from other missions that are either on budget or yet to be built? Why is it that after 50 years of space exploration NASA’s ability to predict and control costs on large programs seems to be decreasing – not increasing – as one would expect as the agency gained experience?”
When is NASA going to stop rewarding large projects that overrun by
paying whatever it takes to complete these missions …
When the politics behind selling a large mission don’t require “underbidding” it. True with weapons systems too.
– thus taking funds
from other missions that are either on budget or yet to be built?
When the appreciation of small missions and their often extraordinary returns allow then to not be “stolen” from in order to justify new piggies in the trough to be funded (read SLS at the moment).
Alan Stern had the best approach to deal with budget discipline.
My prescription for any large mission of new scope is one or more demo mission “throw aways” to prove the expensive, difficult risks – if those cost/time overrun, you kill the large mission. While we shouldn’t fear doing something big, we should fear the wrong approach to attempting it.
Why not make all your missions small making it easier to control cost?
I Thought the mars polar lander mission was great didn’t it use off the shelf parts from older failed missions… Off the shelve wow there’s an idea use similar parts over and over to bring down cost and do many small missions which uses more of those truly competitive EELVs NASA uses to drive down launch cost while providing profit that of course the primes use to lobby for cost plus HR up grades to try to keep Spacex out of the market. Lol
American free enterprise
Ain’t it grand
While I look for the noofcsq s pony NASA looks for how to hide the pork.
I just read an article on the Mars Polar Lander in Scientific American and I believe it said that the project was sold to NASA to use the back-up lander from the first one that failed. I also believe it was said in the article that it was later abandoned and a new one was built. But that doesn’t mean that there were huge cost over runs. I don’t think there were specifics on the financials in the article.
Actually, Mars Polar Lander is a counter example. They were motivated by Goldin to do a “too cheap”, “too fast” small mission – so to work to doing a bunch of same, as you reasonably suggest. E.g. we tried that.
The problem was that they stretched things too far and made some bonehead mistakes that should have been caught on review – reminds me of Mars 96 and Fobos Grunt.
When you get “too good a deal”, you tend to try to get better than you should get, so you get a stupid failure where if you objectively assessed getting “good enough”, you’d not get a failure.
Phoenix Lander proved conclusively MPL was sound. All they needed was a bit of clarity, budget, review, test … and revision.
Right on, NOoC. There are no short cuts, ever. It’s as simple as that.
Steve
With both military and non-military programs, I advocate preceding a big program with an additional small “definition” program, especially for high-risk or new technology programs. The small program helps you refine requirements and more tightly estimate cost and schedule, saving overruns and debates during the big program. Sometimes the smaller program results in the big program being canceled. That’s not a happy thing, but in most situations it sure beats both parties losing their shirts. Unless, of course, you’re lucking enough to get a cost-plus time and material program, in which case the bigger the better for the contractor.
Steve
bc you can’t sell a BMW to congress unless you value it at a Matchbox Car’s Value!!! …. there is your answer Keith … like it or not!
BMWs?? well a least it’s not a ferrari
For the record, NPOESS was a DoD, not NASA, procurement. NPP (now Suomi NPP) was a NASA procurement that went over budget, but only because NASA was forced to rely on NOAA and the DoD for parts of the system, and they went over budget, not NASA itself. NASA has enough procurement problems, let’s not blame it for everything.