NASA OIG Report on Commercial Crew Program
NASA IG Final Report: NASA’s Management of the Commercial Crew Program
“… the Commercial Crew Program has received only 38 percent of requested funding for fiscal years 2011 through 2013, bringing the current aggregate budget gap to $1.1 billion when comparing funding requested to funding received. In addition, although NASA’s Commercial Crew partners have completed their preliminary spacecraft designs, NASA managers have yet to develop a life cycle cost estimate showing the anticipated costs of the program year-by-year throughout its life from preliminary design through the end of operations. Without this type of detailed cost estimate, it is difficult for NASA to calculate how much funding is required each year given that costs over time can fluctuate significantly. “
It seems that failure to get the promised funding is a constant theme in NASA HSF – For commercial crew as well as SLS.
That’s the nature of a politician. That’s not going to change. 🙁
“Without this type of detailed cost estimate, it is difficult for NASA to calculate how much funding is required each year given that costs over time can fluctuate significantly.“
Difficult? In fairness to NASA managers, the total life cycle cost and the annual rate of funding are mutually dependent. You can’t narrow down either one without some meaningful indication of the other. It’s a trade-off situation. Every time Congress changes or delays an allocation, any costs that have been previously calculated go out the window.
Totally agree with you and Ben R-G. NASA’s annual budget has had a downtrend which itself impacts many missions. Additionally, congressman or senators’ pet projects or mandates give to one program, taking from another. Many projects in development phase during the past 20 years have been put on the shelf, taken off it and as already stated, cost estimates must be reworked. It is easy to say that it doubles the final cost and often more. Personnel are lost (experience) and/or new hires must be found, trained. Designs have to be revised to fit in revised budgets and it raises costs.
So what congress does to complicate project management needs to be stopped, somehow curtailed. Certainly, one can counter that they are responding to internal management failures such as for ISS over a quarter century of development, but it compounded the problem. First change how the legislative and the executive branches manage NASA, then deal with internal management.