back to article Beancounters tell NASA it's too poor to fly planned mega-rocket

The US Government Accounting Office (GAO) has told NASA it has a massive funding shortfall for its ambitious Space Launch System (SLS) rocket if the spacecraft has any chance of blasting off on schedule. "The agency’s current funding plan for SLS may be $US400 million short of what the program needs to launch by 2017," the …

  1. Mikel

    2017?

    This thing is never going to fly.

    1. Crisp
      Coat

      Re: This thing is never going to fly.

      It works in Kerbal Space Program.

  2. Denarius
    Meh

    This is a surprise ?

    SOP for NASA now I thought. Musk and Co may yet get their day if the USA lasts long enough.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: This is a surprise ?

      Even if the US doesn't last as long, Mush will still get his shot. There's other markets than NASA.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: This is a surprise ?

        Crap..typo.. Teach me to post when I'm tired. I know it's Musk not Mush.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Coat

          Re: Mush/Musk

          Depends on how hard the landing is. Thankfully it lands softer than the competion...

          PS, mines the one with "softer than others" in the pocket.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ....

    Or, they could just give NASA more money instead of spending it on murdering brown people in the middle east or whatever.

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    On Mars, on time, on budget.

    Pick any two.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: On Mars, on time, on budget.

      You don't mention the type on landing on Mars ;-)

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: On Mars, on time, on budget.

        As long as you land next to the chinese restaurant, all is ok.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: On Mars, on time, on budget.@ Neil Barnes

      "Pick any two."

      You, sir, are an incorrigible optimist. I would suggest "Maybe pick one".

  5. Anomalous Cowshed

    Certain cuts will have to be made, say the bean counters

    Bean counter final report (20000 pages). Ultra-summarised conclusions:

    1. "Er, do we really need 7 crew members? Surely we could do with 6...what about 5? 4? I mean, it's the symbolic value that counts, right? It doesn't matter how many of them there are, at the end of the day. Let's say we settle for just 1 crew member, that should slice $ 200 million off the price".

    2. "Now, 2 solid fuel boosters, that's expensive, mate, and also difficult to sort out, as you've seen. Let's assume we were to drop one of these troublesome boosters. That would slice another $100 million off the price. Isn't that cool?"

    3. "Just imagine the savings if you were to remove that other annoying booster! But we'll get to that later."

    4. "I hear you say: cutting the booster means we cannot afford to have any astronauts on board. Well, the fact that you've already agreed to remove 6 out of the originally planned 7 astronauts, means that quite clearly, that last one is not all that important after all. If you were to cut that last astronaut, it would merely be equivalent to 1/6th of the cuts that you operated before (see 1 above). What's the big deal? Cut the last astronaut, replace him with a robot arm and a camera, and you can slice $ 50 million off the shortfall."

    5. "Having taken out the last astronaut, I'm sure you'll agree that according to your calculations, we can now run the rocket without any of the boosters. That means we can now take out the second solid fuel booster, saving a further $ 100 million!"

    6. "We've now saved $ 450 million, which means we've covered the saving of the $ 400 million shortfall, and a small part of our fee. Now for the rest of our fee, we need to think outside the box, and brainstorm. Ready? Think about it for a moment. You ain't gonna have any astronauts on your rocket. So at the end of the day, you don't really need it - the rocket I mean. After all, there are other people out there, Russians, Indians, Chinamen, who have rockets of their own. You could ask them to lend you their rockets. Think how much you could save and how happy people would be, if you cancelled that rocket of yours outright, and replaced it by a nice corporate video explaining the savings you've made!"

    7. "Well, we'll tell you how much you could save, because we've worked it out: you could save another $ 1 billion! That should enable you to meet our fees for the consultancy and accountancy work we've been doing for the past 5 years, culminating in this work. Absolutely spiffy, no?"

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Certain cuts will have to be made, say the bean counters

      But the savings will be immediately allocated for the War against the Caliphate, the War against the Emirate, the Pacific Pivot or The Other NATO Expansion. I despair.

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    I smell set up.

    "Fortunately $400m is just about what's allocated to Commercial Crew, so by terminating one of the competitors early there should be plenty of cash left to fund this abortion achievement."

  7. PassiveSmoking

    I thought the business case was obvious?

    If you don't have your own man-rated rocket then you're committing to being dependant on buying rides on the rockets of a government you're not exactly on good terms with. If you can't get to space on your own then the Russians effectively become the gatekeepers to the ISS, and do you really think Putn would not stoop to using that fact to his own advantage?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: I thought the business case was obvious?

      Putn would not stoop to using that fact to his own advantage?

      Welcome to Capitalism, yank!

    2. Beachrider

      This rocket is NOT about ISS...

      This is a deepspace rocket system that can fly to a Lagrange point and fly back. With improvements, it might even go to Mars or a deepspace station. The Russians don't do any of THAT.

      At any rate, SpaceX expects to gain more ISS/LEO work that reduces the Russians in 2018. They are going after Arianespace in the open-commercial launch business before that, too.

    3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: I thought the business case was obvious?

      "If you don't have your own man-rated rocket then you're committing to being dependant on buying rides on the rockets of a government you're not exactly on good terms with. "

      You do get that this report is about SLS?

      SLS has nothing to do with getting people to and from ISS.

      That's due to the planned Commercial Crew Transport Programme, which Congress have tried to strangle with the same vigor they continued to feed this cuckoo.

  8. James 51

    Reusing shuttle tech, isn't that forty years old?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @James 51

      "Reusing shuttle tech, isn't that forty years old?"

      How old is mains electricity? Or the wheel?

      1. James 51

        Re: @James 51

        Aye, but if you were going to built the electric grid today from scratch with the technology we have now, it would be a very different beast. As for the wheel, don't mind the width, feel the rubber.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Pirate

          Re: @James 51

          Yeah, and we all know what those ESPs really mean by "up to 220v" or "up to 30A". And you have to PAY for QoS if you want a nice steady 50Hz. And don't use too much or you'll be restricted to 24V for up to 4 hours.

  9. Christoph

    Solid boosters?

    Using solid rocket boosters on the Shuttle was a really bad compromise to save money. And now they are going to do it again - to save money. One of the reasons the private companies can do better is that they don't have a huge legacy of obsolete hardware that they have to re-use.

    Solid rockets on a man-rated vehicle is a terrible idea. Once they are lit there is no way to control or abort them, they will keep going until they burn out.

    1. AdamT

      Re: Solid boosters?

      Actually, this cropped up in the comments on a previous article. Apparently there _are_ options for aborting a solid rocket after ignition. Basically you fit a shaped charge ring around the top and bottom and cut both ends off. Once you've lost the nozzle and are venting at both ends there won't be any thrust - you just (!) have to handle the two minutes of fire coming out...

      I don't know if this was implemented on the shuttle or not but I do know that they had a multiply redundant booster ignition system to ensure that they _both_ lit. Just one lighting was one of the nightmare scenarios...

      Also, for a stack based system (i.e. Apollo, SLS, SpaceX) rather than Shuttle style, any crew compartment has to have an escape rocket system that allows it to separate and fly up to parachute height.

      So there are options to work with solid boosters. Not sure they are good ones but they do exist.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Solid boosters?

        Basically you fit a shaped charge ring around the top and bottom and cut both ends off.

        Brilliant idea, but you have to hope that it's Bruce Willis or Putin (or both) flying the shuttle at that moment. You sure won't be able to trust structural integrity of the exterior LOX/LH tank. Or the Shuttle wings.

        Just one lighting was one of the nightmare scenarios...

        Probably called a "half-circular excursion arc"?

        1. Christoph

          Re: Solid boosters?

          Probably called a "half-circular excursion arc"?

          Followed by "Lithobraking"

    2. Tom 13

      Re: Solid boosters?

      Solid rockets on man-rated vehicles are risky, but manageable as the Russians have proven. It's strapping them onto liquid rockets that makes them a disaster-in-waiting.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Solid boosters?

        "Solid rockets on man-rated vehicles are risky, but manageable as the Russians have proven. It's strapping them onto liquid rockets that makes them a disaster-in-waiting."

        Which solid fueled Russian rocket did you have in mind?

        You are aware the boosters on the Soyouz are liquid, right?

  10. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Facepalm

    We are doomed. DOOMED!

    Meanwhile, take a wank at CNN:

    What an Enterprise! NASA physicist, artist unveil warp-speed craft design

    NASA's Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive that will allow spacecraft to travel at speeds faster than light -- 186,000 miles per second. White, who heads NASA's Advanced Propulsion Team, spoke about his conceptual starship at a conference last fall. But interest in his project reached a new level this week when he unveiled images of what the craft might look like.

    This, this is what counts as progress today - CGI imagery, fantasy and make-believe.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: We are doomed. DOOMED!

      That warp drive was blown out of all proportion by the press - not NASA.

    2. synonymous cowherd
      Holmes

      Re: We are doomed. DOOMED!

      The best bit of w@nk is, grown men wasted 1600 hours sketching up a star-trek alike interstellar, faster than the speed of light fantasy (is this physically possible? - didn't say theoretically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive note : https://twitter.com/malcubierre/status/362011821277839360) ... Fuck mine, that beggars belief, I'm in the wrong job.

  11. Steve Todd

    Have they managed to solve the vibration problems yet?

    Last thing I heard the SLS solid boosters caused so much vibration that it would harm the crew.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The US Government need to adequately fund NASA so they can rebuild the manned space program. The Space Launch System needs to continue. The US Government keeps changing its priorities on human space travel with each administration in Washington, DC. W Bush wanted to return to the moon which was a good idea. Then Obama cancels the heavy lift vehicle to get it there. Then NASA needs to start again with another heavy launch vehicle when the previous one was a lot closer to flying under the Constellation program. We could have been back in space if Constellation was left to fly. Set priorities for NASA and stay the course. Apollo took 10+ years to develop but the government had to stick with the plan and not change it.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      W Bush wanted to return to the moon which was a good idea. until elected a second time.

      HTH.

      There was never any serious attempt to do anything along these lines. Or if there was, you can find it underneath an office carpet. The guy had a surge to implement, dontcha know.

    2. fritsd
      Paris Hilton

      The moon launches were done with the heavy lift Saturn V, but I don't understand WHY you would do that now. Why not

      1. launch crew module with crew to ISS (low orbit)

      2. launch lander module / moonbase tin can to ISS

      3. crew attaches crew module to lander module

      4. launch command module to ISS

      5. crew attaches command module to crew module

      6. launch rocket with vacuum-rated propulsion module with kerosene / LOX to ISS

      7. crew attaches propulsion module to the rest

      8. launch to moon orbit (now you need delta-V of 5 or so instead of 9 + 5, and the rocket doesn't need to plough through the atmosphere)

      that would be hundreds of millions. not billions.

      And why was the space shuttle strapped to the side of the rockets instead of at the top? I never figured that one out.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        @fritsd

        <lunar orbit plan needing multiple launches>

        There's really a few reasons why NASA won't do it that way. some sensible, some dumb as a stump.

        1) The Congress told them not to.

        2)They are actually s**t scared of orbital rendezvous having spent nearly 5 decades failing to invest in better EVA suits (although they got a radically better glove design for a couple of $m when they did it as a competition) and on orbit propellant management.

        3) The biggest US rocket (the Delta IV Heavy) can do 28 1/2 tonnes to LEO for about $500m and is not human rated, although it's sibling the Atlas V is. So between them you could launch 100 tonnes for about $2Bn. But NASA is also terrified of launch failures and long delays with the LH2 (which will be what NASA will use for the upper stage) boiling off since the longest an on orbit LH2 stage has lasted has been 12 hours (Centaur upper stage). See what happens when you don't invest in basic research over 1/2 a century?

        4)The Congress told them to.

        QED Must build big rocket because must build big rocket.

  13. James 51

    The US Government needed to inadequately fund NASA so they can rebuild the companies that funds election campains. FTFY.

    1. Beachrider

      Why don't you guys get ESA going...

      I know that there is lots of interest in NASA's budgets, but nothing would get NASA better funding than if the ESA got anywhere-near NASA's level of funding. You guys elect the folks to do the ESA.

  14. Gene Cash Silver badge

    This isn't NASA's budget

    This is Congress' budget. NASA just gets whatever Congress scraps off the plate and has just about zero say in it. I don't see why they're pounding NASA about it.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: This isn't NASA's budget

      "This is Congress' budget. NASA just gets whatever Congress scraps off the plate and has just about zero say in it. I don't see why they're pounding NASA about it."

      True.

      But it was Congress who asked the GAO to find out what the state of play was.

      I think their concern is the apparent level of denial within SLS management

      Keep in mind that NASA's standard level of confidence that a programme will get done on time and budget is 70%. IE there's roughly a 1/3 chance it won't happen at that budget and/or schedule as standard.

      I think that under the UK Major Project Authority that would be a Red traffic light.

  15. Kharkov
    Facepalm

    Is anyone surprised?

    So NASA is building a massively expensive rocket and has been told that, due to the massive costs, they are highly likely to fall behind schedule?

    I'm shocked, shocked! I tell you.

  16. Terry Cloth
    Headmaster

    That's ``Gov't _Accountability_ Office'' these days.

    Not to be nit-picky or anything: gao.gov.

  17. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    I'm curious who the down vote was from.

    Probably some little troll who can't string a coherent argument together I should imagine.

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