13 Jahre und 500 Millionen Dollar für einen Bühnenadapter? Bericht rechtfertigt Absagen der NASA | „Der Auftragswert für diese Bemühungen stieg von fast 2,8 Milliarden US-Dollar auf 5,9 Milliarden US-Dollar.“

>Three months ago, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the space agency was making a major pivot from building a space station in lunar orbit to a base on the surface. This “Ignition” event followed an earlier announcement in which NASA also said it was ending development of a new upper stage for its Space Launch System rocket.

>In the aftermath of these decisions, there was some grumbling—mostly from contractors involved with the programs—that NASA was foolishly walking away from nearly complete hardware that the space agency needed for its Artemis Program.

>Isaacman said these programs were not essential for landing humans on the Moon, and added that they had cost far more than originally budgeted and had been subjected to years of delays. Moreover, they were still not ready.

>“For too long we tried to satisfy every stakeholder,” he said during the Ignition event in March. “Billions of dollars wasted. Years lost. Hardware that never launched. Fewer flagship science missions. And fewer astronauts in space, which means fewer kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween. I don’t like it. The president doesn’t like it. The American people have waited long enough.”

>Elements reviewed by inspector general

>On Wednesday, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General prepared a memorandum on the elements of the Artemis Program that NASA was canceling as its focus shifted to the Moon’s surface. These were:

>* Exploration Upper Stage, an upgrade for the Space Launch System rocket
>* Universal Stage Adapter, which links the Orion spacecraft to the Exploration Upper Stage
>* Mobile Launcher 2, a larger launch tower for the upgraded Space Launch System rocket
>* Habitation and Logistics Outpost, a habitation module for the Lunar Gateway

>The memorandum notes that each of these projects has experienced substantial cost increases and numerous delays over the last decade.

A lot of people are screaming sunk cost, but a very expected norm out spaceflight programs is cost and schedule overruns. You don’t know what problems you’re going to have to solve until you run face first into them.

I’m not saying that there aren’t elements of corporate greed and exploitation at play that need to be addressed, but but overall this phenomenon alone isn’t sufficient justification to cancel programs across the board.

If the cost of groceries goes up, should I decide to just stop buying groceries? Probably not! But I would re-examine other grocery stores and see if I can get similar quality produce at a cheaper store.

This NASA administrator hasn’t done a very good job at identifying the alternatives to his broad cancellations.

Starship and New Glenn are very far away from being adequate replacements for SLS, and probably have already taken the same amount of investment as SLS has.

Centaur V will need a massive investment to be compatible with SLS (probably even more than it would take to finish eus).

Moon Base transport and logistics will be very difficult without an orbital outpost to receive goods at.

These moves are very much cutting off the nose of the American space program to spite our face.

Not surprised. Government is very good at wasting money.

I’m tired boss. We live in a time where spaceflight is at an all time cheapest and easiest, but NASA programs are more rare and expensive than almost ever. DoD and NRO are gorging themselves on cheap flights and dozens of flights per year, meanwhile we get less and more expensive NASA missions over last two decades. I don’t want it to be like that.

Sure. Do we have the real data? No. We only have data from the marketing team and Musk.

So the source is „trust me bro“

And again. Do it or it didn’t happen. Succefully reach a full orbit and deploy 44t or whatever. Then I believe it. Otherwise it’s just autonomous driving is solved by end of year.

Edit: lol I see that I made a top-level comment and didn’t reply to the guy claiming starship had already shown full performance according to the data.

wait how does a stage adapter cost half a billion

Dont the cost increases kinda make sense though? its just a a little over double in 13 years. if groceries have more than doubled in the last 13 years, it would be reasonable to believe that other budgets would too.