Waste in Space

The blog below was originally written in 2012.  The graphic above reflects more recent numbers, showing that the math on the SLS is just getting worse.  This behemoth is a white elephant and a drag on our ability to explore deep space.

NASA spent ten billion dollars on the Constellation program during the five years of its existence, from 2005 until president Obama cancelled it in 2010.  They had little to show for the money except an expensive and almost catastrophic suborbital test flight of a dummy first stage and an incomplete space capsule. The Orion/MPCV capsule is the only piece they carried over to the current SLS program.  Developing the Orion capsule consumed about half of the money; $5 billion of that $10 billion.  Recent estimates for Orion reaching first flight say that it will require $6 to 7 billion more. NASA also spent around a billion dollars just to modify one of the shuttle launch pads so that it could be used to launch the Ares vehicle.

Meanwhile SpaceX developed and launched two complete launch vehicles, the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, and a space capsule that will eventually carry humans in orbit, the Dragon. They designed and flew two different versions of their Merlin rocket engines plus their Draco thruster, they built a huge factory in California, a test facility in Texas, and launch facilities on a pacific atoll and at Cape Canaveral, Florida.  They are building another launch pad at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.  They have done all of this for about $1 billion, and almost all of that was exclusively privately raised funds. The SpaceX Falcon 9 can put an 11.5 ton payload into low earth orbit (LEO) for approximately $54 million or $2400 a pound. The Falcon 9 / Dragon spacecraft will launch a 7 person crew to LEO for approximately $120 million or a fraction over $17 million per seat.  That's about one third of what Russia is now charging NASA for seats on Soyuz and an order of magnitude cheaper than Constellation would have been. Even the Chinese have flatly stated that they cannot match SpaceX on price.

Also, SpaceX plans to test fly its Falcon Heavy in late 2015.  The Falcon Heavy that will have a payload capacity of around 53 tons to LEO at a cost of less than $150 million per launch.  That is $1400 per pound, which is getting very close to the “holy grail” price of $1000 per pound. Again that was with ZERO developmental cost to the American taxpayer.

The future of manned space exploration is with commercial development, not bloated government programs like SLS.  The Space Launch System, or SLS, is the government funded project NASA came up with to please members of the House and Senate that opposed President Obama's efforts to lower costs by introducing commercial competition.  It followed the cancellation of the Constellation Program as the vehicle to replace the retired Space Shuttle.  An unofficial NASA document recently estimated the cost of the program through 2025 to total at least $41B for four 70 metric ton launches.  Some estimates place the SLS cost per pound to LEO at $8,500, more than six times that of the Falcon Heavy.

The Competitive Space Task Force, in September 2011, said that the new government launcher directly violates NASA’s charter, the Space Act, and the 1998 Commercial Space Act requirements for NASA to pursue the "fullest possible engagement of commercial providers" and to "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space".  So why are we throwing scarce taxpayer money at the monstrosity called SLS, and not fully funding COTS and Commercial Crew programs?  Ask your Senator or Congressman.  Something is VERY wrong with this picture.