Problem is as someone, pointed out up above, NASA projects aren’t allowed to submit realistic budgets. In order to get a project approved they have to essentially lie to Congress. Unless Congress and the public is willing to fund science projects at the appropriate level, including contingency funds to cover those unexpected problems, I don’t see how else it can be done. If we followed your advice, the result would be massive waste and a landscape littered with half-finished projects.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” — Timothy 6:10

Money itself is a tool to be used for good or bad.

In corporate America they use Budgets to control expenses so they can manage costs as they relate to company value. So if a budget is reaching its capacity they cut costs, reduce functionality or fire people and cut corners. NASA, that isn’t much of an option.

NASA’s goal isn’t to return an ROI to investors as it relates to profiting from a product line that has controlled/fixed costs – its to get an ROI of knowledge as well as technology that can be passed down to educational, private and commercial sectors. Thats wortha billion times more than what NASA gets today.

Private industry isn’t going to launch, design, build, maintain a project of this scope (har har har). If we think the dollar is worth more than the knowledge & experience gained from this then as a society were screwed.

Money is the root of all evil.

I could, but it’s not relevant to the point, even though it’s probably true. My point was that AaronB’s argument isn’t a good one for *defending NASA*. NASA’s supporters should instead point out the benefits society gains from space exploration and exploitation.

While that’s true, there’s the issue of what infrastructure is created with that labour. In NASA’s case it’s a few spacecraft. It’s all too easy for opponents of NASA to say, “Let’s instead pay this money to other engineers and labourers to build roads and houses. That way, the salary money is still spent on Earth, but the infrastructure created is also here on Earth, and benefiting voters…er, citizens.”

The launch delay will help spread the costs, and it looks like they may trade observing time to the ESA for a free launch on an Ariane 5.

put strategies in place to prevent it happening again

You’re kidding, right? You want to hit budget targets on bleeding edge technology on this scale? Not going to happen. I’ve spent 20 years in R&D satellite work. We push and push and push the edge, and there is *always* at least two major unexpected complications on every project. They tend to be solvable, and we learn a lot from them, but they take time and $$$.

They say if you don’t utterly fail once in a while, you aren’t pushing far enough.

I’d much rather spend the money doing that than giving it to Corporate Execs who will use it to take their next $4.5 million dollar vacation retreat.

Not that I love these loser execs who get rich on their epic failures, but you realize the vacation retreats hire people, too, right? Ever tour the mansions in Newport, RI? People think it’s such an ostentatious display of pre-income tax wealth. Do you realize how many people were employed there? Entire business dynasties of skilled craftsmen and their decedents were started because of those places. The construction and upgrades were never ending, and the household staffs were enormous.

As long as the money isn’t being hidden in a mattress of a Scrooge McDuck style vault, it’s out there circulating. You want some? Go earn it.

Of course, your previously published works might make the prevention of black hole impacts a more pressing priority for NASA.

Which is only slightly less ridiculous than convincing people that God is going to turn everyone into a pillar of salt or give us hemmorhoids.

Dang, this is getting very Clintonian… it all depends on what your definition of IS is, or perhaps Orwellian would be more like it… We are at war with East Asia. We have always been at war with East Asia. (2 weeks later) We are at war with West Asia. We have always been at war with West Asia.

So much for the guvmint, Feh

All of them are worthy investments for the advancement of human science, but it’s PATHETIC what percentage is spent on resolving the asteroid issue, or at least the part of it we actually can resolve..

I say take 1% of this MSL budget and try doing what the guys at the B612 Foundation want to try.

I’m still waiting for a nuclear powered launch vehicle,,,yeah, like that’s ever going to happen,,,(maybe the Chinese will do it?)

GAry 7

The man has either a major problem with reality or with the truth.

Left Hand: Whah whah wow wohoow.

Right Hand: Wohoow?

Left Hand: Yeah. What?

Right Hand: I thought your knew that wasn’t what I would . . .

Left Hand: . . . I thought you knew I would say that!

Casual Observer: Call me when unjustified expectations are not dashed against previously unseen or minimized realities that reassert experience. A basic law may be posited:

All jobs take longer.
Corollary: And cost more.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know.

Because NASA knows that it’s surviving on good graces of people who couldn’t give two rats about what it does and what it should be doing (exploring space for science’s sake and going where no one else has the money or resources to go more than once), they’re going to fudge the numbers and try to sneak in more cash for their project through the back door.

That is not to say that something doesn’t smell right in today’s statements. There IS something weird going on here, and Phil (and all of us) have every right to ask those tough questions about the spin that is being flung our way.

Here’s what one (probably) needs to understand to put the NASA Administrator’s comments into perspective relative to the “typical” government managed development program:

1) A government program is advertised & funded. Typically the advertising understates the actual costs (put another way, the most optimistic plan is presented). This is referred to as “buying in” when the contractor does it. It is, in hindsight, referred to as “they don’t have a fing’ clue” when done by govt managers. The process is lengthy & convoluted — this ensures that the participants, after repeating the same cost & pricing prognostications over & over like a monastic chant actually come to believe what they’re saying by the time Congress decides to approve & fund it. Over the past decade this form of fanciful bureaucratic planning has become an art form unto itself. Follow the Defense press (e.g. Defense News; Spaceflightnow, etc.) and the overruns will be observed to be growing in both raw terms and in percentage terms by a staggering degree…but I’m a bit ahead of myself.

2) Invariably the problems are revealed to be more difficult & costly than planned. Over the past ten years or so–especially in the space-related acquisition arena–technological breakthroughs have been put in the acquisition planning baseline. Of course, this is totally nonsensical as one cannot schedule, much less budget for, technological breakthroughs. But this has been the trend (the USAF has been a particular advocate of this). The GAO has at least one, probably several, audit reports addressing this very problem (look up GAO +SBIRS, for example). A sensible approach for achieving such technological breakthroughs is by assigning the R&D to some laboratory/ies (that’s how it was done in the good ‘ole days)…and NOT some business group whose specialty is taking something that works and packaging it into some larger system.

3) With problems manifesting like hobgoblins…causing schedule delays and cost increases the program invariably is forced to REBASELINE the acquistion plan. In government bureaucracy-speak this is roughly equivalant to designating the best team in baseball as the winner of the latest World Series….then….a year later….when a new team has won THAT team is the “best” and so on. So after a few years–that’s a few budget cycles and a few project rebaselines–the program’s cost, schedule, and performance will look a lot different. But the rebaselining makes the new plan, including costs, official. That official new baseline becomes the reference point that counts–as far as the government is concerned (just like the current World Series winner is to sports fans). Everything else is just ancient, and largely irrelevant, history.

In other words, when it comes to government acquisition development programs they simply change the rules after the game has begun.

THAT’s how the NASA Administrator can say with a straight face and in all honesty (relative to government budgeting standards) that the JWST program is NOT overbudget — because relative to the CURRENT official approved program cost baseline, it probably isn’t.

And in simple terms, that’s how it works.

If you think the JWST situation is something, just wait for the Shuttle retirement and follow-on launch system program costs to materialize. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.