The SRB’s are an obsolete technology, and a major cost-driver for the shuttle. I’ve read that about a quarter of the cost of each shuttle launch was for the SRBs; I’ve also read that just stacking the SRBs at the Cape for each launch took about 60,000 man-hours.

If NASA wants heavy-life capability, they can buy it from SpaceX. SpaceX has plans for a new generation of launchers based on an upgraded version of their Merlin engine. SpaceX’s Merline engines are much closer in design philosophy to the old-reliable F1 engines on the Saturn V than to the expensive Space Shuttle Main Engines. Both the Merlin and F1 engines were low-pressure, open-cycle engines as opposed to the high-pressure, closed-cycle SSME’s. ‘Open-cycle’ means the gases running the turbopumps are vented overboard rather than into the engine’s combustion chamber (closed-cycle).

Also, you can question the need for heavy-lift in a Mars mission. The MarsDrive organization is working on various ‘Mars for Less’ scenarios using SpaceX’s Falcon, Delta or equivalent launchers. Their website is linked to my name.

Oh yeah. Like Lockheed, Astrium, and Northrop Grumman (who make two of the instruments and the telescope assembly) aren’t defense contractors. It’s a fair fight if they’ve circled the wagons and are shooting inward.

No, we’re talking human space flight versus science.

It’s not about the political firepower of human space flight vs astrophysics, where sure space flight has more but many think both are useless, and many support both.

It’s about the political firepower of defense contractors vs those making astronomical instrumentation. Which isn’t even close to a fair fight.

Yes, the money has to come from somewhere. It isn’t going to come from outside the agency. Let’s look at the Senate bill, just released today, that would “save” JWST.

The Senate would continue JWST with $530M in FY12. Well, unfortunately, that number is smaller than the average yearly budget that will be required until launch, which is about $700M. So, oops, that means that the next few years will need a LOT more than $530M. $8B development cap, with $3.5B spent, headed for a 2018 launch makes that a simple calculation. So the real pain is just delayed. Hold that thought.

Let’s look at that $530M. It looks as though the Senate mark for NASA science of $5.1B is larger than the budget proposal. Yay! But that was done by bumping up the budget proposal request for JWST, which was $373.7M. Yes, that means that, in fact, the Science directorate would be left, by the Senate, in the hole for about $70M compared to the budget proposal. You caught that, Phil. $40M of that would come from Planetary Science, and $30M from Earth Science according to the Senate. So one would gather that these cuts are just the beginning of much larger cuts to science to pay for JWST.

Yes, SLS is a travesty. But if you think that human space flight has less political firepower associated with it than astrophysics, you’re very desperately wrong.

There were big cuts to the Space Technology line (which is new, and has no protection) in both House and Senate bills, and also some to the commercial space flight line. But there is no reason to believe that those cuts have anything to do with JWST. Those were done to prop up SLS and Orion.

As JWST needs a lot more money each year (which can be credibly expected, right now), and there are serious pressures on NASA to reduce the total agency budget, we’re looking at a bad scene, especially when the political firepower starts to play out. So yes, JWST has already spent a lot of money. But the question should be asked how much more money we can let it spend before it has to be terminated.

Henri

Thanks. That’s some useful info on the political process,,,but I still hate politics,,,

Gary 7

(I really tried to not post that . . . )

Same reason the Webb is over budget. First, you can’t predict unforeseen difficulties, and anyway, they wouldn’t be budgeted. Nobody ever submits an honest budget figure. Things you want to happen get lowballed, things you oppose, you cite ridiculously high figures. Case in point, Social Security: “We have $60 trillion in unfunded obligations” as if we’re going to get a visit from a bill collector who will demand it all RIGHT NOW.

Also, there are no rewards for coming in under budget. You can’t roll the savings over into other projects of your own choosing, or use them for bonuses, or get a reduction in paperwork and regulation, or even get a guarantee that your funding request next year will get higher priority. And there are no real penalties for going over. If the CEO of a contractor had to make good on overruns from his own pocket, you bet there’d be better budgeting.

Seriously though, you seem to know a lot about these projects. Can you tell me why the SLS is so overpriced? I’m looking it up and finding lots of criticism along these lines, but I can’t seem to find the technical reaons for the cost overruns. I only know what’s on the Wiki for it, but the stated goal of re-using Shuttle components sounds cost effective… Any idea where they went wrong?

Q. How much does it cost to launch a Space Shuttle?
A. Generally, the cost averages out to be about $450 million per mission.

And there were multiple launches each year.
So, even with the budget cut NASA should have more money for other programs, right?

What’s the story with the new heavy launcher? I’m getting conflicting stories from news articles. One article claims that EADS/Astrium will be paying for the development and NASA will just check that their engineers have got things right (which I find very silly because EADS is no lightweight) while other articles suggest that NASA will provide partial funding as in the case of SpaceX and others.

What’s especially frustrating is that the govt cuts NASA’s budget by hundreds of millions, yet has no problem in giving out billions to other pet projects.

Incidently Phil, I’m surprised you haven’t written about the SLS yet.