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From: ks@astrovax.UUCP (Karl Stapelfeldt)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success
Message-ID: <305@astrovax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Apr-84 15:28:48 EST
Article-I.D.: astrovax.305
Posted: Sat Apr 21 15:28:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Apr-84 09:17:39 EST
References: <3754@utzoo.UUCP> <211@ames-lm.UUCP> <301@astrovax.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
Lines: 47


     Ed, I am not an accountant.  I too am mystified (and a little skeptical)
about the oft-quoted $240 million replacement cost for Solar Max.  However,
NASA administrator Beggs testified before the Senate in the FY '84 budget
hearings that for a worst-case mission model (234 flights for the shuttle
over 14 years) the individual costs per flight would be 120 million 1983
dollars.  This flight also launched the LDEF, and thus its cost is not
assessable to the Solar Max repair mission alone.
Including costs of equipment and crew training, it is quite conceivable
that the flight would be economically advantageous.  More frequent use of
the shuttle (as initially predicted by NASA and now forecast by
the AIAA) would lower this cost per launch.  
     As for the shuttle development costs, it is clearly unfair to expect
these to be included in shuttle user charges while not correspondingly
including development costs in expendable launch vehicle user charges.
No one is asking Delta customers to pay for all of the development work
that was required to perfect ELV technology; shuttle users should not have
to either.  NASA *is* including procurement costs for production orbiters
in its user fees for the first three years of operational missions.
     A report to Congress for FY 1981 budget hearings cited the shuttle's
development costs as going 20% over budget.  However, if the contingency
fund originally granted by the Nixon administration for shuttle development
is *restored*, then the same report would say that the entire development
program went only $30 million over budget (out of $5.15 Billion).  Both
figures are listed as 1971 dollars.
     The delays in the shuttle program hurt all potential users, and certainly
NASA itself.  However, the shuttle should not be the scapegoat for the 
failure of past administrations to adequately support space science programs.
Where is it written that the administration & Congress may ititiate space
programs, but then when NASA needs supplemental funding for them it must
take those dollars from other programs instead of being allocated more?
     It would certainly help your case (and I would be interested to know
more) if you could be more specific about which scientific programs you
refer to as being damaged by the shuttle overruns.  The Grand Tour was
cancelled over NASA's objections by the OMB in 1972; the U.S. half of
the Solar Polar Mission was cancelled by the Reagan administration (recently
"born again" to space advocacy) in 1981.  NASA twice presented Halley probe
proposals to Congress in the late 1970's, and was twice refused.  What do
any of these actions necessarily have to do with space shuttle overruns?
     The heart of the problem is that NASA's budget in real terms
is about half of its budget during the 1960's (and about a third of that
during the peak year, 1966).  Until this changes (probably not until the
federal deficit problem is solved), there will be only slow progress
toward the exploration *and* development of space.

      Karl S.
      Princeton Students for the Exploration & Development of Space
      (SEDS, or NASA ROTC)