NASA uses SpaceX rocket to bring probe to moon Jupiter – IT Pro – News

SLS is being designed and built by Boeing under a “cost-plus” contract, with the government paying all costs and guaranteeing a profit margin on top of that. This means that delays and additional research and consultation are always an attractive option, which means that the SLS has now been delayed for almost 5 years.

In addition, much of the rocket’s properties have been mandated by the US Congress, causing it to be mockingly referred to as the “Senate Launch System.” It is explicitly intended to keep in use as much as possible all existing Space Shuttle subcontractors and NASA research centers, which are (deliberately) spread throughout the country. This ensures support in Congress, which indeed regularly puts *more* money into the SLS than NASA asks, even while cutting other NASA budget items sharply.

But the most important factor is that the American defense industry no longer has any idea how to be frugal with money. That is why the US space industry, no matter how well developed it is, for a long time did not participate at all in the market for launching commercial satellites (for satellite TV, communication etc.), their costs had become so high that only the US government was willing to pay them.

Until SpaceX came along of course, and now they’re pretty freaked out. SpaceX has never worked under cost-plus contracts. Even NASA’s R&D contracts with SpaceX were “firm fixed price”: agreed in advance what must be achieved, and how much they will receive, divided over several intermediate steps so that the contract could be terminated in the meantime.

[Reactie gewijzigd door enzozus op 24 juli 2021 13:56]

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