Mar 292017
 

NASA Spends 72 Cents of Every SLS Dollar On Overhead Costs, Says Report

Yikes. Assuming  the SLS flies on schedule, $43 billion will have been spent on it, the Ares I and the Orion capsule. Of course, if it *doesn’t* fly on schedule, or gets cancelled, $43 billion will have still been spent on it. That’s about half the cost of the *entire* Apollo program, without having actually landed a man on the moon… or even funded the development of an actual lunar lander.

Of the $19 billion so far spent directly on SLS, only $7 billion (“only,” he said, chuckling sadly, imagining what he could do with a tenth of that) has gone to the companies that are actually making stuff.

Whether you like the idea of HLLVs in general, or like the SLS in particular, the costs and inefficiencies involved are really kinda obscene. And in the age of SpaceX and Falcon 9… kinda indefensible.

 

 Posted by at 12:07 am