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MSL "Heat shield woes"
Stu
post Feb 17 2008, 04:20 PM
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"MSL Heat Shield Woes" - Aviation Week

Anyone else see this?


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Mariner9
post Feb 21 2008, 02:23 AM
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The 800 million figure was rather informal. I was at a JPL open house 4 or 5 years ago and had a chance to speak to one of the engineers on the project. I asked him about the estimated cost, and he said that they felt it would be no more expensive than MER. I was rather dubious about it, but he said that since there would be only one MSL, as opposed to two MERs, that the cost savings in only a single launch, flight operations, etc, should help contain the costs and it would not be any more expensive than the MER project.

Uh, huh.

Admitedly this was a very un-official conversation. But he made it sound like this was the internal consensus at the time. Right off the bat it occured to me that an Atlas V launch costs a heck of a lot more than a Delta II, so this didn't look like a very realistic expectation on their part. I had this very bad feeling that JPL was being too optimistic in their cost estimates, and overly ambitious on the project technical challenges.

Later I remember seeing numbers that kept climbing with every report, such as like 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion in Aviation Week. A few months ago when the third cost overrun was reported (and Alan Stern made them scale back some of the instruments) the figure had crept up to 1.7 billion.

If additional problems recently identified adds another 1-200 million, that takes the project cost as high as 1.9 billion.... so I thought it reasonable to throw out a ballpark figure of 1.8.

I'm not going to say "I told you so" because I've never built a MARS rover personally, but that bad feeling I had at the time seems to have come true.
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mcaplinger
post Feb 21 2008, 06:04 AM
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QUOTE (Mariner9 @ Feb 20 2008, 06:23 PM) *
The 800 million figure was rather informal....
Later I remember seeing numbers that kept climbing with every report, such as like 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion in Aviation Week. A few months ago when the third cost overrun was reported (and Alan Stern made them scale back some of the instruments) the figure had crept up to 1.7 billion.

You'll forgive me if I call BS on this. A hallway conversation with somebody at a JPL open house? Media reporting? Are those figures with or without margin and reserves? Are they in real-year dollars? Do they include the launch vehicle? How about the RTG? How about foreign contributions? Is this through the end of the mission? What are the ops cost assumptions?

If you're going to condemn the whole project on the basis of cost overruns, you might want to really understand what the initial cost estimates were, what has actually been spent, and what is further costs are expected and authorized.


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Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Mariner9
post Feb 21 2008, 06:54 AM
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QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Feb 20 2008, 10:04 PM) *
You'll forgive me if I call BS on this. A hallway conversation with somebody at a JPL open house? Media reporting? Are those figures with or without margin and reserves? Are they in real-year dollars? Do they include the launch vehicle? How about the RTG? How about foreign contributions? Is this through the end of the mission? What are the ops cost assumptions?

If you're going to condemn the whole project on the basis of cost overruns, you might want to really understand what the initial cost estimates were, what has actually been spent, and what is further costs are expected and authorized.


I don't really appreciate your flame. Someone asked where I came up with the 800 million, and I honestly replied it was an informal number given to me in a non-official setting. As for "include the launch vehicle?" ... yes, it was a number that was supposed to reflect total project costs.

As for "media reporting"..... Aviation Week is one of the most respected aerospace journals out there. Is it always dead on? No, but it used to be nicknamed "Aviation Leak", and foreign govenrments routinely used it as a source for intelligence gathering.

Last fall Alan Stern stated that JPL had come to headquarters with three different cost overruns. This latest one would be at least the fourth.

If you are going to slam me, then I would ask you to provide me with your source of information that there have not been serious cost overruns on MSL. Because my supposedly "BS" sources have turned out to be remarkably accurate from what I can see.



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Posts in this topic
- Stu   MSL "Heat shield woes"   Feb 17 2008, 04:20 PM
- - centsworth_II   From the article: "The relative orbital posit...   Feb 17 2008, 04:31 PM
- - djellison   Do that, and you don't reach Mars at all. Th...   Feb 17 2008, 05:39 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (djellison @ Feb 17 2008, 12:39 PM)...   Feb 18 2008, 01:43 PM
- - centsworth_II   I bet Dawn wouldn't have any trouble.   Feb 17 2008, 06:13 PM
- - nprev   Not to be cynical, but 'pray for launch delay...   Feb 18 2008, 06:59 AM
- - mchan   The delay for MSL would be 2 years and very costly...   Feb 18 2008, 08:01 AM
|- - AndyG   Is the article correct? QUOTE NASA had planned to...   Feb 18 2008, 11:24 AM
- - djellison   Yeah...I meant every word of that...all of it. Ea...   Feb 18 2008, 02:22 PM
- - ElkGroveDan   Ouch $115...but you can get a used one on Ama...   Feb 18 2008, 04:36 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Feb 18 2008, 11:36 A...   Feb 20 2008, 09:45 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Part of what I love about orbital mechanics proble...   Feb 18 2008, 05:00 PM
- - edstrick   Mariners 6 and 7 <1969> had unusually short ...   Feb 19 2008, 08:38 AM
- - Sunspot   Is MSL really going to be ready to launch on time?   Feb 19 2008, 09:58 PM
- - djellison   To be honest, compared to the trouble MER had, MSL...   Feb 19 2008, 10:03 PM
- - elakdawalla   Alan just said at MEPAG that, just three months af...   Feb 20 2008, 05:07 PM
- - djellison   Oh dear. That's really very very bad news ind...   Feb 20 2008, 05:40 PM
- - centsworth_II   Wouldn't it be ironic if MSL doesn't fly a...   Feb 20 2008, 06:10 PM
|- - ugordan   Ironic, indeed. I don't think Alan will like t...   Feb 20 2008, 06:13 PM
- - djellison   I really really really want to see MSL fly, but it...   Feb 20 2008, 06:24 PM
- - elakdawalla   Alan went on to say "The ramifications are go...   Feb 20 2008, 06:25 PM
|- - Sunspot   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 20 2008, 06:25 P...   Feb 20 2008, 07:15 PM
- - vjkane   Emily - Are you at the MPEG meeting?   Feb 20 2008, 07:17 PM
- - elakdawalla   No. They're trying out allowing people to par...   Feb 20 2008, 07:35 PM
- - Mariner9   I hate to be an armchair quarterback, so I'm n...   Feb 20 2008, 07:36 PM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (Mariner9 @ Feb 20 2008, 11:36 AM) ...   Feb 21 2008, 12:54 AM
- - elakdawalla   One of the things that makes me a bit worried is t...   Feb 20 2008, 07:53 PM
|- - ugordan   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 20 2008, 08:53 P...   Feb 20 2008, 07:56 PM
|- - Jim from NSF.com   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 20 2008, 02:53 P...   Feb 20 2008, 10:54 PM
- - elakdawalla   I have no data with which to back this up, but my ...   Feb 20 2008, 07:59 PM
- - djellison   One thing that I think Jim Bell was pushing for wi...   Feb 20 2008, 10:44 PM
- - djellison   Chang'e 1, Chandrayaan - 1, Kaguya, LRO. That...   Feb 20 2008, 11:17 PM
- - Jim from NSF.com   point taken   Feb 20 2008, 11:35 PM
- - Mariner9   The 800 million figure was rather informal. I was...   Feb 21 2008, 02:23 AM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (Mariner9 @ Feb 20 2008, 06:23 PM) ...   Feb 21 2008, 06:04 AM
|- - Mariner9   QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Feb 20 2008, 10:04 PM...   Feb 21 2008, 06:54 AM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (Mariner9 @ Feb 20 2008, 10:54 PM) ...   Feb 21 2008, 07:16 AM
- - mchan   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 20 2008, 11:53 A...   Feb 21 2008, 06:30 AM
- - Mariner9   NASA budgets are a matter of public record. That...   Feb 21 2008, 07:57 AM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (Mariner9 @ Feb 20 2008, 11:57 PM) ...   Feb 21 2008, 06:42 PM
- - stevesliva   Wasn't there surprise that the Mars budget was...   Feb 21 2008, 03:26 PM
- - Mariner9   More power to you for unraveling those budget docu...   Feb 21 2008, 07:42 PM
- - elakdawalla   Boys, boys, can we please take it down a notch? Y...   Feb 21 2008, 08:02 PM
- - Mariner9   Sorry, I almost posted a retraction (or a partial...   Feb 21 2008, 08:29 PM
- - vjkane   Emily, did Stern have anything to say on why the M...   Feb 21 2008, 08:37 PM
- - hendric   I can see it, but I'm not sure I can make anyt...   Feb 21 2008, 09:20 PM
- - Steve G   NASA is always reinventing the wheel. Every space...   Feb 24 2008, 09:48 PM
|- - djellison   QUOTE (Steve G @ Feb 24 2008, 09:48 PM) E...   Feb 24 2008, 10:55 PM
|- - brellis   NASA doesn't want to waste a lot of $...   Feb 25 2008, 01:27 AM
|- - vjkane   QUOTE (brellis @ Feb 25 2008, 01:27 AM) T...   Feb 25 2008, 04:02 AM
|- - brellis   Right, I forgot about Mariner Mark II. If only NA...   Feb 25 2008, 04:33 AM
- - edstrick   "...Cassini was originally supposed to be the...   Feb 25 2008, 06:07 AM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (edstrick @ Feb 24 2008, 10:07 PM) ...   Feb 25 2008, 07:20 PM
|- - tedstryk   There was also the problem of NASA's budget no...   Feb 25 2008, 08:31 PM
- - vjkane   The pre-MRO Mars orbiters, as I understand it, sha...   Feb 25 2008, 03:08 PM
- - nprev   This is the third or fourth time I've seen mas...   Feb 25 2008, 06:24 PM
- - Mariner9   One example of design inheritance working well wa...   Feb 25 2008, 10:56 PM
- - Tom Tamlyn   >Venus Express flew, the cost for that mission ...   Feb 26 2008, 03:15 AM
|- - vjkane   QUOTE (Tom Tamlyn @ Feb 26 2008, 03:15 AM...   Feb 26 2008, 03:36 AM
- - Steve G   Nasa still needs to eventually land another spacec...   Mar 1 2008, 05:39 AM


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