MSL Cost Overruns: More Smoke and Mirrors from NASA

"NASA has an exemplary record of honoring its commitments to implement flagship-class missions..."

Apparently it only became a "flagship mission" after the cost shot up to $1.4 billion.

"To abandon MSL at this time would represent an unprecedented break with this guiding philosophy."

What guiding philosophy is that? That the fat hog at the front of the trough gets to eat the most?

I find it a little peculiar that we see so much harping here on cost overruns in MSL, when these are completely dwarfed by the overrruns on JWST. Between it and continuing servicing issues with HST we are seeing the evisceration of the space astrophysics budget. But I guess those two missions represent something of sacred cows within NASA, so we can't question the fact that they have turned into money pits.

I am an astronomer working on a space telescope myself, but would gladly see JWST jettisoned (even though it is entirely optimized for my field) in order to get a flagship planet finder (like PTF) back on the table. NASA likes to point to the astronomy decadal survey in order to maintain momentum behind JWST, but won't accept the fact that the field changed radically in the last ten years. And would the public really rather know about the epoch of reionization, or where all the nearest earthlike planets are? I would guess the latter.

These charges and counter comments between NASA and an ex-NASA official are non-productive. If there is a serious case of mismanagement on NASA's part then there needs to be a full investigation by the Congress. Bitter exchanges of accusations and denials by two prominent individuals discredits the hard work done by the majority of NASA employees. It also internationally discredits our space science reputation by virtue of this exchange.

Additionally poking around, unofficially, may seem like productive journalism, but it can also become a destructive and biased witch hunt.

"I find it a little peculiar that we see so much harping here on cost overruns in MSL, when these are completely dwarfed by the overrruns on JWST."

There is, of course, a lot of talk about JWST on the astrophysics side of NASA. The public talk about MSL is taking place because it is MSL and JPL that cost Alan Stern his job. And, regardless of cost, MSL is having the same effect on the broader solar system program as JWST is having on the astrophysics portfolio.

I sure wish that the science community would reflect on the lessons of the 1990's – “faster better cheaper" was a mantra that served the Agency well from the perspective of faster elapsed time between mission confirmation and launch, better (unquestionably) utilization of the nation's overcapacity for satellite production, and cheaper when the entire mission cost was a small fraction of the billion dollar behemoths that are currently clogging up the Agency's science pipeline.

Obama transition team: are you listening?

I respectfully non-concur with the comment by Waddell Robey that such arguing by current and former NASA leadership is counterproductive. My personal experience is that this notion that arguing among any ranks is counterproductive is used often to keep people from saying what needs to be said by retorting in the vein what's past is past, don't cry over spilled milk, and other useless cliches - useless if an organization truly values learning, tough critique included. What of the cliche about heat and the kitchen.

Mostly I'm not surprised at the retort to Stern from Garvin. I ceased being amazed years ago at how eloquent, rational and precise explanations are pronounced and documented to defend the utter lack of cost discipline, in so far as cost discipline is really a pseudonym for the an ability to plan at an integrated, overall agency level. NASA has come to accept what evolves or survives as a plan, sunk money spent as cause to spend more on the same team and project, and year to year budgeting as strategy and vision.

There are real problems buried in all this, many technical, many about root causes at the organizational and political level. Without such frank discussion we'll never arrive at a point where progress can occur.

I'm reminded of observations about European history and how Western culture came to dominate world events so in the past 500 years. One explanation given has to do with competition, fierce barbarism, deadly strife, a continuous competition of ideas (and yes, weapons). But never victory to a degree that the victor could cause stagnation. People at each others throats creates advances so long as no one ever wins for long and kills the competition completely.

Apply the prior thinking to the world of ideas. When you see everyone start nodding together and the battles stop, and the voices of critique dead, then worry. It's over. When you see the pitched battles, we are just beginning to progress. Competition will leave some last man standing, for a while. This is not a bad thing. It was time the counteroffensive resurrected.

People living in glass houses should not throw stones. MSL has overrun by 26%, but Alan Stern's own New Horizons mission to Pluto has overrun by 35% so far, going from a $500 million cost estimate at selection to $675 million a month before launch. See

http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive05/Horizon_121205.html

Charity starts at home. If Dr. Stern is really concerned about the impact of mission cost growth on NASA's planetary science portfolio (and not just polishing his record as Associate Administrator for Science or running for NASA Administrator), then he should offer up an op-ed admitting to the greater percentage cost growth on the mission for which he was principal investigator and analyze the reasons for that cost growth so that lessons can be learned for the future.

From a taxpayer's perspective, there should be no cost growth on any NASA mission, and legitimate criticism of truly outrageous cost growth (as on JWST or NPOESS or any number of military space programs) is certainly warranted. But hypocritical and potentially self-interested mud-slinging that blows a fairly typical cost increase way out of proportion does little to inform future programs or benefit the planetary science community at large.

I know Alan Stern to be both a person and a scientist of the highest integrity. I am sorry that the sniping against him has gotten to be so intensely nasty and personal when he is merely arguing for fiscal responsibility as he has always done. I am appalled at the ugliness that "West Coast Observers" have resorted to in attacking the JWST Project in response to concerns and questions about cost growth on the MSL Project rather than taking Dr. Stern's concerns seriously and addressing them directly. The biggest problem is that no one dares to propose the true costs of these contracts because they will never get the work if they do. That goes for contractors and NASA centers. The system encourages self-deceipt. NASA, unfortunately needs to learn to do less with less rather than "more with less" or the new administration should fund NASA like it is serious about being the world leader in space science and exploration. The spin-off paybacks from space research have been huge and, if we were putting our government dollars in the area of greatest return, NASA would be better and more realistically funded. The real problem is too much work chasing too few dollars. The U.S. should spend more money on NASA and Space Research in order to maintain our science and engineering expertise and to enjoy more of the spin-off benefits and we should be spending the money more prudently and watchfully as Dr. Stern suggests. It is sad that the space community is attacking itself and has split into various factions because it has given up on the possibility of winning the argument for more money for space research that the country ought to be investing. NASA could quite comfortably accomplish all its goals with a mere 1% of the national budget - and that would be a reasonable portion to get the 14 to 1 returns to the economy NASA has typically provided.

>>If there is a serious case of mismanagement on NASA's part then there needs to be a full investigation by the Congress.

I tend to agree with the premis of your post, however, if the organisation in question, NASA in this case, actively doesn't think there is a problem, then people outside the agency need to make a stink to get Congress to start to take a look. Once Congress gets on the case, then things can proceed per the process, ever mindful, of course, that Congress actually gets to see and hear the opposing sides of the arguement so that they can determine what the facts are.

Shouting "Fire" may be disruptive and occasionally embarasing, but if there really is a fire, then someone needs to get the fire department's attention.

Paul

Every few years there is a big discussion/argument about NASA cost overruns. I have never understood why the only metric that concerns people in these discussions is cost overrun rather than total cost, or even better, science return per unit cost. Surely both taxpayers and scientists are most interested in the value and cost-effectiveness of the missions we fly. Large overruns may be an indication of poor performance in mission development, but it also may reflect an unrealistically low early estimate. Perhaps the simplest response to the overrun problem would be to increase the original budgets to provide more contingency funds. But the bottom line is the value of the mission itself. Wouldn't it be more profitable to discuss whether MSL, or New Horizons, or JWST, or HST represent good investments of taxpayer dollars rather then to get hung up on the accounting issues of cost overruns? I bet almost everyone in this discussion would agree that these have been (or will be) fabulously successful missions for science and exploration.

"Would it were that Dr. Garvin's facts were only so, but they are not."

Oh man, who writes like that? Maybe he was fired for penning lines like that one.

Dr. Stern makes a good point on the biasing effects that underpriced, pre-definition phase, program estimates lead to when members of external planning bodies use them to develop the priorities in decadal plans. Dr. Stern argues that those decadal review committees might have generated different priorities had they only known what the true cost of MSL was going to be. Perhaps, although my conversations with many scientists lead me to believe they have a healthy skeptism about pre-definition cost estimates.

However, I am troubled by Dr. Stern's op-ed and his use in that forum of pre-definition phase estimates as the beginning point for comparison. In the content provided above -- misleading decadal planning committees -- those comparisons make sense. However, that was not the argument he was making in the op-ed. Based on his tenure as NASA's AA for Science, he knows better than to use the same comparison to extend the argument to NASA misleading Congress or the public. The pre-definition estimates are never used by NASA to influence Congressional action on appropriations or authorization acts.

"I have never understood why the only metric that concerns people in these discussions is cost overrun rather than total cost, or even better, science return per unit cost."

Good point - However, if you tell Congress (via budget process) you will need $5B (baseline cost estimates over the life of the project), spend $10B (2x) thus taking from other pots, and then the project ends up costing $35B (back to Congress for more money) - And then the mission costs increase the total cost upwards of $70B - How does that produce more science for the dollar? Seems to me that it diminishes the science return per unit cost because you are diluting the original estimates and end up with frivolous and under represented numbers?

I think it boils down to really poor project management skills and a complete unwillingness by PIs and NASA management to STICK TO A PLAN.

re: Bluesky, "I think it boils down to really poor project management skills and a complete unwillingness by PIs and NASA management to STICK TO A PLAN."

Sometimes as you are building these things, something changes and this impacts schedule or cost. Remember that a project like MSL is working toward a specific deadline (a launch period) and everyone knows that missing the target launch period raises the cost, so you are always trying to meet that schedule, even if it costs more to do so (because it will still cost less than the delay if your'e talking about something like a Mars mission). Things that might change include:

- the vendor you were planning on using for a specific part or sub-assembly has gone out of business

- the vendor you are using doesn't have the staff to get the job done on time because, well, there isn't much demand for Mars rover parts

- the material the part is to be made out of, you discover through testing or modeling, won't work the way you thought it would -- you need to use a different material -- it increases cost to make this change late in the game

- NASA HQ changes its mind on what it wants -- for example, adding a sample cache to MSL after everything else the rover has to carry has already been accommodated-- now you have to find space to mount it, find the mass in the budget to carry it, and you have to go through the whole design and fabrication process for it-- those things add cost beyond what the little unit itself cost

- NASA doesn't change its mind on what it wants fast enough to lead to cost savings -- it wanted at one time to land MSL at latitudes as high as 60-degrees. This led to a specific set of requirements for night time winter performance at 60 deg latitude... by the time the landing site process showed that there were few sites poleward of 30 degrees of interest to the science community, it was too late to reexamine and perhaps find cost savings in the design of hardware that no longer needed to operate at the extremely low temperatures

- parts from a vendor aren't delivered on time -- some items are on the critical path, if they don't show up, lots of other stuff downstream is delayed and you have to keep staff available that otherwise was to have come off the project by then

Missions like MSL do have a plan. And they do stick to those plans. If anything, NASA should re-examine it's methods for estimating margin to cover cost over-runs. But don't throw the stones at MSL or JWST or LRO (which was to have launched by now if it was on schedule) or New Horizons or whatever. The people building this stuff try very, very hard to meet their budget and schedule. But these missions are not easy and you want them to work.

For Katina, who (above) touted "better faster cheaper"-- do you remember the Mars Surveyor '98 Project? Mars Climate Orbiter? Mars Polar Lander? Ring a bell? Yeah, "better, faster, cheaper" worked. Uh-huh.

Keith,

Reading all this angst, over and over again is exhausting.

An old expression: "Too many chiefs and not enough indians," comes to mind - my apologies to the correctness police.

Here's a twist.

Maybe there are too many tribes under one chief.

Break NASA into groups (I know they're supposed to get along but they are different). Let them compete for $$ on their merits and not where they are in a political region or where they are in current popularity due to media hype and/or pop science.

Perhaps, running against the current of conflicting ideas is a waste of energy and money.
It seems the fight for what's "mine" dominates and smothers production.

It's like children (adopted, step, siblings, etc) that just can't cope with their money allotment, inheritance, endowments, etc. They expect it, want more and resent what the other one got.

This has to stop.

Excellence should be rewarded but lately, it seems, getting your "cut" to sustain your place card at the trough, takes up more time than what you bring to the sustainable enterprise of exploration.

"For Katina, who (above) touted "better faster cheaper"-- do you remember the Mars Surveyor '98 Project? Mars Climate Orbiter? Mars Polar Lander?"

Note that "Mars Surveyor '98" and "Mars Polar Lander" are the same spacecraft-- MPL was the 1998 spacecraft of the Mars Surveyor series, which was (originally) envisioned to be a continuing program.

As Alan Stern says, the National Academy sponsored (and NRC assisted) decadal reviews do not set the price tags on NASA missions (nor NSF-funded facilities, for that matter); instead, they prioritize the science and try to make an intelligent guess at the cost. The cost estimates almost always turn out to be a factor of two too low, because of inexperience at costing, wishful thinking, or perhaps a little less naively, effective politicking. That certainly has been the track record in astrophysics. If you accept the factor of two as almost a given in the NRC panel-to-reality transition, the cost growth of MSL is still remarkable, but the goalposts ought to be put where they belong: at the confirmation cost estimate.

There has been some discussion of adding Langley TMCO folks to the decadal surveys the next time around to improve the realism of cost estimates, but I don't know if anything came of it. Perhaps an independent cost estimate should be part of the decadal survey process; considering the survey report itself is refereed by peer reviewers, just like an article in a professional journal, perhaps the NAE should review the cost estimates.

>>Break NASA into groups ... Let them compete for $$ on their merits

Exdactly. But then how do you even begin to justify the manned spaceflight operations parts, i.e. the current government run space trucking line ?

"Break NASA into groups ... Let them compete for $$ on their merits"

Yes! And we shall call them... NASA Centers. There shall be Ten of them, all Healthy.

Re: GL "Note that "Mars Surveyor '98" and "Mars Polar Lander" are the same spacecraft"

Mars Surveyor '98 was 2 spacecraft: Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander. They were done as a single project under a single manager. Both spacecraft failed upon arrival at Mars. These failures had a lot to do with the costs--and cost over-runs--of subsequent missions to ensure they would not fail. And the track record since then has been excellent: Mars Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter-- all arrived safe and are still working. Phoenix-- it arrived safe, did its job, and died as the late summer clouds rolled in, just as planned and expected.

I think breaking NASA into separate INDEPENDANT agencies is a good idea. This will prevent monies from getting siphoned from one agencies programs to another, because of gross cost overruns of the first agency.

I think that this could start a spirit of competition, where one agency will want to prove its mettle, by doing realistic price estimates and doing their best to keep costs in line.

I do not feel that things are working the way they are now, lets instill a spirit of good old American competition.

As a 33-year NASA engineer I cannot understand why NOW --all of a sudden-- there's so much indignation over cost overruns (must be politics somewhere in there). Folks, this is par for the course - beginning with the Space Shuttle ("it will fly every 2 weeks"), continued with the Space Station ("it will be a factory in space") and soon to be followed by a Moon Base ("we will learn to 'live off the land'"), NASA's approach to selling Programs has remained the same: lowball the price and inflate the value to get it sold.

Does it make sense now that NASA's accounting system STILL works in a way that renders its finances audit-proof?

"NASA's approach to selling Programs has remained the same: lowball the price and inflate the value to get it sold."

And that's the problem. Change is the order of the day in Washington D.C. The day of reckoning is quickly approaching.

The government cannot continue to keep printing extra money every time it needs more. Space programs that have fuzzy goals like "assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life" will not get out of the "mildly interesting science but not worth the cost at this time" bucket.

MSL won't be canceled, but the red flags it raised cannot be ignored, regardless of the tired and threadbare "unforeseen complexity" apologetics offered.

"[Insert Government Agency Here]'s approach to selling Programs has remained the same: lowball the price and inflate the value to get it sold."

Fixed that for you.