How Much Will It Really Cost to Cancel Constellation?

What a disaster !

In subjects like this I would like to suggest one or more dollar signs be used instead of an X over the constellation emblem.

Here's a great non-story attempting to deflect from the real issue going on at NASA. Undefinitized Contract Actions, or UCA's, operate to a set of established rules and procedures that keep them from being as bad as the article states. First, in order to undertake a UCA, there is a vetting process that establishes that the change is in the benefit of the government. This mechanism allows changes in direction to take place such that contractors don't continue doing work that is no longer desired by the government and allows all effort to be redirected towards a newly desired direction. This mechanism exists to save money and isn't often exercised.

Second, there is an established not-to-exceed amount approved at several levels in the agency. The new direction of a UCA has strict limits and is still subject to regularly audited earned value management.

Most of the UCA value on Constellation has to do with the stretching of the program. The original proposals were based on execution within a specified schedule. As funding has been reduced year over year, the program has been stretched eliminating the efficiency of complete lot buys of material, reduced ability to take advantage of scale economies, and lengthened the management and reporting time period. These actions were taken to redirect the effort so that progress could continue at a funding rate inconsistent with the original plan. All consistent with "pay as you go" and a consequence of underfunding a plan.

The real story should be why these UCA's remained undefinitized for so long. The ability to rapidly change course can save taxpayers considerable cost but the risk mounts as definitization is prolonged. UCA's, when deemed necessary, aren't bad. Bad management of UCA's is bad.

Termination of a UCA is not much different than terminating a contract for convenience. There are termination liability costs due to payouts to subcontractors and disposition of work in process that apply under equal rules to both definitized and UCA work. All these costs are subject to government review and concurrence. All these costs are completely auditable or they are not reimbursed.

In the end, terminating effort wastes a lot of money and yields nothing in the way of progress. Look at all we've wasted in ending NASA programs like ALS/NLS, X-33/SSTO, LFBB, SLI, and now Constellation. Sadly, our search for the best space transportation system has cost more than completing and sustaining a good enough system. Thankfully we can now predict the future. In four years under the new president we'll all be talking about the wasted money under the "faith based" space access plan (remind anyone of X-33/SSTO?) and looking to start a "sustainable" plan based on technology in hand. The real story here isn't the Constellation UCA's (although they should definitize them quickly before termination), it's about how we're stopping progress again before we start the next program we'll cancel. Just another sign that beyond earth orbit human exploration is a long, long way off.

Having worked on both DoD programs and NASA programs, I will concur that NASA really has a problem with managing their efforts. Which makes the forward plan more of a disaster.

The DoD acquisition strategy for major contracts consists of:

Define Prime Contractor (includes integration of entire project)
Define Associate Contractors if there are big enough pieces that required additional oversight
Define a contracted oversight company (Aerospace)
Define Requirements and let the above three elements design and producw to those contracts. They will typically also define a development spec and a production spec so when you were in production, you knew what you were working to in terms of delivery. Air Force oversight is at a top level all other levels can be tracked explicitely through contractor performance.

The NASA strategy seems to be:
Define contractors, constrain budgets and change requirements frequently
Oversight is provided by NASA with a strong desire to be a part of the work. This clouds the difference between contract management and performance of the contract.
Cost becomes very difficult to track and unmanageable.

So, while I am still not clear on or support what the new plan means by "commercial crew," The problem is that line takes what is one of their biggest operating costs (operations for HSF) and compresses it into a small budget line with the assumption that it mirrors the commercial cargo effort where the commercial companies are performing most of their operations effort. Yet, the overall adminstration and operations budget line remains the same (No reduction in NASA efforts towards operations). If you look at the budget proposal for the next 5 years the administration and operations costs represent about 25% (at about $24 B for the next 5 years) of the total budget and this is remaining similar to previous budget plans. Therefore, I don't see where there are any game changing efficiencies represented. We are just left with a large NASA workforce that is required to do less.

My fear is (an I think this is the fear of some in congress) is that you can't change paths at the expence of thousands of contract employees, until you really know what you will do in the future.

I would be fully supportive of the budget if they said, we will look at our current contracts, see what is best for HSF (maintaining a government LEO capability for a start), restructure to a DoD style approach and reduce our administration costs. With the reduction in administration costs (which could be as much as the commercial crew line) NASA would fund commercial effort based on a sucess oriented approach to see if that is a vaiable alternative LEO path. That is what makes sense.

The current path is a disaster waiting to happen with more GAO reports saying NASA doesn't know what it is doing.

The cost isn't in dollar signs...

The cost is walking away from a defining endeavor for our nation and turning our backs on the people that are dedicated to safeguardding the future of our nation, perhaps even the human species.

You don't abandon that and give up for some goaless nascent nebulous un-plan. You fix the issues and press on.

And congress is clearly seeing it that way.

Space programs are always underestimated due to technical challenges. Closing them is no difference. I say the 2.5 billion will balloon to 5 easily.

Don't cancel the contracts, modify them to build parts for a SDHLV/DIRECT based vehicle.

"Don't cancel the contracts, modify them to build parts for a SDHLV/DIRECT based vehicle. "

Exactly!

Marcel F. Williams

""Don't cancel the contracts, modify them to build parts for a SDHLV/DIRECT based vehicle. "
Exactly!"

x3. It seems to me that there's two basic things we know we're going to need - a LEO-to-wherever vehicle (crew and control module) and a HLV. Identifying his doesn't need extensive study, and starting on it now prevents (what most fear) NASA becoming a purely study agency.

The HSF review considered estimated cancellation costs and still believed commercial HLV could be less expensive than SDHLV. You guys are treading old ground... again...