$3 to $5 billion per year to keep two (2) American
astronauts in space all year long is just too
expensive. What the ISS has primarily returned
is evidence bone loss for long duration space flight
shows the whole colonizing Mars dream isn't practical.

Not until we can build spacecraft large enough to
supply artificial gravity and that means a sea-change
in cost to orbit.

The next space station, manned space flight
in general, should wait until that day
arrives. We're not even close yet.

Until then we should spend our space budget
on more ambitious unmanned missions to Mars
not this pipe-dream of sending people there.
At best we'd put a couple people on Mars
for a couple weeks, a symbolic event not
scientific, but at enormous costs and
more importantly enormous time, that
starves the budget for all else.

Let Musk have his 'fifteen minutes' on
Mars, the US space program should make
sense, and the ISS, current or future
versions, doesn't make sense.




Russia is squeezing NASA for more than $3.3 billion — and there's little
anyone can do about it

Dave Mosher

Sep. 2, 2016, 12:28 PM 13,868 19

NASA is in quite a financial pickle with the Russians.

When the agency retired its space shuttle program in 2011, it was
banking on commercial carriers — ultimately SpaceX and Boeing — to
design, build, and test proven systems to launch its astronauts into
space by 2015.

But those plans have been waylaid by 3 years, according to a
buck-stopping audit by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) on
Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016.

This leaves the agency with one option for sending astronauts to and
from the International Space Station (ISS) 220 miles above Earth: a
Russian spacecraft called the Soyuz.

And Russia is taking full advantage of its temporary monopoly.

Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, used to charge NASA as little as $21.8
million per seat in 2008 (when the space shuttle was still around).

By 2018, however, it intends to charge NASA $81 million per seat by 2018
— a cost increase of 372% over 10 years:

Chart showing how much Russia is charging NASA per seat for launching US
astronauts.

How much NASA is paying Russia for each US astronaut seat aboard a Soyuz
spacecraft from 2006 through 2018. Skye Gould/Business Insider

The latest NASA OIG audit — coincidentally released the morning that
SpaceX's uncrewed Falcon 9 rocket exploded on a launch pad during a
routine test (no one was harmed, but Facebook's first satellite was
destroyed) — follows up on a report it released in November 2013.

The new audit finds that the delays by SpaceX and Boeing is going to
cost NASA dearly in payments to Roscosmos.

"Had the Agency met its original goal of securing commercial crew
transportation by calendar year 2015, NASA could have avoided paying
Russia close to $1 billion for Soyuz seats in 2017 and 2018, even
factoring in the purchase of some seats in 2016 to cover the expected
transition period," the OIG report states.

The chart below factors in the price of a seat and the number of
astronauts that NASA plans to launch (about six per year), to show how
much NASA has paid Russia and could end up paying. The total cost over
12 years is more than $3.36 billion.

Assuming NASA's budget remains roughly $18.5 billion a year, that means
about 3% of the agency's funding could be diverted to Russia in 2018:

Chart showing how much Russia is charging NASA for launching US astronauts.

How much NASA will pay Russia to send US astronauts into space from 2006
through 2018. Skye Gould/Business Insider

A presentation given by a NASA official in May 2016 estimates the cost
of each seat aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft and Boeing's CST-100
Starliner spacecraft will be $58 million.

The audit makes clear that any other hiccups in the NASA's commercial
crew program, which could earn Boeing and SpaceX up to $4.2 billion and
$2.6 billion (respectively) for their services, will be costly.


"Given the delays in initiating a U.S. capacity to transport crew to the
ISS, NASA has extended its contract with the Russian Space Agency for
astronaut transportation through 2018 at an additional cost of $490
million," the report stated. "If the Commercial Crew Program experiences
additional delays, NASA may need to buy additional seats from Russia to
ensure a continued U.S. presence on the ISS."

A response to the OIG findings in the report, penned by William
Gerstenmaier — NASA's associate administrator for human exploration —
agreed with the report's overall findings. Yet Gerstenmaier emphasized
the importance of making sure commercial spacecraft are safe to fly.

"Excessive focus on timeliness and schedule can result in reducing the
overall safety of the system," Gerstenmaier wrote. "Timeliness must not
be over stressed[.]"

Business Insider contacted Boeing and SpaceX about the new OIG report.
Although SpaceX did not immediately respond, Boeing issued the following
statement to Business Insider:

"We continue to work toward achieving certification and providing safe
crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station
with the first launch (orbital flight test) expected in 2017. As in any
development program, issues can stress the schedule and we are working
shoulder-to-shoulder with NASA to overcome them. Boeing has been a
partner with NASA on the Starliner system since 2010 and we’ve made
significant progress on the maturity of our design."

We also asked representatives at SpaceX if the company's Sept. 1 Falcon
9 explosion could affect the company's rocket launch schedule and human
spaceflight plans, and they told us by email:

"[O]ur number one priority is to safely and reliably return to flight
for our customers, as well as to take all the necessary steps to ensure
the highest possible levels of safety for future crewed missions with
the Falcon 9. We will carefully and thoroughly investigate and address
this issue."

A NASA spokesperson told Business Insider by email (our emphasis added
in bold):

"NASA remains confident in our commercial partners and in the goals of
the Commercial Crew Program to take astronauts to and from low-Earth
orbit. It is too early to know whether Thursday's incident will impact
their development schedules. Spacecraft and launch vehicles designed for
the Commercial Crew Program must meet NASA's stringent safety criteria
before being certified to launch crews into space. Successfully meeting
those requirements has always taken precedence over schedule."

SEE ALSO: Here's how much money it actually costs to launch stuff into space


http://www.businessinsider.com/astro...uz-seat-2016-9