How do they judge costs..

On Nov 10, 11:44*pm, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
It occurred to me some time ago, that doing stuff in space manned or
otherwise was and still is prone to unknown costs. How can one budget for
anything when you have never actually done it before.
*The recent report on the James Web project highlights this. If the bean
counters are sitting, watching, you can end up with something that is
compromised from what you wanted in the first place.


Unless you're funding it out of your own pocket, bean counters work on
the project before you do.

And just like estimating software (or other project) schedules, you
pull together the best information you have, make educated guesses for
everything else, and then apply fudge factors. The problem with fudge
factors, of course, is if you are too lavish with them, you might
scare away the people giving approvals. And if you don't use enough,
then you get beheaded for your underestimate.

So project schedules and funding estimates tend to be "damned if you
do, damned if you don't".

BTW, how early in the project did they find out the low-expansion
glass wouldn't work?

/dps