🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.724698268@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
> onvex.convex
> Sender: usenet@news.eng.convex.com (news access account)
> Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
> Lines: 21
> Nntp-Posting-Host: bach.convex.com
> X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
>               Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
>               not necessarily those of CONVEX.
> 
> In <BzDKw5.3no@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:
> 
> >HE indulged in creative accounting?  I think the contract for DC-X was $58 
> >million, not a "couple hundred million."  
> 
> That sounds right.  McDAC has also spent some of its own money in
> addition to what it got from the Air Force.  I believe the contract
> required McDAC to spend at least an equal amount, so that puts it
> into the hundred-million-dollar range.  *Not* the billion-dollar
> range.
>  
> 
> >The average total cost of a shuttle mission is a little over $500 million 
> >not a billion+.
> 
> Only if you learned math from the "Hitchhiker's Guide."
> 
> Divide the amount of money NASA spends on the Space Shuttle program
> every year by six flights per year.
> 
> $500 million ain't even close.

   What NASA quotes as Shuttle costs is their idea of "direct operating costs".
This leaves out a lot of the Shuttle program's other indirect or overhead 
costs including development and overhaul costs. Since NASA doesn't have to
answer to the IRS and Congress is interested in program costs, they have 
a lot of flexibilty to define direct and indirect as they wish :-)  
As a result, no one really knows how much the Shuttle costs and
we have to endure this never ending debate on the net.


   In any case this is all apples-vs-oranges... More informative numbers 
would be to compare inflation adjusted development costs of various NASA
programs to DCX, DCY...  The key though is not to compare just the Shuttle,
try to find programs with similar scopes, and complexities. Perhaps 
the LM, Gemini, the Dryden Center's experiments with flying bodies (from what 
I've read, one of NASA's more cost effective programs, the result of
being a local initiative without a lot of official support or oversite),
and the X-15 (although primarily an Air Force project). Anyone have any 
numbers, and care to risk eternal flames for posting them?

--
Henry Worth
No, I don't speak for Amdahl... I'm not even sure I speak for myself.