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NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

nature.com

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Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#31

Post by Alupis »

dylan604 wrote: post #8
omneity wrote: post #3

With the recently discovered caves in the moon[0] I always thought this particular mission had unfortunate timing since the caves are pretty far from the south pole. Maybe its cancelation is for the best after all. Huge sunk cost though, it might lower confidence in future budget talks. 0: https://www.space.com/moon-cave-lunar-exploration-radar-imag...

It could be a win-win. Just imagine if NASA canceled the Starliner before it launched. Boeing could have been saved the embarrassment they are currently enduring, but they weren't so lucky to have their project canceled.

While NASA helped fund development and lend expertise, Starliner is not a NASA project to cancel. It's a Boeing/ULA project, and it's likely in Boeing/ULA's interest to develop manned space flight capabilities regardless of what NASA's needs might be today or in the near future.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#32

Post by talldatethrow »

rvnx wrote: post #17
doytch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People put valuations on lives all the time in risk analysis and I've never seen a cost even close to $100m. DOT puts it at 13.2m: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...

Finding someone who agrees to go to the moon with a risk of 1 out 2 of dying, and 1 of 2 of becoming a historical hero is really doable. Plenty of volunteers, and no need for 100M USD. People go to war for less than 50K USD.

The odds of dying in a war are less than 1 in 2, and for joining the military in general it is far far less.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#33

Post by bryanlarsen »

bko wrote: post #25
choilive wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's objectives though.

Sure looks like they cut it 2% in 2024, but they've increased it every year over the last 10 years, even in real terms (maybe 2022/2023 was a bit under flat) Year Budget Change 2000 13,428 2001 14,095 4.97% 2002 14,405 2.20% 2003 14,610 1.42% 2004 15,152 3.71% 2005 15,602 2.97% 2006 15,125 -3.06% 2007 15,861 4.87% 2008 17,833 12.43% 2009 17,782 -0.29% 2010 18,724 5.30% 2011 18,448 -1.47% 2012 17,770 -3.68% 2013 16,86…

The problem is that most of that budget is earmarked for huge money-wasters like SLS, and those earmarks are growing. So the non-earmarked budget shrinks.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#34

Post by ortusdux »

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40991699

I'll note that it sounds like they were relying on a 3rd party to make their descent module, but it won't be ready in time. So if they were to go ahead with the launch they wouldn't have a way to land the thing.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#35

Post by com2kid »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #5

450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig the holes themselves? Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards an…

The very first Apple Watch cost a billion dollars to make. Costs got quickly amortized after that first unit.

If NASA was in the habit of building hundreds of robots at a time, the cost per unit would drop dramatically.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#36

Post by rvnx »

talldatethrow wrote: post #32
rvnx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding someone who agrees to go to the moon with a risk of 1 out 2 of dying, and 1 of 2 of becoming a historical hero is really doable. Plenty of volunteers, and no need for 100M USD. People go to war for less than 50K USD.

The odds of dying in a war are less than 1 in 2, and for joining the military in general it is far far less.

?! I was like, "oh really?" and I checked... you're right, "a German soldier had approximately a 1 in 3 chance of dying during the WW2 conflict"

Dying to protect a political system vs dying to advance science, better pick science.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#37

Post by BJones12 »

talldatethrow wrote: post #32
rvnx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding someone who agrees to go to the moon with a risk of 1 out 2 of dying, and 1 of 2 of becoming a historical hero is really doable. Plenty of volunteers, and no need for 100M USD. People go to war for less than 50K USD.

The odds of dying in a war are less than 1 in 2, and for joining the military in general it is far far less.

In WWII young men volunteered to join RAF bomber crews and faced an almost 1-in-2 chance of dying, with a far higher chance of getting wounded or captured.

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#39

Post by Retric »

bko wrote: post #25
choilive wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's objectives though.

Sure looks like they cut it 2% in 2024, but they've increased it every year over the last 10 years, even in real terms (maybe 2022/2023 was a bit under flat) Year Budget Change 2000 13,428 2001 14,095 4.97% 2002 14,405 2.20% 2003 14,610 1.42% 2004 15,152 3.71% 2005 15,602 2.97% 2006 15,125 -3.06% 2007 15,861 4.87% 2008 17,833 12.43% 2009 17,782 -0.29% 2010 18,724 5.30% 2011 18,448 -1.47% 2012 17,770 -3.68% 2013 16,86…

You’re looking at the Nominal Dollars (Millions) column which is meaningless. The 2023 Constant Dollars (Millions) has

  2010: 26,162 
  2015: 23,150
  2020: 26,559
Then the actual budget in 2023 is down to 25,384, and 2024 is 24,124 a 5% cut from the year before. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon

#40

Post by hansvm »

hughes wrote: post #2

I'm all for avoiding sunk-cost thinking, but considering that nearly half a billion was spent on this thing and its launch was barely a year away, it's hard to wrap my head around scrapping it entirely. From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion? Also, where's the account…

> avoiding sunk-cost thinking

The past is in the past. The half a billion matters insofar as it's given us our current playing hand. The right mentality is some combination of looking forward (we have many options, some of which were bought for half a billion, but even those might be worthless), backward looking (half a billion is probably worth having a retro over; was the outcome regrettable? If so, how can we do less of that?), and keeping non-obvious systemic effects in mind while doing both of those things (e.g., if you never finish a project, it doesn't matter if you were always working toward the "right" thing, and with that sort of thing in mind your bias toward cancelling projects should perhaps be weaker than the immediate facts might indicate).

Imagine you'd invested half a billion in Theranos. You really would have pennies on the dollar in return, and completely scrapping it (or otherwise selling it for parts) could be a logical move. The sunk cost fallacy comes in when you decide that because you've already invested you need to continue in that direction.

Your point about it being hard to wrap your head around scrapping it entirely is a little subtle. We very well might have bought something worthwhile for that half a billion. In that case though, you still want to look at the resources you _currently_ have available or expect to have in the future, not the fact that you lost a half billion (except insofar as you can use that as a learning experience to not fuck up so much in the future).

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