Re: Foam still a key concern for shuttle launch

Stating investments in the foam testing have exceeded the point of
diminishing returns, without providing any citations, is simply
re-stating you're opinion without support. Firstly for the law of
diminishing returns to apply, you must state what the marginal costs
are, which is a function of cost vs. output. Now in making your
statement that nasa has "exceeded the point of diminishing returns"
you have made no correlation as to how output from the space shuttle
program can be measured in profit, or even marginal costs, but instead
you just ignorantly applied a simple economics theory in support of
your statement.

Lets look at the numbers.
As of 2004 nasa had budgeted for $2.2 invested in return to flight
(#5), but some of that came at the expense of other programs and the
asaps recommended safety upgrades prior to the sts-107 tragedy.

The space shuttles operationally stated goal is to complete the space
station construction by 2010, a 25 billion dollar investment by the us
tax payers (#3). The accounting item cost in "property damage" alone
for the sts-107 tragedy was over 1 billion dollars (#4), that is not
including monetary investments in flight crew training and insurance
payouts. The first liability associated with another loss of vehicle
and death of crew would be at least 1.1 billion property losses as with
the sts-107 tragedy. Another tragedy would again ground the fleet
until an rtf or create an early retirement which would mean the loss of
space station space station completion, resulting in dollars lost from
already manufactured components.
Now with respect to testing the caibs determined cause for the sts-107
tragedy you still have offered no scientific evidence why you believe
nasa should "stop trying to fix an unfixable problem", but instead
argued with a non-validated, non-correlated, non-cited, illogical and
insulting statements that do nothing to support your opinion.
tom



(#3)
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d011000r.pdf
GAO-01-1000R NASA Cost Limits
Page 6 par 2,
"The total amount obligated by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration for (A) costs of the International Space Station may not
exceed $25,000,000,000 . . ." and subsection 202 (e) requires NASA to
account for those cost limitations."

(*4).
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/safety/osha/OSHA_2004%20.pdf
ANNUAL OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH REPORT
OF THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Reporting Period Fiscal Year: 2004
Page 27 XIII. NASA Agency Property Damage, 5-years (figure 12)
The property damage cost at NASA Centers from 2000 to 2004 is
illustrated in
Figure 12. · In 2004, a favorable decrease in property damage cost by
$1,074,513,875.00 since 2003 was observed.
· In 2003, the cause of the spike was attributed to the following:
Item Cost STS 107 Space Shuttle $ 1,076,332,029.00


(*5)
NASA's Space Shuttle Program: Issues for
Congress Related to The Columbia Tragedy
and "Return to Flight"
Marcia S. Smith
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/48804.pdf
page 4, par 3
" Cost. NASA's most recent public estimate of the total cost for
RTF (FY2003-2009)
was released in July 2004. RTF costs are in addition to regular shuttle
funding, although
some of the RTF money has been taken from other shuttle-related
activities (e.g.
upgrades). The July 2004 estimate was $2.2 billion, double the previous
estimate of $1.1
billion. For FY2005, NASA requested $4.3 billion for the shuttle
program. In November
2004, NASA informed Congress it needed $762 million more than expected
for FY2005.
In the FY2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 108-447), Congress
approved the
$4.3 billion, subject to an across-the-board 0.80% rescission.
Conferees stated (H.Rept.
108-792) that NASA could submit a request for supplemental
appropriations, or
reprogram funds from other NASA programs. Congress also appropriated
$126 million
to NASA in an FY2005 emergency supplemental for hurricane relief (P.L.
108-324).
According to a May 10, 2005 update to its FY2005 operating plan, NASA
is
reprogramming the following funds into RTF: $55 million from the
Science Mission
Directorate ($20 million from space science, $35 million from earth
science); $375.8
million from the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate ($73 million
from biological
and physical research, $204 million from human and robotic technology,
and $98 million
from transportation systems); and $331.2 million from the Space
Operations Mission
Directorate ($160 million from the space station, $170 million from
space shuttle
upgrades, and $1.2 million from space flight support).
Whether the shuttle program overall is receiving adequate funding
continues to be
a question. The CAIB noted that long term budget constraints were a
factor in the
Columbia tragedy. NASA's FY2006 shuttle budget request is $4.5
billion, with a
projection that it will decline to $2.4 billion by FY2010. NASA plans
to retire the shuttle in 2010. Whether the agency can accomplish the
remaining required shuttle launches (see below) within such a declining
shuttle budget remains to be seen."




Rand Simberg wrote:
"The chances of another accident are already so low that spending more
on foam
reduction has less marginal benefit (the expected value of the loss of
another vehicle times the marginal reduction in the probability of
loss) than the cost, given that we're only going to fly another sixteen
missions or so."

.

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