NASA Cost Estimates Incomplete Says GAO

SPACE TRAVEL

Just keeping the current show on the road will cost billions of dollars, let alone starting a new program beyond LEO.

Washington (UPI) Dec 20 2004
NASA does not know what it will cost to service the Hubble telescope or to return to flight the shuttle fleet needed for the mission, a U.S. report said.

The General Accountability Office reviewed NASA's cost estimates for both returning the shuttle fleet to operation and using a shuttle flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope so it would continue to operate.

Its report said the costs of the Hubble mission -- estimated by NASA to be $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion -- were based on insufficient information. Some parts of the cost estimate, such as for sustaining engineering, were not supported by record keeping at a detailed enough level to estimate expenses for the mission.

There also are many uncertainties -- NASA does not yet have, for example, a design for autonomous inspection and repair, the report said.

More importantly, perhaps, the GAO found the agency does not yet have a firm grasp on the real cost of returning the shuttle fleet to flight status. It reported NASA's cost estimate of $2 billion lacked detail and supporting documentation.

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SPACE SCOPES

Analysis: O'Keefe's Exit May Save Hubble

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 16, 2004
The timing of NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's sudden announcement Monday that he was resigning from the space agency to return to the academic world suggests his reasons were more complicated than he stated in public.

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