Questioned yesterday during a US parliamentary committee, the administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, regretted the excesses of the costs of the historical contracts of the agency. A turnaround for this ex-politician won over by competition and public-private partnerships… And who calls for their generalization.
10-digit checks for the SLS (and Artemis) program are in the firing line.
Convince the politicians
” We are in the process of abandoning this system of contracts, which is a real pain (…) “Explained NASA administrator Bill Nelson yesterday. And if he did not take up the formula of Emmanuel Macron, the declaration also makes noise on the other side of the Atlantic. He was questioned about the budgetary slippages of several major projects in recent years, which handicap the agency and its image. Bill Nelson, who took the reins of the American agency last year, defended the budget envelope of 26 billion that the agency wants for the 2023 financial year (which starts on 1er November) in front of a specialized congressional committee, bringing together senators and representatives… In which he himself had sat for a long time.
The exercise is delicate, but the ex-senator Nelson relied on the reports of the agency, and in particular on those of the OIG, an office of independent audits of the NASA administration. As a result, to everyone’s surprise, he highlighted public-private type programs and competitive bidding, and heavily criticized traditional contracts, called ” cost-plus “.
Play with the system
Contract ” cost-plus “, which is the most classic scheme for the American agency, consists of signing a framework agreement with a company with an amount and a delivery date… And also covering overruns and not applying any penalties in the event of delays. Historically, it is a question of pushing manufacturers to do their part of the job and to innovate without fear of backlash from the administration, in a field where, it must be admitted, no one really manages to deliver on time. . At least, that was the original concept… Perverted since then?
Bill Nelson yesterday cited the $383 million contract with Bechtel for a second launch tower dedicated to the SLS launcher. According to the administrator, the firm won the contract by understating all its costs, and has been taking advantage of the “cost-plus” structure for years to get more money and more time… And NASA cannot do much to stop them. The OIG audits have also pointed to the same excesses throughout the decade that has just passed for a large part of the industrialists of the SLS (Space Launch System) project, which has since cost almost 25 billion dollars to the NASA…
Jacket reversal
That Bill Nelson praises the merits of competitive bidding and public-private contracts surprised many, because when he was a senator, his positions were diametrically opposed. It is indeed the same Bill Nelson who strongly criticized the Commercial Crew contract, and fervently defended the contracts signed for the Orion capsule a decade ago!
It is the agency’s pragmatism and feedback on these contracts that gave birth to the Dragon capsules, allowed the return of manned flights on American territory or gave a boost to the development of current lunar missions. , who played for him to change his mind. The NASA administrator now wants the budget for a second lunar lander so as not to leave the keys to the contract with SpaceX and its Starship, and highlights the savings that fixed contracts have allowed (which for example implies that Boeing has been bearing the additional costs related to the Starliner capsule since 2019).
It is therefore a safe bet that if the format “ cost more disappears one day, it will be for more competition and public-private. On the American defense side, General John Hyten explained before his retirement last year that thanks to the competition between manufacturers, he estimated that he had saved 40 billion dollars…
Source : space news
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