Comparison chart of costs of all alternatives examined, 2006-2017...
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This was an interesting study from a historical perspective in 2012, knowing what we know now. Ares I, which was projected to cost $5 billion to develop (to first flight) had burned through $9 billion (along with Orion) from 2006-2010 when it was canceled, and hadn't even completed PDR, meaning it wasn't even off the drawing board. The five segment first stage SRM development was well along and continued to completion (so far) but the J-2X wasn't even in the testing phase when the Ares I was canceled and the upper stage and other vehicle systems were in the design phase. The Ares I IOC, originally to be 2014, had slipped to 2017 (20% confidence level) or more realistically, 2018 (75% confidence level, IIRC). There's no reason to put any more faith in any of NASA's estimates for the final costs for Ares V, either.
The "cost comparisons" between shuttle, Delta IV, Atlas V, and Saturn V REALLY are the smoking gun here... note shuttle costs per pound of payload to orbit... they're STUPID expensive! Compare it to Saturn V, which, despite having a MUCH larger development cost (due to being at the bleeding edge of "state of the art" in the mid-60's and having to invent "everything"!) actually had a per-pound payload cost to orbit about the same as Delta IV and Atlas V, themselves only a FRACTION of shuttle costs! It's safe to say that, had Saturn V been flown enough to amortize the development costs over more units produced, and had it been "improved" through a cost-cutting program to streamline and simplify the manufacturing and integration of the vehicle, it could have beat the pants off any other system flying today, and ESPECIALLY off the shuttle!
What a shame...
Note also the shuttle costs per launch-- CBO estimates them at about $900 million per flight. Now, NASA always cried foul at this estimate as too high, and claimed that shuttle per-flight recurring costs were around $450 million to $500 million per flight. Now that shuttle has been retired and the final program costs are known (to the degree they can EVER be fully known, since NASA often plays games in the bookkeeping, assigning project costs to other projects when they're in a budgetary crunch and one project runs into cost overruns or needs extra funding, muddying the waters as to what the projects ACTUALLY costs). The shuttle program, from its inception in 1972 until the last orbiter flew, with retirement costs, divided by the 135 launches in the program, works out to a cost of about $1.1 to $1.2 billion per flight... MUCH closer to the CBO estimate of $900 million per flight than the "official" NASA estimate of $450 million or so... (a figure roughly arrived at by dividing shuttle program budget by the number of flights per year).
IOW, shuttle was a "bill of goods" from day one...
Later! OL JR
