A leaked set of NASA Space Launch System (SLS) budget estimates are now publicly available for critiquing and spin. With the proliferation of the .PDF files comes unhappiness by SLS supporters and different ways to interpret the numbers depending on who is reading them.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) appears to be the first publication getting access to the internal NASA cost estimates, publishing “White House Experiences Sticker Shock Over NASA's Plans,” on September 7. On September 9, the full document appeared on SpacePolicyOnline.com and SpaceRef.com, trigging stories on NASA Watch and The Huntsville Times on September 11 and 12 respectively.

Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) issued an announcement the day after the WSJ article appeared, calling the leak a “Campaign to Undermine America’s Manned Space Program,” while a former NASA official called it obviously another attempt... to leak data to make the program look bad.”  

Dated August 19, and entitled "ESD Integration, Budget Availability Scenarios," the 26 page document describes four financial estimates ranging from the Obama Administration’s budget proposal at the low-end through the cost of Senate SLS construction and launch mandates, plus the costs for launching twice a year and adding in-space infrastructure pieces for conduction operations beyond low earth orbit.  

Every scenario starts with funding in FY 2012 and works through benchmarks and building through FY 2025. At the upper-end of the cost models, Congress and the American tax-payer would have to come up with $62.5 billion to pay for all of the hardware to be built, plus the cost of NASA salaries associated with the projects.  The high-end model would include a $4.5 billion “wedge” for in-space infrastructure and a flight a year of SLS starting with a manned flight in December 2017.

The Obama Administration’s slow-boat approach would cost $41.1 billion, with one SLS flight every two years starting with an unmanned flight in December 2017, followed by a manned flight in August 2021. Cost estimates don’t appear to include a “wedge” for in-space infrastructure.

Depending on who is spinning, the upper-end cost estimates are either a low ball-park figure – since NASA has yet to bring in a big project on time and budget – or weighted to illustrate how expense deep space exploration will get using SLS as the cornerstone of future efforts.

Perhaps the most telling fact about SLS: NASA has yet to formally launch the program, committing it to building the heavy-left rocket. A number of Senators have written letters urging the agency to move forward, while the Senate Commerce Committee has subpoenaed NASA seeking SLS decision-making documents.

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