According to a recent study from the NASA inspector general, NASA spends $100 million on each RS-25 main engine, which is 5-100 times more expensive than equivalent rocket engines from the private sector.
For $8 to $20 million each, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin produces BE-4 engines, which are identical to RS-25 engines in terms of size and power. Even more affordable rockets with equivalent power are produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX for roughly $2–2.5 million.
Although NASA is attempting to reduce the price of RS-25 engines to little over $70 million per, which would represent a roughly 30% reduction, they are still nowhere near as expensive as engines produced by the private sector. The cost of SpaceX’s Raptor engines, on the other hand, is intended to be reduced by a factor of 10.
According to the inspector general’s assessment, the construction of RS-25 engines, their refurbishment, and the manufacture of solid rocket boosters for the initial Artemis flights resulted in $6 billion in cost hikes and more than 6 years of delays.
To be clear, the $6 billion just represents the cost overruns and does not represent the whole cost of the engine project.
Additionally, NASA gave several of the contractors significantly higher ratings than necessary. Only five of the sixteen RS-25 engines that Aerojet was supposed to rebuild were delivered. NASA gave Aerojet’s effort a « very good » rating despite the appalling performance.
The History of NASA Overpaying Contractors
The high expense of NASA’s missions and research is well recognized. It is undeniably outrageously costly to explore and research in space, especially when one wants to break new technological ground. However, it is evident that NASA frequently compensated contractors for their work.
For instance, a different study from the inspector general revealed that NASA overpaid Boeing $187 million. Since 2011, NASA has relied on Russia to deliver humans to the International Space Station (ISS).
Because of its dissatisfaction with this dependence, NASA recently awarded multibillion dollar contracts to US companies Boeing and SpaceX to develop its own transport spacecraft to transfer personnel to the International Space Station (ISS).
In order to accommodate « various flexibilities, » including accelerating the manufacturing of the shuttle, the agency paid Boeing $287.2 million more than what the fixed-rate contract called for. In spite of the inspector general’s assessment that the risk was « minimal, » it was concerning that it wouldn’t be possible to deploy a shuttle to the ISS for another 18 months.
Despite SpaceX’s assurances of quicker manufacturing than Boeing, the inspector discovered that NASA failed to inquire as to whether it had a remedy to the alleged issue. He also learned that NASA had not thought of approaching Boeing or Russia to see whether they may be able to help fill the gap if it ever materialized.
Other government organizations beyond NASA overpay their contractors. The Pentagon is infamous for frequently paying defence contractors too much. For instance, it paid two of its top contractors $100 million more than necessary in 2019 because Department of Defence executives disregarded their own auditors’ recommendations. Contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin frequently overcharge for its services.
The use of government funds by these organizations, according to critics, ought to be far more closely monitored.
