Costs
The ESAS estimates the cost of the manned lunar program through 2025 to be $217 billion, only $7 billion more than NASA's current projected exploration budget through that time. This estimate may be high because it includes the cost of developing a new engine for the EDS, whereas the current plan is to use a J-2 derivative.
The ESAS proposal was originally said to be achievable using only existing NASA funding, without significant cuts to NASA's other programs, however it soon became apparent that much more money was needed. Supporters of Constellation saw this as a justification for terminating the Shuttle program as soon as possible, and NASA implemented a plan to terminate support for both Shuttle and ISS in 2010. This was about 10 years earlier than planned for both programs, so must be considered a significant cut. This resulted in strong objections from the international partners that the US was not meeting its commitments, and concerns in Congress that the investment in ISS would be wasted.
Read more about this topic: Exploration Systems Architecture Study
Famous quotes containing the word costs:
“The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“When over Catholics the ocean rolls,
They must wait several weeks before a mass
Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,
Because, till people know what’s come to pass,
They won’t lay out their money on the dead—
It costs three francs for every mass that’s said.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“It costs you something to do good!”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)