Annually, NASA spends nearly $4 billion on development of its "exploration" hardware, including the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, the launch pad, and related facilities. This is a large amount of money, comprising nearly half of the space agency's expenditure on human spaceflight activities. Development has been ongoing since 2011, and NASA hopes to finally fly the vehicles together in 2020.

The exploration program spreads those funds around to four principal contractors who once played a key role in the space shuttle program and now supports the SLS rocket and Orion. Senior representatives of all four of these companies, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, appeared last week for a panel discussion at the American Astronautical Society's Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

For the most part, the presentations went as usual for these kinds of events—corporate vice presidents talking about the progress they were making on this or that component of the rocket and spacecraft. Although the Space Launch System rocket is going to launch three years later than originally planned, and its program is over budget and was recently admitted by NASA's own inspector to be poorly managed, you would not have known it from these presentations.

However, one panelist did offer a warning of sorts to his colleagues. Former astronaut and Vice President and General Manager of Propulsion for Northrop Grumman Charlie Precourt spoke about his company's contributions to the rocket (Northrop Grumman recently acquired Orbital ATK). They are building the large, solid rocket boosters that will provide a kick off the launch pad. Yet Precourt prefaced his update with a message about affordability—as the exploration program moves from development into operations with the first flight of SLS and Orion in 2020 or so, costs must come down, he said.

Seeking affordability

"We have to execute, but we also have to be planning for the future in terms of survivability, sustainability, and affordability," Precourt said. "I used all three of those words intentionally about this program. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got our mindset on affordability, and I don’t think it’s too early for all of us on this panel, as well as our counterparts at NASA, to start thinking about that."

Precourt noted that there are plenty of critics of the SLS rocket program outside of the major contractors involved in its development. (These critics have cited cost—NASA has already spent $12 billion to develop the rocket, which remains two years from flight at least—in addition to a low flight rate and lost opportunity costs). The rocket has survived substantial delays and cost overruns because it has strong support in Congress. The vehicle has 1,100 contractors in 43 states, covering a lot of legislative districts.

"We here inside the program tend not to think about the need to advocate," Precourt said. "There are a lot of people with other ideas about how we should do this mission, so I think it’s incumbent on us. It’s not too early to be thinking about the transition from development to production. And that means a totally different management philosophy and cost structure for all of us."

Precourt said contractors should consider a future in which NASA's present multibillion expenditures on rocket development costs need to be cut in half in order for the SLS vehicle to have a robust future.

"All of us need to be thinking about [how] our annual budget for this will not be what it is in development," he said. "That’s a very serious problem that we have to look forward to, and to try to rectify, so that we are sustainable."

If the other speakers had thoughts about Precourt's comments, they did not share them during the ensuing discussion.