Finally, Major Tom has some good news for ground extermination. Nine months after Space Lonely, two National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts are returned to Earth by SpaceX crew’s dragon spaceship. The two astronauts first travelled into space on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s first manned mission in June 2024. With the astronauts now homebound, it’s time for NASA to stop at intervals and search for serious souls about their mission as an agency.
NASA’s first mistake was to put faith in Boeing’s Starliner. Ever since NASA signed a contract with Boeing and SpaceX to develop a ship for manned missions, the agency has been filled with cumbersome starliners. Through NASA, taxpayers fired $4.2 billion at Boeing, compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion. NASA justified Boeing’s premium for its close relationship with nostalgia. The Starliner Maiden’s voyage was originally scheduled for 2017, but engineering delays continued to ground the ship. When Starliner was finally “ready” for a (unmanned) flight at the end of 2019, the software SNAFU broke down in orbit, causing the mission to fail. The 2021 Re-Do was derailed by corroded valves, with subsequent parachute system issues, wiring issues, and more valve issues that remained away from astronauts until 2024. Meanwhile, costs have been accumulated. Taxpayers had to pay Boeing an additional $600 million to develop the Starliner, but Boeing spent $1.5 billion on its own cost overrun. Recently, Boeing reported losing $523 million in 2024 at Starliner. This is the largest one-year loss the company has ever reported in the development of its spacecraft.
This fiscal convention is comparable to NASA courses. The Artemis III mission, which has played a key role in Boeing’s development, will bring humans to the moon for the first time as the Apollo Landings and Artemis IV missions ferries astronauts to a new space station orbiting the moon. These plans aren’t cheap. In January 2024, in testimony to Congress, NASA’s then-in-person Inspector (IG) George Scott estimated that the total cost of the Artemis program through 2025 could cover $93 billion. That figure excludes hundreds of billions of dollars of research and development costs in addition to the unexpected costs associated with the lunar space station. It is natural that space spending by 2030 will be well above $100 billion, but there are few concrete estimates. And, as Scott pointed out, “Decision makers limit their knowledge of the full range of costs until an estimate is made.”
Meanwhile, delays are almost inevitable in the US space agency. In January 2024, NASA leadership officially posted the Artemis III dates from late 2025 to September 2026, citing technology and safety-related delays. The Government’s Accountability Office (GAO) correctly predicted future delays, saying in a November report that “If developed as long as the average of NASA’s major projects, the Artemis III mission is likely to occur in early 2027.” The agency did not fail to be disappointed. In December, NASA announced that it would delay the Artemis II and Artemis III missions to 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Luckily, NASA has pulled its head out of the clouds, possibly reducing its ambitions and reliance on Boeing. Recent reports show that Boeing is taking a step back from production of its space launch system rockets and Orion spacecraft. This is the key to the Artemis Mission.
NASA would be wise to reset the mission completely and work with a cheaper and more effective private partner for the rest of the mission. Now is not the time to throw taxpayer dollars into a black hole of spending waste.
David Williams is the president of the Taxpayer Protection Union.
