A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

-71-
500
* STPSS
400 AW-STPSS
PROGRAM
COST 300
(millions
31
200
dollars 1
100
O0
S0 II ,I I
90 100 200 250
SPACE TEST PROGRAM SIZE (NUMBER OF PAYLOADS)
Fig. 9-Effect of Space Test Program
size (nominal case)
As shown, no such effect was found.
The ordering of the various procurement
options remained unchanged, whereas the program cost increased
nearly linearly.
Launch Cost Variations
Table 11 displays program costs for the nominal case where the
shuttle launch cost is assumed to be $15.4 million prorated among users
on the basis of payload weight.
Excursions were performed to test the
sensitivity of the rank ordering of program costs to shuttle launch
cost and the procedure adopted for allocating shuttle costs among users.
The results of the variations considered are also shown in Table 11.
For ease in reading the table, all costs more than 10 percent above the
lowest cost in each row are enclosed in parentheses--all other costs
are considered to be essentially the same.
In looking at the other cases it is clear that increasing the
shuttle cost to $30 million per launch has no effect on relative results,
although the magnitude of program costs increases about 15 percent.
Assuming that Space Test Program payloads get a free ride on
the shuttle and pay only a service charge of $1 million per launch
does not change the conclusions either. The STPSS looks slightly worse