13 years and $500 million for a stage adapter? The report endorses NASA’s dismissal.

In response to the report, the head of NASA’s Human Spaceflight Directorate, Lori Glaze, said the contents of the memorandum support NASA’s decision to cancel the programs earlier this year.

“NASA says that the challenges summarized in the memorandum – rising costs, declining schedules, contracting problems, and changes in proposed operations – will strengthen the proposals announced publicly on Ignition Day to end the design of Artemis, restructure the procurement process, and align programs with the nation’s goals,” he wrote.

That’s an expensive adapter you have there

The least expensive of the four adapters, the Universal Stage Adapter, is probably the most obvious. NASA contracted with Dynetics in June 2017 to design, test, and manufacture this instrument for spaceflight. Made mostly of compost, the adapter weighed 9,650 pounds (4.3 metric tons) and stood 33 feet (10 meters) tall.

The original contract awarded to Dynetics totaled $131 million, with NASA later adding $9 million in a cost-separation plan. By the time the program was canceled earlier this year, the contract price had ballooned to $353 million, and the delivery date had been pushed back to September 2028. The inspector general’s report said the project could cost $497 million and would not be ready until May 2030.

To be clear: NASA has to pay half a billion dollars for a direct adapter. This has no speed or anything like that in the field. Also, for some mysterious reason, it was supposed to take 13 years to build.

Another interesting note from the report is that the director general did not believe that the Lunar Gateway, given the delays with the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, would be operational until 2032. Ars reported last week that NASA officially asked Northrop Grumman to stop working on this unit.