Comptabilité

1999 · rif. 91264 — Washington DC: United States General Accounting Office 1999. Presumed First Edition First Printing. Wraps. Very good. 34 pages. Report to Congressional Requesters. The purpose of the $1.3 billion X-33 Program cosponsored by the NASA and the Lockheed Martin Corporation is to develop and demonstrate advanced technologies and techniques needed for future reusable launch vehicles RLV including lightweight internal fuel tanks advanced rocket engines a durable heat shield and rapid-turnaround low-cost operations. The X-33 vehicle will be a half-scale model of Lockheed Martin's planned single-stage-to-orbit SSTO Venture Star RLV an operational vehicle that will be based on and developed after the X-33. Lockheed Martin and NASA will base the decision to proceed with developing the Venture Star in part on the results of the X-33 Program. NASA would potentially be one of Lockheed Martin's primary customers for the cargo-only flights and is the only anticipated customer for passenger flights. The passenger flights would carry crewmembers to and from the International Space Station. NASA and Lockheed Martin are conducting the X-33 Program under a cooperative agreement a financial instrument with which a government entity and one or more public or private organizations jointly fund and implement an activity to achieve common objectives. Such a partnership was encouraged by the National Space Transportation Policy of 1994 as a means of 1 establishing NASA as the lead agency for technology development and demonstration of reusable space transportation systems and 2 positioning the government and the private sector to make decisions on the development of an operational reusable launch system. NASA and Lockheed Martin X-33 program managers anticipate that the program will achieve technical requirements such as demonstrating the feasibility of building large liquid hydrogen fuel tanks made of graphite composite material. However the program will not meet some original cost schedule and performance objectives. Problems encountered by Lockheed Martin while working toward the X-33 Program's technical requirements have caused cost increases delay of the test vehicle's first flight and revision of some performance objectives. The technical problems occurred during development and fabrication of the X-33 vehicle's internal fuel tanks rocket engines and thermal protection system the three key advanced technologies the program seeks to demonstrate. Resolving these technical problems caused Lockheed Martin's estimated contribution to grow $75 million above the original estimate of $211.6 million to $286.6 million. However part of the increase will be borne by the government. Procurement regulations allow companies to recover allowable independent research and development costs by including them as overhead in the pricing for other government contracts. Thus Lockheed Martin's and its partners' shares may actually be lower. In addition estimated government costs for NASA civil service personnel working on the program not included in NASA's X-33 program budget also increased. Together these estimated costs increased from $216.9 million to $274.3 million as of March 1999. As a result we believe a more accurate representation of the estimated government's share of the X-33 Program is $1.23 billion while industry's estimated share is $125.4 million. Several issues will need to be evaluated before NASA decides to use Venture Star RLVs to support the International Space Station. First the results of the X-33 Program must provide sufficient information for NASA to determine that the risks have been sufficiently reduced and that continuation of activities leading to the agency's use of Venture Star as a customer is warranted. Second even though Venture Star RLVs are intended to be commercially owned and operated government financial incentives will likely be needed to initiate such a venture. Third NASA would have to pay for either two crew modules or modifications to Venture Star vehicles if the crew return vehicle being developed for the International Space Station is chosen as a means for Venture Star to carry people. Fourth because the Venture Star RLV would not carry as much cargo as the space shuttle additional flights would be needed. The more frequent docking activities may reduce the amount of stable time available for some science operations. United States General Accounting Office paperback