No, this isn’t about a brother and sister grudge match in Olympus. Rather, it’s a comparison of the financial models used by these two United States lunar programs. The Apollo missions relied on cost-plus contracts to develop the Saturn 5 boosters, orbiters, landers and rovers. This type of contract reimbursed the contractor for their direct and indirect costs, plus a fee for profit. While allowing NASA to maintain significant control and ownership over the design, it also meant that it was responsible for all price overruns.
NASA was sensitive to public perception and opinion, reflected by congressional financial support. For example, in matters of astronaut safety, the accusation of a cavalier attitude could have rendered political support untenable. Since the space agency was on the hook for project design, project managers and administrators demanded rework from their contractors until the final product was 100% reliable. Such rework was usually out of contract scope, resulting in significant delays and budget overruns.
The US spent approximately $25.8 billion between 1960 and 1973 on the Apollo program, accounting for 5% of government spending. That’s roughly $257 billion in 2020 dollars.
Fast forward to today’s Artemis program. The overall cost from 2012 to 2025 is around $100 billion. Assuming an annual budget of $8 billion, that would amount to $140 billion through 2030.
NASA nearly had the Artemis program cancelled. Costs escalated for the development and production of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, a single-use booster system, similar to the older Saturn 5. And like its predecessor, the agency used cost-plus contracts for its development. NASA's Inspector General criticized their use for SLS, noting that they contributed to significant budget overruns. The report highlighted that a $6 billion increase in the main engines' costs was partly attributed to these contracts. In order to maintain program support, NASA scaled back the use of the boosters to only the first three lunar missions.
For the remainder of the Artemis program, the agency is working with private companies for boosters, orbiters, landers, rovers and habitats. The agency switched to fixed-fee-for-a-service contracts. Now, rather than tightly controlling design elements in-house, NASA contributes technical expertise and data to various firms like Blue Origin and SpaceX. These agreements stipulate that a company will provide a specific number of launches (or other services like lunar landings) for a fixed fee per each. If the mission fails, the financial loss is the provider’s not NASA’s.
A good example is the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS) program. It encourages companies to develop the technology needed to land supplies and experiments on the Moon cheaply and safely, shifting risk to the vendor. They only get paid for meeting certain project milestones. These companies, ranging in size, bid on delivering payloads for NASA. This includes everything from payload integration and operations, to launching from Earth and landing on the lunar surface. Since 2023, commercial deliveries began performing science experiments, testing technologies, and demonstrating capabilities to help the agency explore the Moon.
CLPS contracts total $2.6 billion through 2028. For example, Firefly’s successful Blue Ghost Lander mission on March 2nd was funded by the program. Multiple agencies and companies provided the lander payload, also funded through CLPS. There are several other contract initiatives that foster partnership and innovation under the Artemis umbrella that function similar to CLPS.
Under the old Apollo system, NASA owned the technology. They controlled the design. But fear of tort liability, and congressional funding constraints led to micromanagement. They not only defined what to design, they defined how to do it, often at the expense of innovation, cost overruns and delays.
Today’s Artemis program limits the space agency’s cost exposure. When companies compete for contracts, innovation flourishes. Vendors are free to pursue selling their products and services to other companies and space agencies outside of NASA. Or they can pursue their own privately funded missions to the Moon, further expanding the burgeoning space economy.
In my novels, I foresee the expansion of private initiative, driven by the search for profitability by these latter-day pioneers. And if overlapping interests lead to petty jealousies and a bit of conflict, well, that just spices up the reading, doesn’t it?
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For further readinghttps://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nextstep/https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/seven-us-companies-collaborate-with-nasa-to-advance-space-capabilities/
