Audit report: NASA doesn't have the money for Space Launch System (SLS)

NASA does not have enough money to get its new, $12 billion SLS rocket system off the ground by the end of 2017 as planned, federal auditors say.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report Wednesday saying NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is at "high risk of missing" its planned December 2017 initial test flight.

The post-space shuttle program would build the biggest rockets ever, larger than the Saturn V rockets which sent men to the moon, to send astronauts to asteroids and Mars.

"They can't meet the date with the money they have," report author Cristina Chaplain said. She said it wasn't because the space agency had technical problems with the congressionally-required program, but that NASA didn't get enough money to carry out the massive undertaking.

The GAO report put the current shortfall at $400 million, but did say NASA was "making solid progress" on the rocket program design.

NASA's launch system officials told the GAO that there was a 90 percent chance of not hitting the launch date at this time.

This usually means NASA has to delay its test launch date, get more money or be less ambitious about what it plans to do, said former NASA associate administrator Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University.

NASA is working on the problems GAO highlighted, but delaying launch or diverting money from other programs would harm taxpayers, NASA Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier wrote in the agency's response.

"Welcome to aerospace," Pace said, pointing out that large space projects often end up as much as 50 percent over budget. He said that "is why you shouldn't believe initial cost estimates."

The space agency has been reluctant to put an overall price tag on the Space Launch System.

The GAO report says it will cost $12 billion to get to the first test launch and "potentially billions more to develop increasingly capable vehicles" that could be used for launches to asteroids and Mars.

More information: GAO audit: www.gao.gov/assets/670/664969.pdf

Virgin Galactic takes Abu Dhabi oil money

It is certainly a case of the rich getting richer and a sign of the only way these space tourism companies will ever get off the ground but either way Mr Branson pockets another profit for himself.

Today Virgin Galactic today sold a 32% stake of the company, which is valued at about $900 million, to an Abu Dhabi-based investor raising $280 million to help fund future test-flight program.

Bailed out

Virgin Galactic stated that it expects the capital infusion to fully fund the company to its commencement of commercial operations. The Virgin Group has spent over $100 million on its space flight venture since forming it in 2004.

Aabar Group

With the investment Abu Dhabi's Aabar Group gets exclusive rights to host Virgin space tourist and scientific flights. The group also said it wants to pay an extra $100 million to fund a program to launch small satellites of its own into orbit, and will build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi. US regulators and others must approve the deal.

Space Ship One

Virgin Galactic claims it is in the final stages of developing and testing commercial sub-orbital space vehicles based on the prototype SpaceShipOne. The current launch aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, made a splash this week by flying at the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Space Ship Two

WhiteKnightTwo will carry the pressurized spacecraft SpaceShipTwo to about 50,000ft, where SpaceShipTwo will release and fire a rocket taking it to about 360,000ft at speeds over Mach 3, Virgin says. SpaceShipTwo then glides back to a runway landing. More than 300 people have paid almost $40 million in ticket deposits to get on the flights, according to London-based Virgin.

Test Flights

SpaceShipTwo will begin test flights before the end of 2009. Both vehicles offer a unique environment for space tourism and a wide range of science research applications as well as a platform for small satellite launch, Virgin stated.

First Private Sector Launch

"We are building a great partnership for the development of the world's first private sector integrated human and payload space launch system," said Patrick McCall, Virgin Group Commercial Director in a statement.

Forbes Comment

According to Forbes.com, this may not be the last big financial splash the space company makes: "The aim over a bit of time is to try to IPO the business," said a spokesman for Virgin Group. He said the procedure would follow a similar template seen at

• Virgin Blue, the Australian airline floated in 2003;
  
• Virgin Mobile UK, floated in 2004;
  
• Virgin Mobile USA, floated in 2007.

Sold out
The entire Virgin Group even went public in 1986, but was bought back by Virgin's billionaire owner, Richard Branson. Such a move by Virgin Galactic would be a couple years away at least, observers said but Mr Branson must be wringing his hands with glee at this deal. Looks like he is off the hook again.

ATMs and Cash machines hacked

"SKULDUGGERY," says Andrew Henwood, "is a very good word to describe what this extremely advanced, cleverly written malware gets up to. We've never seen anything like it."

What he has discovered is a devious piece of criminal coding that has been quietly at work in a clutch of cash machines at banks in Russia and Ukraine. It allows a gang member to walk up to an ATM, insert a "trigger" card, and use the machine's receipt printer to produce a list of all the debit card numbers used that day, including their start and expiry dates - and their PINs. Everything needed, in fact, to clone those cards and start emptying bank accounts. In some cases, the malicious software even allows the criminal to eject the machine's banknote storage cassette into the street.

The software is the latest move in a security arms race after banks and consumers got wise to the fitting of fake fascias onto ATMs. These fascias have been criminals' main way of using ATMs to get the details they need to clone cards. They contain a camera to spy on PINs being entered on the keypad, and a card reader to skim data from the card's magnetic stripe. It's big business: across Europe, losses due to such fraud grew by 11 per cent to €484 million in 2008, according to the European ATM Security Team (EAST), funded by the European Union and based in Edinburgh, UK (see graph).

Banks responded by investing in anti-skimming technology - which can detect a fake fascia overlay and disable the ATM. So crooks are developing new tricks, which are being uncovered by Henwood and his colleagues at SpiderLabs, a computer forensics research centre in London.