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scarab92

NASA understands sunk cost fallacy.

NYT doesn’t.

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Sunk cost implies future costs being spent in excess of value.

Costs already spent:

   - Design
   - Part manufacturing
   - Final assembly

Costs remaining:

   - Testing
   - Operations

Future costs which will be spent anyway:

   - Launch

Which begs the question... why not skip testing?

Worst case, it's non-functional or fails to land, in which case you don't have to spend the operational costs.

I was thinking the same thing. Skip the extra testing and yolo that thing to the moon.

I got an old lawn mower in my garage that might work as well. Should we send that instead?

Only if it can send back pictures of itself.

Is it electric? Because an ICE isn't going anywhere on the lunar surface.

Well, we'll suss that out during test phase, right?

Because failure is not acceptable due to bad optics and politics of public agencies.

Yep. This was my first thought too.

It would need an internal champion to make happen and I don't think anyone wants to attach their name onto this kind of yolo.

If it fails it dooms your career, or at least that's how it would be perceived.

My guess is a bunch of rumours are spreading that many of the important tests would fail if done, requiring a redesign and far bigger expenses.

> Sunk cost implies future costs being spent in excess of value.

Isn't it (future_costs + expenditures_so_far > value) rather than (future_costs > value)? If I expect to win 10 euros from the lottery and put in 9 euros already, then buying another 2-euro lottery ticket is a loss because spending 11 for an expected gain of 10 is a loss even if those extra 2 euros to gain a potential 10... or am I falling for the fallacy now?

Is this like the monty hall thing where the answer changes if you're given a chance to change your mind halfway through (in that you'd not spend 11 up front, but now that you spent 9, maybe spending the remaining 2 to minimize the loss is a good idea)?

avoiding sunk cost is the idea of not attaching value to the money already spent. if you expect to get $10 for spending $2 more dollars, that would not be a sunk cost fallacy. if you expect to get $10 and you need to spend $11 more dollars, that could be a sunk cost fallacy.

where it gets difficult is if you previously spent $10,000 and you need to spend $10 more to get $11. at that point it can feel like a good bargain compared to the total losses. that's the sunk cost fallacy.

>why not skip testing?

The article did mention that instruments on the lander would be removed and repurposed for other missions, so I guess they wanted to save money there instead of sending the lander as-is with a high probability of it not functioning at all, and all the hardware being a total waste.

> NASA understands sunk cost fallacy.

I argue it doesn't in the way you want them to.

They're cancelling it because it couldn't be saved. Projects _always_ that get approved are underestimated in cost with ballooning budgets the expectation. The point is, everyone is hoping the project is important enough AND expensive enough that congress will keep funding it because sunk-cost is almost ignored.

JWST is the poster child of this concept. SLS likely to be next.

I hate that SLS is moving forward in this manner, but I do believe 2 launch providers is better than 1...?

The NYT is designed as an attention sink where you exchange money for some quantity and duration of intellectual feels.

They don't need to communicate this to achieve their objective. Their headline is designed to bait, capture, and sell its product.

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