Slide 84 of 99
Notes:
Hermés returns to Earth. In 1991 it was becoming increasingly obvious that Hermés & Columbus were heading for the rocks. The spaceplane was now estimated to cost $1.33 billion more than the $4.72 billion 1989 estimates and ESA considered delaying the project by two or three years, to 2001. Hermés was overweight, and increasing the Ariane-5 launcher's performance would cost an additional $666 million. The November 1991 ESA meeting in Munich, Germany, only managed to postpone the difficult decisions by another year as Germany, France and Italy failed reach agreement on which projects should be cut. ESA did decide Hermes would now make its first unmanned flight in 2002 at the earliest, followed by a manned test mission in 2003. Total costs of the program would be $7.663 billion plus $4.576 billion for its Ariane-5 launch vehicle. In 1992 it was decided to reduce Hermés to a $1.9-2.3 billion “Hermes X-2000” unmanned technology demonstration, possibly as a joint European-Russian program to further reduce costs by 20%. The November 1992 meeting in Granada, Spain, finally pulled the plug on “Hermes X-2000” too, reducing the program's 1993-98 budget from $1.8 billion to $405 million. The money was to be spent on paper studies of a joint ESA/Russian Hermes, $54 million for studies of a US/European Crew Rescue Vehicle, and $112 million for pure ESA in-house manned spaceflight options. A total of $2 billion had been invested in Hermés when the project was cancelled.
