← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-5731 Safe ✓ high confidence
SCP-5731
Expected annual
$224K
One-time setup
$58K
Annual recurring
$205K
Personnel
0.85
One-time setup costs are modest (~$57.5k) driven by a sound-isolated test booth and initial compliance/setup; recurring annual costs are ~ $205.1k driven primarily by part-time research staff, animal care/research expenses, security, and site overhead.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $58K
Contingency Reserve $20K
[#22] Contingency reserve for unexpected scaling, rapid housing expansion, or unforeseen consequences.
Facilities $18K
[#1, #3] Secure containment locker purchase/installation and purchase of a small sound‑isolated testing chamber (booth).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $8K
[#10] IACUC / animal ethics initial protocol development and approval fees; initial compliance setup and staff training.
Equipment $6K
[#4, #13, #19] Audio capture hardware (microphones, recorder, camera) and secure transport case purchase plus emergency containment kit purchase.
Incident Response Development $5K
[#18] One-time development of incident response plan (SOPs) and initial tabletop/practical drill development.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $205K/yr
Staff Wages $75K/yr
[#6, #7, #14] Principal Investigator oversight (0.1 FTE, $30k), Research Assistant / Lab Technician (0.5 FTE, $35k), and part-time transcription/analysis labor (~$10k).
Research And Monitoring $52K/yr
[#8, #9, #10, #11, #14, #21] Animal care/facility access fees, animal procurement/consumables (baseline), recurring IACUC oversight, veterinary services, secure data storage (~$2k), and small directed research budget.
Administrative Overhead $40K/yr
[#20] Pro-rated site administrative overhead, records administration, FOIA handling, bookkeeping and general site allocation.
Security $20K/yr
[#12] Incremental security costs for transfers, logged chain-of-custody, partial FTE coverage and occasional overtime.
Cover Story And Legal $10K/yr
[#17] Legal retainer, public affairs/cover-story maintenance, and occasional consultations.
Psychological Care $3K/yr
[#15] Psychological screening and counseling for personnel exposed to recorded content.
Facilities Maintenance $1K/yr
[#2, #3] Locker maintenance/calibration and annual maintenance/utilities for the sound‑isolated testing booth.
Logistics And Transport $1K/yr
[#13] Recurring shipping/handling consumables and transport-related minor costs.
Incident Drills $1K/yr
[#18] Annual tabletop and occasional practical drills for incident response (recurring exercise costs).
Audio Maintenance $1K/yr
[#4] Software licenses and calibration/maintenance for audio capture & analysis equipment.
Supplies And Consumables $900/yr
[#5, #16, #19] Artifact maintenance/consumables (cleaning, small parts), PPE and biosafety consumables, and emergency kit replenishment.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $205K/yr
84.5% probability / year
Normal year with planned testing, no major incidents or scaling.
scheduled tests routine maintenance
🚨 Minor Incident $255K/yr
5.0% probability / year +$50K vs baseline
Small containment/administrative incident (unauthorized exposure to classified audio, minor leak, or localized personnel distress).
minor unauthorized disclosure targeted counseling and investigation
🚨 Major Breach $455K/yr
0.5% probability / year +$250K vs baseline
Significant unauthorized disclosure or loss requiring large-scale mitigation (extensive amnestics, PR campaign, retrieval effort).
public leak item lost/off-site
🚨 Research Breakthrough Requiring Scale Up $355K/yr
10.0% probability / year +$150K vs baseline
Research expands (larger animals, increased sample sizes, new facilities) requiring additional staff, housing, and equipment.
positive/interesting results grant-funded scale-up
👥 Personnel 0.85 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist (PI) 0.1 [#6] Dr. Green oversight; 0.1 FTE reflected in PI salary portion.
Research Assistant / Lab Technician 0.5 [#7] 0.5 FTE handling day-to-day experiments, animal handling, and logging.
Data Analyst / Linguist (part-time) 0.25 [#14] Part-time transcription/analysis labor (~$10k/yr) for audio transcription and NLP analysis.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide line-item estimates for each cost element; most items are routine (equipment, animal care, part-time staff, compliance) so totals are well-grounded. Residual uncertainty exists around frequency of large incidents and scaling decisions.
← SCP-5730 ↑ All SCPs SCP-5732 →