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SCP-7174 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-7174
Expected annual
$16.2M
One-time setup
$1.8B
Annual recurring
$13.0M
Personnel
24
One-time capital required is approx $1.80B driven primarily by emergency-response contingency, cislunar monitoring satellite(s), and potential retrieval/replacement satellites; annual baseline operations are roughly $13.0M/yr driven by staffed lunar and ground teams, research/HPC, telemetry, and cover-story/legal costs.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.8B
Emergency Contingency Fund $1.1B
[#12] Reserved contingency for rapid-response cislunar missions (robotic/crewed) — set-aside to enable immediate launch/response in an emergency.
Retrieval Campaign $350.0M
[#13] Cost to return devices from the Moon to Earth (single retrieval campaign, mid-range estimate).
Replacement Satellite $165.0M
[#16] Capital cost to build+launch a replacement or spare for FCOM-P022 (mid-range estimate).
Cislunar Monitoring Satellite $100.0M
[#6] Development, payload, launch and commissioning of one foundation-grade cislunar monitoring satellite/probe (mid-range estimate).
Backup Comms Capital $35.0M
[#10] Build/lease of conventional backup lunar–Earth communications hardware (lasercom terminals / extra relay satellite capital).
Research Endowment $25.0M
[#23] Multi-year research endowment / continuity fund (recommended one-time endowment).
Facilities $8.5M
[#14] Construction/adaptation of an extended secure Earth storage/containment facility (if retrieval occurs); structural work and physical construction.
Equipment $6.9M
[#1, #2, #3] Hardened containment lockers/racks, Faraday/EM shielding per-locker system, and redundant mechanical/cryptographic physical locks and access-control hardware.
Pr Crisis Reserve One Time $5.0M
[#22] One-time PR / crisis management reserve for major exposure events (seed contingency).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $1.9M
[#8, #9, #20] Research team startup (lab/computing equipment), HPC cluster/software setup, and initial secure data archival setup.
Sop Development $250K
[#17] One-time development of SOPs, containment procedures, and initial exercises.
Data Archival Initial $150K
[#20] Initial secure archival (air-gapped/encrypted) cold storage setup for telemetry/experiment records.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $13.0M/yr
Staff Wages $4.2M/yr
[#4, #5, #8] Fully-burdened salaries and rotation costs for on-site lunar containment personnel (~6 staff), ground-based mission control/monitoring staff (8–12), and core research team salaries (6–10).
Cover Story And Legal $2.8M/yr
[#15] Legal/cover-up, black-budget allocations, shell entities, ongoing PR/liaison budgets to maintain plausible deniability.
Research And Monitoring $1.8M/yr
[#7, #9, #19, #20, #21] Continuous telemetry/datastream operations, HPC operations/cloud time and licenses, external audits/third-party testing, recurring data archival costs, and controlled experimental/test budgets.
Facilities Maintenance $1.3M/yr
[#11, #18] Maintenance, spare parts and consumables for lunar containment hardware plus additional life-support/health delta costs for extra lunar personnel.
Insurance And Orbital Asset Contingency $1.2M/yr
[#16] Insurance premiums / contingency for orbital asset replacement and contingency reserves for FCOM-P022 or related satellites.
Logistics And Transport $1.0M/yr
[#10] Recurring ops for non-anomalous redundancy for lunar–Earth communications (leased links, relay ops) and general logistics transport ops.
Earth Storage Operations $650K/yr
[#14] Recurring operations cost for extended Earth secure storage (if retrieval occurs) — facility ops, testing, and environment control.
Training And Sop Refresh $100K/yr
[#17] Recurring training, refresher courses and exercises for containment and emergency procedures.
Supplies And Consumables $0/yr
[]
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $13.0M/yr
96.5% probability / year
Normal year with no major incidents; routine containment, monitoring, research, and maintenance only.
routine_operations no_breach scheduled_maintenance
🚨 Minor Incident $18.0M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline
Localized hardware failure, partial activation event, or media exposure requiring elevated response, repairs, and PR/legal activity.
partial_hardware_failure anomalous_activation localized_media_attention
🚨 Major Breach $613.0M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$600.0M vs baseline
Significant containment failure or rift escalation requiring emergency cislunar intervention (rapid-launch repair/retrieval mission), large-scope operations and public crisis management.
simultaneous_activation rift_growth loss_of_FCOM-P022_or_major_asset
👥 Personnel 24 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 2 [#4] On-site lunar security specialists (continuous presence).
Technician / Maintenance 2 [#4] On-site systems and maintenance technicians for lockers, environmental controls, and hardware.
Containment Officer 1 [#4] On-site containment lead to manage access and procedures.
Research Scientist (liaison) 1 [#4, #8] Senior scientist liaison permanently stationed with lunar team.
Mission Control Operator / Analyst 10 [#5] Ground-based satellite, telemetry and command staff (8–12 typical; mid-range assumed).
Research Scientist 8 [#8] Dedicated theoretical and experimental research team (6–10; mid-range assumed).
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates use mid-range selections from wide analyst-provided ranges; recurring staffing and telemetry costs are reasonably well-bounded, but capital items (satellites, retrieval, and emergency missions) have high variance depending on mission profile and procurement choices.
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