SCP-8815 — SCP-8815 | Cost Breakdown

Read on SCP Wiki ↗

SCP-8815 Unknown ~ medium confidence

SCP-8815

Expected annual

$19.6M

One-time setup

$621.4M

Annual recurring

$14.6M

Personnel

One-time infrastructure and potential mission costs dominate (estimated ~$621M one-time for all contingency missions listed), while baseline operations including staff, storage, security and communications run ~ $14.6M per year; main drivers are space-mission escalation (orbiter/relay/lander) and core recurring staffing, observatory access, and mission ops.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $621.4M

Lander Rover Mission $400.0M

[#16] Lander/rover mission for on-surface investigation or retrieval (one-time, worst-case containment/response mission).

Orbiter Mission $120.0M

[#14] Reconnaissance lunar orbiter to localize source (one-time mission procurement / spacecraft cost).

Relay Satellite $75.0M

[#15] Far-side relay satellite / communications infrastructure procurement (one-time).

Facilities $25.2M

[#2, #8, #17] Site prep and small ground-station civil work, physical security/hardening upgrades, and quarantine/Biohazard facility upgrades (one-time).

Feasibility Studies $500K

[#13] Emergency mission design and preliminary engineering feasibility studies (one-time studies/contracts).

Equipment $460K

[#2, #3, #7] High-gain dish and RF hardware, onsite server purchase, and secure communications hardware / initial IT security setup (one-time hardware purchases and installation).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $175K

[#4] Signal-processing/transcription software development and licensing required to set up analysis capability (one-time development/licensing).

Personnel Vetting $18K

[#23] One-time personnel vetting costs (background checks) for initial staff hires.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $14.6M/yr

Orbiter Ops $5.0M/yr

[#14] Mission operations costs if an orbiter is fielded (annual mission ops; included here for recurring ops risk).

Relay Ops $3.0M/yr

[#15] Operations cost for a far-side relay/communications satellite (annual ops).

Biohazard Ops $2.0M/yr

[#17] Recurring operations for quarantine and biohazard preparedness (annual facility ops and staffing).

Long Term Overhead $1.9M/yr

[#25] Program overhead (accounting, procurement, compliance) set at 15% of direct recurring costs (annual).

Staff Wages $900K/yr

[#5] Core personnel salaries and benefits for PI, signal analysts, linguist, engineer, and administrative support (annual).

Observatory Time Rental $500K/yr

[#1] Dedicated scheduled telescope/antenna rental time on large dishes/arrays to capture daily broadcasts (annual rental cost if used).

Cover Story And Legal $350K/yr

[#9, #10] Legal/diplomatic retainers, MoU coordination and public-relations/crisis communications budget (annual).

Contingency Reserve $200K/yr

[#12] Fast-access contingency funds for emergency observation time, specialist hires, or escalation (annual reserve).

Security Staff $120K/yr

[#8] Recurring security staff costs for onsite protection of ground station/hardware (annual; 1 guard equivalent).

Academic Partnerships $100K/yr

[#21] Grants and small research partnerships with universities for linguistics/astrobiology analysis (annual).

Opportunity Cost $100K/yr

[#24] Opportunity / schedule cost equivalent for displaced observatory time (intangible but budgeted as recurring opportunity cost).

Ground Station Maintenance $60K/yr

[#2] Annual maintenance for a dedicated ground receiving station (~10% of capital equipment per year).

Contractor Support $60K/yr

[#6] Short-term contractor support for audio forensics, translation, astrophysics consulting (annual ad-hoc contract budget).

Logistics And Transport $50K/yr

[#11] Travel, meetings and liaison visits for observatory coordination and inter-agency work (annual travel budget).

Insurance $50K/yr

[#18] Insurance, liability coverage and indemnities for personnel and missions (annual premium estimate).

Specialized Testing $50K/yr

[#19] Budget for wet-lab reagents, sequencing, mass-spec hours, and specialized testing per year (incident-driven allocation).

Facilities Maintenance $30K/yr

[#2, #8, #17, #20] General site utilities, routine facility upkeep, and minor facility maintenance costs (annual).

Research And Monitoring $30K/yr

[#4] Ongoing software maintenance, algorithm updates, and research tooling support (annual).

Maintenance Spares $30K/yr

[#20] Spare parts, calibration, and capital refresh for RF hardware and antennas (annual).

Media Monitoring $30K/yr

[#22] Media monitoring and takedown operations to control unauthorized dissemination (annual).

Supplies And Consumables $25K/yr

[#3] Cloud archival fees, bandwidth and routine storage/transfer costs (annual).

It Security Ops $15K/yr

[#7] Ongoing cybersecurity, SOC monitoring, certificates and secure transfer operations (annual).

Psych Support And Training $10K/yr

[#23] Ongoing psychological support and OPSEC training for staff with access to recordings (annual counseling/training).

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $14.6M/yr

89.5% probability / year

Normal year: routine daily monitoring and analysis with no major incidents or mission escalations.

daily_recordings routine_analysis no major incidents

🚨 Minor Incident $15.2M/yr

8.0% probability / year +$570K vs baseline

Localized incident: data leak, minor tampering, or PR/legal incident requiring incident response, emergency observations, and contractor work.

data_leak unauthorized_access viral media attention

🚨 Orbital Localization $139.6M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$125.0M vs baseline

Decision to fund and launch a reconnaissance lunar orbiter to localize the source; includes spacecraft procurement and first-year ops.

insufficient Earth-based localization scientific/political decision to escalate

🚨 Surface Response $499.6M/yr

0.5% probability / year +$485.0M vs baseline

Full surface response/containment mission (lander/rover) possibly combined with relay infrastructure and quarantine prep.

confirmed localized source requiring retrieval evidence of biological hazard or high-value asset

👥 Personnel 7 total

Role	Count	Notes
Site Director / PI (Research Scientist)	1	[#5] Principal Investigator / project lead salary included in staff_wages.
Signal Analyst	2	[#5] Two signal analysts for capture and processing operations.
Linguist	1	[#5] Linguistics/speech analysis support.
Engineer / System Administrator	1	[#5] RF engineer / systems admin for receivers and processing systems.
Administrative Staff	1	[#5] Project administrative and coordination support.
Security Officer / Guard	1	[#8] Onsite security staff for ground station/hardware protection (recurring security_staff cost).

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide detailed line items and ranges for equipment, staffing, and mission costs, enabling mid-confidence estimates for recurring operations; large-space-mission costs and probabilities are inherently uncertain, lowering overall confidence to medium.

← SCP-8814 ↑ All SCPs SCP-8816 →