Bob Zubrin says that Augustine Commision was supplied with inflated cost estimates

Robert Zubrin, the author of the "Mars Direct" architecture for getting to Mars, has an opinion piece where he suggests that the Augustine Commission was supplied with inflated cost estimates by the Aerospace Corporation. I think he makes some good points though I think he goes too far in the other way in terms of his cost estimates. Still, one can't argue with some of his criticisms, for instance:

"The cost projections for all other systems are similarly bloated, or worse. A particularly nonsensical example can be seen in the Aerospace Corp's cost estimates for future ground operations. As the charts correctly note, these today amount to about $300 million per year to support the flights of the highly complex Space Shuttle. Following retirement of the Shuttle, Aerospace's cost estimates have ground operations cost triple to $900 million by 2012, and then continue to rise to $1.8 billion by 2022. This sixfold rise in ground operations cost would be difficult to explain in any case, but in the absurdity of this instance is outstanding since during the entire ten year 2012-2022 period in question, there are NO heavy lift flights at all for the ground operations to support. In other words, the Aerospace Corp's estimates have NASA's ground operations costs rising sixfold over Shuttle flight support requirements, spending $15 billion over ten years, in order to launch nothing. "