NASA too broke to build new rocket...

flyingcheesehead said:
Considering the Apollo program and its Saturn V rocket cost $20 billion in the 1960's, I would say that NASA's assertion that $8 billion isn't enough to do it again now is probably correct.
Click to expand...

Not to mention all the congresscritters and corps playing the pork game.
 
Can't they just use one of the old ones re-glue the fins and pop a few "D" Engines in and save a few bucks?
 
Huh. That's funny...Because SpaceX developed a capsule, a launch vehicle, and a heavy lift vehicle for less than 1/10 the cost of Constellation. Just give them more money, contract it out. Let NASA develop the important science missions that keep getting canceled (TPF!@!!) and let the commercial operations take care of launching men and materials.
 
Last edited:
eMKay said:
Huh. That's funny...Because SpaceX developed a capsule, a launch vehicle, and a heavy lift vehicle for less than 1/10 the cost of Constellation. Just give them more money, contract it out. Let NASA develop the important science missions that keep getting canceled (TPF!@!!) and let the commercial operations take care of launching men and materials.
Click to expand...

If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.

NASA costs a lot of money, but they get things done as safely as possible because nothing is worse for NASA than bad PR. They know that they're going to have to answer to congress and the whole country when they screw up, and the safety culture they have there is good, IMHO. From what I have seen, the people at NASA really care about what they're doing, and they do an excellent job of it. They also have way more experience than anyone else does at this, even though they've lost a lot of knowledge over the years due to the huge gap in time between the Apollo program and the present.

A contracted-out ship is going to be built by a company that has zero experience, and cares as much about profit as anything... So, you're gonna get a cheap rocket, you're gonna have penny-pinchers making the important decisions, and chances are it's gonna break 'cuz someone thought they could build it cheaper due to their rookie inexperience.

Hell, look at the Challenger accident. That wasn't really NASA's fault, it was the fault of a subcontractor who advised them that it was OK to take off when it really wasn't, because they were worried about losing their contract and profits. Imagine if the whole thing was owned by the contractor, and NASA wasn't even there asking the questions...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.

NASA costs a lot of money, but they get things done as safely as possible because nothing is worse for NASA than bad PR. They know that they're going to have to answer to congress and the whole country when they screw up, and the safety culture they have there is good, IMHO. From what I have seen, the people at NASA really care about what they're doing, and they do an excellent job of it.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just see it differently. I think NASA overspends on bureaucracy and a CYA safety culture, which retards progress. Exploration and R&D have never been a place for the timid, but in today's blame driven society, NASA has never had the cojones to say "No matter how big the budget, we'll never build a safe rocket. And whatever the mission is, you can choose to either let us get on it to the best of our ability and at a responsible budget, or you can choose for us to tread water in a quest for perfect safety. Which do you want?"

Instead, they try and sell manned flight safety on a budget. Can't be done.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.
Click to expand...

Uhhh, STS was contracted out. As were the vast majority of supporting items made for it.

And Morton Thiokol told 'em not to launch their "contracted out" booster one very cold morning, but politicians and managers didn't listen to their hired engineers...

C'mon, Kent. Everything the government does is "contracted out". Many so-called "NASA employees" are contractors.

Not quite sure what you're getting at here.
 
I understand Kent's point, but I think NASA is TOO risk-averse. And I don't think a private company is automatically going to cut corners and not be risk-averse enough. A company like SpaceX who wants to make money carrying people and cargo to space is perfectly aware that a bad example will kill their business.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.
Click to expand...

Why, we went to the moon on the lowest bidder? Personally, I don't care what NASA does, as long as it comes up with something to get us beyond LEO. We've got one rocket that has a manned capsule on it's way, NASA needs to just figure out a cost effective way to get us out of here.
 
Honestly I don't believe that "lowest bidder" crap either. I've seen too many people who work in government bids working out exactly how to get them worded so they win, since they're the only ones capable of providing a particular combination of services or product plus service.

More like, "Lowest bidder who's brother is also a Congressman or who's ex-wife has interesting stuff she's hiding and the little gold-digger married the Senator." LOL!

Okay, maybe that's a bit jaded, but "lowest bidder" on government contracts the size of a launch platform is really just the part that company decided they'd take of the pie, usually in back-room deals where the various "bidders" divvy up the spoils.

Yes, it's illegal, but we all know it's done. You can see it in the bids when some bids are astronomical (ooh, pun INTENDED!) and others are reasonable, just to make it look like there's "competition".

The only ones everyone fights over hard are the "Cost Plus" contracts. Those are the gravy train to bend the taxpayer over, assault them, and steal not only their wallet, but make them finance the rest at gunpoint. :)

(My I'm cranky today. It's the weather. I'm sick of it.)
 
kyleb said:
I'm not saying you're wrong, I just see it differently. I think NASA overspends on bureaucracy and a CYA safety culture, which retards progress. Exploration and R&D have never been a place for the timid, but in today's blame driven society, NASA has never had the cojones to say "No matter how big the budget, we'll never build a safe rocket.
Click to expand...

They'll never say that because it's bad PR. I bet SpaceX won't say that either...

Instead, they try and sell manned flight safety on a budget. Can't be done.
Click to expand...

I think they provide a pretty good balance of the two. I also think that people who only look at the red ink are rather shortsighted. Sure, the Apollo program cost us $20 billion, but the true bottom line is that it helped our country IMMENSELY.

Between all the technologies that were developed as part of the program, the jobs that were created, and the kids that were inspired to do better in math and science and in many cases become engineers, pilots, etc., I think the impact of that $20 billion has paid for itself many many times over for this country - And frankly, we could really use another such boost right now. It's the politicians that don't have the cojones to say "Yes, we're going to raise your taxes by an average of $300 per person in this country, but it will make us a better, stronger country and pay us back in spades." (and that $300 is an arbitrary number - It'd give us $100 billion to play with.)
 
TMetzinger said:
I understand Kent's point, but I think NASA is TOO risk-averse. And I don't think a private company is automatically going to cut corners and not be risk-averse enough. A company like SpaceX who wants to make money carrying people and cargo to space is perfectly aware that a bad example will kill their business.
Click to expand...

Disagree - Sure, they don't want to kill people - But when push comes to shove and the decision has to be made whether to delay the development by a year (and potentially knock them into red ink) because of a problem that might exist and needs more research - It's gonna get pushed out the door.

In a lot of ways, competition is bad when it comes to space. Competition between the US and the USSR is what caused the Apollo 1 accident.

If NASA was too risk-averse, they'd never launch anything. But they do launch a lot of things, and once in a while they lose one - Again, not something that would happen if they were truly too risk-averse. Space is an extremely complex, unforgiving environment... NASA gives it the care and respect it is due, but they still get the job done.
 
denverpilot said:
C'mon, Kent. Everything the government does is "contracted out". Many so-called "NASA employees" are contractors.
Click to expand...

Sorry Nate, but there's a big difference. There are NASA employees and there are contractors that work for NASA. Altho I've spent many years working "for" NASA, I was always a contractor. Even the 2 years at JPL, my badge read "JPL" and not NASA.
 
Kill NASA. Dead. All of it. Make sure there is no bureaucracy left over regulating private spaceflight. You want stuff in space set a price, no one jumps creep the price up. All of the big aviation milestones were set by crazy people doing it for money. Set the incentives and let the crazy work.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Why, we went to the moon on the lowest bidder? Personally, I don't care what NASA does, as long as it comes up with something to get us beyond LEO. We've got one rocket that has a manned capsule on it's way, NASA needs to just figure out a cost effective way to get us out of here.
Click to expand...

Frankly, I think the "Bush plan" was idiotic. You want a heavy lifter, and something for LEO, and something to go to the moon and Mars? You're going to get an insanely expensive "jack of all trades and master of none" solution. You don't take a C-5 Galaxy for a $100 burger run, and you don't take a T-41 to intercept enemy fighters - You must use the right tool for the job, and I don't think that a single tool would have done all of the jobs that were planned well, especially not without spending too much money trying to force the perfect solution.

Make things as compatible as possible - But make them separate, so the designers have the leeway to make each tool do its own particular job well while minimizing cost for that particular application.
 
murphey said:
Sorry Nate, but there's a big difference. There are NASA employees and there are contractors that work for NASA. Altho I've spent many years working "for" NASA, I was always a contractor. Even the 2 years at JPL, my badge read "JPL" and not NASA.
Click to expand...

Isn't that exactly what I said? Kent was complaining about "contracting out" spaceflight. I was saying that there are TONS of things "contracted out" at NASA, including people.

If you walk into a NASA building and you're doing work for NASA, you're in what most normal people's heads is called... "A NASA employee"... my point was exactly yours, that tons of folks walking the NASA halls, aren't NASA employees... they're contractors.

But all are doing "work for NASA", so the rest is just semantics, really. And some really screwy bidding for government contracts to make that all happen. The bureaucracy is amazing.

At the end of the day, the mission wouldn't go off if it weren't for all the contractors on-site, and their gear that was built under contract.

Does that make the point I was making, more clear? Contractors are the life-blood of NASA as are some really wacky contracts to build things for them. NASA doesn't build much themselves these days... they seem to just manage contractors, most of which are chosen to keep a particular Senator or Congresscritter happy.
 
I have worked both sides of that fence, I was a Navy enlisted for 22 years and government contractor as fuel farm contractor 81-88, and a contract mechanic (lear Sigler) 88-95, and a civil service employee from 95-2007.AIMD MAS Whidbey

If there is any lesson in all those years in Government service, the government employee has way too many rules to comply with to be effective in any job except the military, and even then there are many jobs that can be done better / cheaper by a contractor.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.

NASA costs a lot of money, but they get things done as safely as possible because nothing is worse for NASA than bad PR. They know that they're going to have to answer to congress and the whole country when they screw up, and the safety culture they have there is good, IMHO. From what I have seen, the people at NASA really care about what they're doing, and they do an excellent job of it. They also have way more experience than anyone else does at this, even though they've lost a lot of knowledge over the years due to the huge gap in time between the Apollo program and the present.

A contracted-out ship is going to be built by a company that has zero experience, and cares as much about profit as anything... So, you're gonna get a cheap rocket, you're gonna have penny-pinchers making the important decisions, and chances are it's gonna break 'cuz someone thought they could build it cheaper due to their rookie inexperience.

Hell, look at the Challenger accident. That wasn't really NASA's fault, it was the fault of a subcontractor who advised them that it was OK to take off when it really wasn't, because they were worried about losing their contract and profits. Imagine if the whole thing was owned by the contractor, and NASA wasn't even there asking the questions...
Click to expand...

The Shuttle is spread among many many subcontractors, I'd rather have one company do it, no lowest bidder BS, just who can do it best, which is the whole point of COTS. SpaceX has so far proven they can do it best, not just cheapest.
 
eMKay said:
The Shuttle is spread among many many subcontractors, I'd rather have one company do it, no lowest bidder BS, just who can do it best, which is the whole point of COTS. SpaceX has so far proven they can do it best, not just cheapest.
Click to expand...

Oh man, there's a term I haven't heard in a long time, but knew was still out there... COTS.

Commercial Off-The-Shelf...

Yep... I once worked on a telecom system the government bought that was so non-standard it was a complete one-off... all built out of COTS components. We charged a fortune for the thing.

If they'd have let us build it with proprietary components, it would have cost 1/3 of what they paid.

I remember an entire department of people standing around trying to figure out how we'd fix it when it broke once. That was almost comical... "Who remembers how this crazy COTS thing works?"

That COTS thing can cut both ways. Haha... oh man, that took me a lot of years back...
 
Why do we need the new rocket to begin with? I ask seriously. In the current environment the cost benefit seems negative.
 
denverpilot said:
Uhhh, STS was contracted out. As were the vast majority of supporting items made for it.
Click to expand...

Pieces of it are contracted out to different companies, but it's not like NASA had no responsibility or oversight - NASA was responsible for the major elements of the design. Kinda like how that Diamond I'm flying has pieces by Lycoming, Unison, SkyTec, Garmin, and many others. NASA doesn't really build anything themselves, but they do design lots of things.

And Morton Thiokol told 'em not to launch their "contracted out" booster one very cold morning, but politicians and managers didn't listen to their hired engineers...
Click to expand...

No, Thiokol said "go." The Thiokol engineers said "no-go" until the infamous "we'll call you back" break where someone was told to "take off your engineer hat and put on your manager hat." That is exactly the kind of thing that worries me about the private companies having 100% control.

C'mon, Kent. Everything the government does is "contracted out". Many so-called "NASA employees" are contractors.
Click to expand...

No, not everything. And contractors are not "NASA employees." And sadly, those contractors cost MORE than they would if they WERE NASA employees in most cases.

Not quite sure what you're getting at here.
Click to expand...

What I'm getting at is that it's highly unpopular these days to admit that the government can do anything right. The popular view is that government workers are lazy, overpaid, and ineffective. For one really good example to the contrary, see NACO - Every dealing I've had with them they've been refreshingly responsive and on the ball. Not every government worker is of the caliber you're subjected to at the DMV (which is probably why people feel the way they do about gov't workers)! So, the government may do poorly at many things, but I believe in this case that the government, specifically NASA, is the only organization that can do this particular task right.

Full disclosure: My sister is a NASA engineer. I've gotten to see a lot of the inner workings of NASA. Your average rank-and-file NASA employee is a dedicated, hardworking, insanely smart individual. They do NOT get paid as well as they would working elsewhere (the benefits, of course, do somewhat make up for that), and they do the job they do out of pride and patriotism as much as anything else.

I've also gotten to hear plenty of complaints about the ways that NASA's efforts at privatization have ended up costing MORE money, and not done a good enough job...

Both individually and organizationally, I think that NASA and its employees are better-motivated to do the job RIGHT, rather than to do it fast or cheap. That's not to say that they're being slow or wasteful by any means, but simply that they don't have as much pressure to do it fast or cheap as a private company does.

attachment.php

(Sigh... Wish I could be in that seat on a real mission...)
 

Attachments

  • Shuttle pilot extraordinaire.jpg
    Shuttle pilot extraordinaire.jpg
    319.8 KB · Views: 86
eMKay said:
The Shuttle is spread among many many subcontractors, I'd rather have one company do it, no lowest bidder BS, just who can do it best, which is the whole point of COTS. SpaceX has so far proven they can do it best, not just cheapest.
Click to expand...

IMHO there is no one company that can do everything best anyway - NASA wouldn't be any good at building things, which is why they contract that part out. Cessna doesn't know much about building a reliable aircraft engine, so they plop a Lyc in the front. If SpaceX is going to do everything themselves, their ship will fail - And if they aren't and will work the way NASA/Cessna/etc do, then it's "spread among many many subcontractors" and your point is moot.
 
pilot_dude said:
Why do we need the new rocket to begin with? I ask seriously. In the current environment the cost benefit seems negative.
Click to expand...

A) It's probably cheaper than continuing the Shuttle program, don't you think?

B) If we get out of space entirely... Well I guess we'll be leaving it to the Chinese and the Russians.

C) There are SO many tangible and intangible benefits to having a healthy manned space program in this country, that your second sentence above sounds awfully shortsighted. I'm sure in the late 50's and early 60's there were plenty of people saying the same things, but we got a staggering amount of technology out of the space program that greatly enhances our lives today - And people's lives were enhanced back then as well as these things were developed and released.
 
pilot_dude said:
Why do we need the new rocket to begin with? I ask seriously. In the current environment the cost benefit seems negative.
Click to expand...

I hear you. Right now, we're <seemingly> at a technological impasse. Chemical rockets simply don't seem to be the right tool for the next step (Mars) in manned exploration, so parking the manned space program until we invent a game changing technology seems to be a reasonable option.

I really don't see the point in going back to the moon or putting people in orbit at this point. I think lunar exploration can be done better and cheaper with unmanned probes. So why not extensively document how we get man in space today for future reference, then invest in R&D on new engines - the ones that will make Mars (and beyond) feasable.

In the meantime, gut the bureaucracy at NASA. Any bureaucracy, including NASA, eventually begins to value the bureaucracy more than it values the mission. At that point, you get layers of stuff - management, rules, etc. largely in order to preserve the status quo...
 
I can't claim to have anything to offer on this, but let me put forth some of what Burt Rutan has to say, both for private companies innovating in 2006 http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html
You should never depend on the government to do this kind of stuff
Click to expand...
and against NASA being pushed out of the space race in 2010 http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/02/26/rutan-clarifies-position-obama-nasa-plan/
However, I do not see the commercial companies taking Americans to Mars or to the moons of Saturn within my lifetime and I doubt if they will take the true Research risks (technical and financial) to fly new concepts that have low confidence of return on investment. Even NASA, regarded as our prime Research agency has not recently shown a willingness to fly true Research concepts.
Click to expand...
 
kyleb said:
I hear you. Right now, we're <seemingly> at a technological impasse. Chemical rockets simply don't seem to be the right tool for the next step (Mars) in manned exploration, so parking the manned space program until we invent a game changing technology seems to be a reasonable option.
Click to expand...

If you "park the manned space program" until we invent the game-changing technology, the game-changing technology will never be invented.

I really don't see the point in going back to the moon or putting people in orbit at this point. I think lunar exploration can be done better and cheaper with unmanned probes. So why not extensively document how we get man in space today for future reference, then invest in R&D on new engines - the ones that will make Mars (and beyond) feasable.
Click to expand...

We're not really going back to the moon to explore - We're going back to the moon as a dress rehearsal for going to Mars. We can get to the moon and back in a couple of days (each way), while the Mars mission is going to be 6 months each way. Much better to practice on the moon.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
We're not really going back to the moon to explore - We're going back to the moon as a dress rehearsal for going to Mars. We can get to the moon and back in a couple of days (each way), while the Mars mission is going to be 6 months each way. Much better to practice on the moon.
Click to expand...

I'm not against technology but there is no reasonable reason for going to Mars. Yeah, it would be cool to go there but so what? This entire idea of exploration is unnecessary in my humble opinion. Yes, that may be shortsighted and leave it open to the Chinese and Russians but what is the downside?
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Full disclosure: My sister is a NASA engineer. I've gotten to see a lot of the inner workings of NASA. Your average rank-and-file NASA employee is a dedicated, hardworking, insanely smart individual.
Click to expand...
Ask her why MSFC tried to build the corndog rocket. Bet she's not going to mention "Doc" Horowitz and the revolving door through which he passed a few times. And that's just the corruption that we know about. And then there was 100% ethical stuff, like the way Steve Cook jumped the boat to a cushy seat at Dynetics when he knew the collapse was imminent, leaving everyone else holding the bag. Look, it means absolutely nothing how good rank and file are as long as the diseased culture in NASA continues.
 
Last edited:
pilot_dude said:
I'm not against technology but there is no reasonable reason for going to Mars. Yeah, it would be cool to go there but so what? This entire idea of exploration is unnecessary in my humble opinion. Yes, that may be shortsighted and leave it open to the Chinese and Russians but what is the downside?
Click to expand...
Well, if you hold the belief that there's nothing to be gained from exploration, I'm not sure what I can say to change your mind. Oftentimes, exploration is undertaken in the name of profit. Marco Polo, Columbus, etc. Sometimes it is undertaken in the name of progress. The moon, for example. As a people, I believe we have benefited immensely from all of these. We frequently achieve totally unexpected advances when we undertake exploration.
 
gprellwitz said:
Well, if you hold the belief that there's nothing to be gained from exploration, I'm not sure what I can say to change your mind. Oftentimes, exploration is undertaken in the name of profit. Marco Polo, Columbus, etc. Sometimes it is undertaken in the name of progress. The moon, for example. As a people, I believe we have benefited immensely from all of these. We frequently achieve totally unexpected advances when we undertake exploration.
Click to expand...

I don't hold the belief that there is *nothing* to be gained. I just question the cost/benefit and don't see the plus side. Besides, if the Chinese and Russians make it to Mars we will all still benefit from their exploration without the capital expense. Seems like a win/win from this chair. :dunno:
 
pilot_dude said:
I don't hold the belief that there is *nothing* to be gained. I just question the cost/benefit and don't see the plus side. Besides, if the Chinese and Russians make it to Mars we will all still benefit from their exploration without the capital expense. Seems like a win/win from this chair. :dunno:
Click to expand...
Say I grant you that "unnecessary" does not equate to "nothing to be gained". If everyone says "let the other one do it", then it never gets done, and society loses. If someone says "I'll do it", then they have at least some control over the technologies, and stand to benefit from the commercial application of them. This is one of those places where I fully support the concept of intellectual property.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I were an astronaut, and I was gonna get sent to space on some contracted-out ship - I'd quit.

NASA costs a lot of money, but they get things done as safely as possible because nothing is worse for NASA than bad PR. They know that they're going to have to answer to congress and the whole country when they screw up, and the safety culture they have there is good, IMHO. From what I have seen, the people at NASA really care about what they're doing, and they do an excellent job of it. They also have way more experience than anyone else does at this, even though they've lost a lot of knowledge over the years due to the huge gap in time between the Apollo program and the present.

A contracted-out ship is going to be built by a company that has zero experience, and cares as much about profit as anything... So, you're gonna get a cheap rocket, you're gonna have penny-pinchers making the important decisions, and chances are it's gonna break 'cuz someone thought they could build it cheaper due to their rookie inexperience.

Hell, look at the Challenger accident. That wasn't really NASA's fault, it was the fault of a subcontractor who advised them that it was OK to take off when it really wasn't, because they were worried about losing their contract and profits. Imagine if the whole thing was owned by the contractor, and NASA wasn't even there asking the questions...
Click to expand...

Every ship NASA has and ever had is "Contracted Out". NASA doesn't "build" squat. Everything is already penny pinched and cut rate and always has been. Apollo 1 & 13 problems occurred because of poor quality parts, workmanshp and oversight, heck, can't really rule out Grisom's claims on Mercury 2 even. I have heard it from more than one person that the Shuttle isn't a very high quality build machine.
 
kyleb said:
I'm not saying you're wrong, I just see it differently. I think NASA overspends on bureaucracy and a CYA safety culture, which retards progress. Exploration and R&D have never been a place for the timid, but in today's blame driven society, NASA has never had the cojones to say "No matter how big the budget, we'll never build a safe rocket. And whatever the mission is, you can choose to either let us get on it to the best of our ability and at a responsible budget, or you can choose for us to tread water in a quest for perfect safety. Which do you want?"

Instead, they try and sell manned flight safety on a budget. Can't be done.
Click to expand...

All space craft even the shuttle is contracted out, NASA does not build rockets.
 
gprellwitz said:
Say I grant you that "unnecessary" does not equate to "nothing to be gained". If everyone says "let the other one do it", then it never gets done, and society loses. If someone says "I'll do it", then they have at least some control over the technologies, and stand to benefit from the commercial application of them. This is one of those places where I fully support the concept of intellectual property.
Click to expand...

What price do we put on the human spirit?

How dead are we if we give up exploring and learning?
 
Bob Noel said:
What price do we put on the human spirit?

How dead are we if we give up exploring and learning?
Click to expand...

Next question is "why do we spend so much effort trying to postpone death?"...if it is even possible to postpone it.
 
Henning said:
Every ship NASA has and ever had is "Contracted Out". NASA doesn't "build" squat. Everything is already penny pinched and cut rate and always has been. Apollo 1 & 13 problems occurred because of poor quality parts, workmanshp and oversight, heck, can't really rule out Grisom's claims on Mercury 2 even. I have heard it from more than one person that the Shuttle isn't a very high quality build machine.
Click to expand...

Pieces, yes... Like I already said, NASA doesn't *build* anything. They do, however, have a major part in the *design* and they verify everything. That's vastly different from "Here's our astronauts, you take 'em."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top