The WaPo weighed in on Pentagon pork in an editorial yesterday. Unfortunately, many weapons systems are supported more by the lobbying ability of their developers than by actual military need. You can be sure that the Crusader has subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors scattered all over the fifty states.

This makes for good politics, but expensive hardware, even when it’s a justifiable weapons purchase (I have no firm opinion on whether or not this one is). Spreading the wealth in this manner increases management and transportation costs considerably, compared to consolidating the effort in a single colocated area, but it makes it a lot easier sell to the Congress. (And boy, isn’t “Crusader” a peach of a politically incorrect name for the current war?)

The editorial also points out the tension between the Pentagon and the services, and the back stabbing and duplicity with which Mr. Rumsfeld has to deal, in attempting to get the most defense for the dollar.

NASA and its contractors, unfortunately, do the same thing (yet another reason that government space hardware is so expensive). Every contractor’s lobbyist and marketing rep worth his salt always has at least one briefing chart in his briefcase that shows all of the locations of the tiers of manufacturers that build his company’s product. Of course, to someone like me, who is more interested in creating wealth than jobs, and who wants to make space travel affordable, this is not a program feature, but a bug.

And like the Pentagon with its unruly services, NASA headquarters, in the District of Columbia, traditionally has little control over the centers in Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, with their own defenders on the Hill. Stalin once famously asked, “How many armies does the Pope have?” A similar question could be asked of NASA HQ: How many congressmen and Senators does NASA headquarters have?

This is one of the reasons that it’s so difficult to fill the office of NASA Administrator. It’s a job with a lot of responsibility, but an utterly inadequate amount of power or authority. Decisions are made not on the basis of how to most effectively achieve the national goal, whether it be military effectiveness, or providing research capability on orbit. They’re made, instead, on how many jobs will be created in how many congressional districts. Those who continue to think that the government should fund their space dreams should ponder the implications…