I’m glad to see the administrator so forthrightly in favor of private provision of launch services, but this seems exactly backward to me:
Only governments could control space exploration, he said, because only governments were willing to accept the risks.
“We are going to lose people,” he warned.
“You need to be able to accept that. Governments can handle that a little bit easier than private industry.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah [deep breath] hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah…
Whew. That was a good one.
If you really think about it, he’s right. When government space programs kill people, there are no consequences. No one goes to jail for negligance. No one gets sued. Their budgets don’t get cut. Hell, no one even gets fired. At most, some of the worst offenders get reassigned or allowed to retire.
For private companies, failure is much more likely to have unpleasant consequences.
Of course there are consequences. They shut down the Shuttle for almost three years each time they killed astronauts. I don’t think that’s “handling” it very well.
Bureaucrats don’t care about things like that. The only things that matter to them are their budgets and their careers. No one was fired after either of the Shuttle accidents (or to my knowledge Apollo 1) and their budget remained the same (or even increased) even though they weren’t flying. No flights mean no failures which is heaven for bureaucrats. This isn’t limited to NASA but in endemic across government.
It comes down to what you think the word “handle” means. From the standpoint of actually accomplishing things in space, the government doesn’t handle it well at all.
You seem to believe that NASA’s mission is to fly stuff in space. Well, it is in part but that’s secondary to perpetuating itself as an institution. So, while the Shuttle was grounded for years at a time, NASA kept getting paid as if they were still flying. That’s all that mattered to them.
Private companies can easily be sued even if they don’t screw up. It’s much harder to sue the government due to soverign immunity. In that sense, government can “handle” failure better than private companies. Government just holds a memorial service, maybe has a few Congressional hearings, implements a few changes that may or may not address the causes, and goes on as normal. No one gets fired. No one gets sued. No one goes to jail.
Bolden said “We are going to lose people.” He doesn’t specify why. You can lose people without negligence occurring. In that regard, a private company can react quicker than a government. It can make the necessary adjustments and resume operations more quickly and less expensively.
In addition, if there is negligence involved, a government can respond. It can fire someone, it can take money from them, and it can put them in jail if appropriate. The difference is it takes a lot longer. And costs a lot more.
You seem to believe that NASA’s mission is to fly stuff in space. Well, it is in part but that’s secondary to perpetuating itself as an institution. So, while the Shuttle was grounded for years at a time, NASA kept getting paid as if they were still flying. That’s all that mattered to them.
I see what you’re saying, that NASA’s incentives are far removed from the original intent for the organization. But that doesn’t indicate anything wrong with Rand’s assertion. It’s just another failure mode.
I’m between both of you. It is true that indemnification of civil servants and NASA contractors allow them to take chances with lives without the ugly consequences when things go wrong. In one way, that is government handling the issue better than the private sector, but then that’s because the government is giving itself a pass that it usually doesn’t provide the private sector.
Still, I knew exactly what Rand meant. 12 men were lost on Macondo, and yet BP and other industries are back in the Gulf in less than 2 years (earlier if government permitted). Lose 7 people on a Space Shuttle, and nobody flies for 3+ years. And that’s just using an event of somewhat equal proportions. Air France losses an A340 full of passengers, yet kept business going even on the same route. Not even a loss of a day.
Commercial space may not rebound as fast as other industries, but it has more to do with implementination and complexity of the technology than the human and financial lost of failures. When your engine design fails during a test, the loss of life is unfortunate, but you also have an engine design that needs to be reworked. NASA had to rework their SRB’s and ET too, but let’s not go out and make hilarious statements.
Oh my. I really don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Remember, he was a military guy and spent a good chunk of his career in a world were he was an expendable diplomatic munition… oh and occasionally got to be an actual defender of his country.
He is right if he is counting wars in all of this.
only governments were willing to accept the risks
Private companies could handle the risks fine if it wasn’t for govt. looking over their shoulder. We really need to support absolute and total ET property rights. Using the flowery language of ‘pursuit of happiness’ rather than life, liberty and property was a mistake.
In an odd sense I think Bolden is spot on. Government can better handle the risk of losing people because NASA will put far fewer people at risk than what private ventures intend. The SLS might put dozens of people into space. Bigelow wants everybody up there.
The most amazing part of his talk was: “IF mankind ends up colonising the moon, it is likely to be led by a commercial enterprise rather than a government.”
In fact, his remarks on risk are almost a non sequitur in the context of the main part of his message…
Not really. The statement, “only governments were willing to accept the risks” is in the past tense.
That statement is obviously correct. Private enterprise wasn’t willing to accept the risks eat one time. Now it is.
(And yes, one of the risks they were not willing to accept was the risk of getting squashed by the US government.)