Karl Gallagher as some thoughts on how too many requirements can kill a program. This happened to both Shuttle and station.

Unfortunately, because the way NASA has traditionally done things is so expensive, the assumption is made that they can only afford one of them (a National Space Transportation System, a national space station). That means that multiple requirements (often, or usually, conflicting) tend to get laid on them, to satisfy all of the political constituencies. The program as a result bloats, and becomes very expensive (in time and money), making the original assumption a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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clearly, multiple projects costs multiple funds, but it's not the only reason that projects are so expensive

nearly all space forum and blogs are FULL of threads and posts with critics about the NASA choice of build TWO (BRAND NEW) rockets for the ESAS plan instead of ONE rocket (OR many EELVs) ...a BAD choice that costs TIME and MONEY

also, the two (brand new) rockets need NEW engines and motors ...that costs very much TIME and MONEY

many say that NASA has no alternative, but it's not true... just an example: the J-2x

it needs 6+ years of R&D time (and money) to fly and is the main reason why the first manned Orion will fly in 2015 (instead of 2012) and the first moon mission in 2020 instead of 2018...

then, in my latest ("Ares-F") article, I suggest to adopt the (ready available!) Vulcain 2 for the Ares-I 2nd stage: http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/024aresF.html

the Vulcain 2 already has the required vacuum thrust (303,490 lbs.) that a J-2x just "hope to have" at the end of its (very long) R&D trip (295,000 lbs.) and three dozens of Vulcain 2 (sufficient for ALL orbital/moon missions in the next 20 years!) may cost (about) $500M (the price of three DeltaIV)

also the Lockheed-Martin Corp. CEO Robert Stevens say that he thinks the U.S. is in danger of "ceding spaceflight leadership to Russia, China and even India": http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1HFIEDFC5O5VGQSNDLRCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=198900572

but I'm aware that (unfortunately) they will NEVER adopt a solution like this... (it's toooo fast and easy... :)

If you model most of NASA's big program decisions in terms of "what will, in practice bring the most money to NASA for the longest period of time" you get a pretty high correlation. In fact, this model works pretty well for most government agencies.

What happens to Orion / Ares if the "alt-space" folks succeed? Does Congress then eliminate the funding for the in house activities?

I was looking at Beal Aerospace's history recently, and the (putative) reason for its shut-down was that Mr. Beal was unwilling to compete against NASA's funding stream. [There were, also, developmental problems...]

NASA seems to be fully tasked (and financially tapped), and is unlikely to be able to compete against the alt-space companies.

I just wonder whether NASA's overextension has eliminated its ability to be a market spoiler.

Thoughts, anyone?

MG

It always amazes me how the development guys and gals can keep their heads straight. Even in the modern age of software that manages your project libraries and assembles comparator reporting for you.

I just wonder whether NASA's overextension has eliminated its ability to be a market spoiler.

Given the number and diversity of non-NASA suborbital and orbital projects out there that have secured funding, bent metal and even achieved proof of concept launches, the answer is pretty clearly, "Yes."

NASA has announced its intentions and predicted schedules. So have SpaceX, Bigelow, Armadillo, XCOR, etc., etc.

We shall see who makes their dates and who does not. In three years or less, the long term winner of the Alt_Space vs. NASA derby should be apparent at or above the 90% confidence level. My money's on the former.

Should this come to pass, NASA will quickly suffer a terminal hemorrhage of anyone actually interested in doing real space work - as opposed to simply getting paid regularly. The NASA astronaut corps, in particular, can be expected to vote with their feet virtually en masse. The remainder of NASA will implode as retirements and inability to recruit shrink the remaining legacy workforce and NASA's political influence. By 2020, NASA will not have landed anyone on the Moon, but it may well appear that the Moon has instead landed on the agency.

> What happens to Orion / Ares if the "alt-space" folks succeed? Does Congress then eliminate
> the funding for the in house activities?

That would mean mothballing a lot brand new facilities at KSC and laying off the Shuttle workers whose jobs Ares was designed to protect. It would also require a lot of politicians and civil servants to admit they made a mistake. Unlikely, IMO.

I suspect we would continue to hear the same refrain we hear now: Private space travel is merely "tourism." It isn't "exploration" unless it's done by government employees on government vehicles.

Actually, a lot of insiders think the Return to the Moon is already dead (regardless of whether alt space succeeds). That's why you're starting to hear NASA employees talking about asteroid missions. They believe Ares V and the lunar lander will never be funded but NASA might possibly finish Orion before the money runs out. In which case, "Plan B" would be be to announce that the lunar missions are being "deferred" and the new goal is a Near Earth Asteroid, which they can reach using Earth orbit rendezvous and without a lunar lander.

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K said: "this model works pretty well for most government agencies"

that's true (in every country) however I don't suggest to cut the ESAS funds... I hope that NASA, ESA, privates, etc. will have MORE funds, NOT less... the purpose of my suggestions is (only) to save time and money and use them (time and money) to accomplish MORE and BETTER missions
the LM CEO have fear to lose the "US leadership" while Mr. Griffin have fear that China will land sooner on the moon... then, why don't follow a better, faster, cheaper and more efficient route?

The software industry is littered with the carcasses of failed projects. Studies have shown that over half of these failures are due to poorly developed requirements. I was on the receiving end of one such program in the 1980s. The Air Force needed a new hardware/software solution to replace the antiquated (early 1960s vintage) Current Data System (CDS) for exercising command & control of satellites. They contracted with IBM (their first mistake) for the "new and improved" Data System Modernization (DSM). By the time we started satellite operations with DSM, the program was years late and about 1000% over budget primarily because the requirements were so poorly written that IBM could deliver just about anything. When we tried to call them on their failures, they'd just threaten to take us to court. IBM, you see, is a legal firm that makes computers on the side. We ended up with a bloated, hard to use suite of hardware and software that was so poorly written that we had to reboot the mainframe computers every 8 hours to keep it from failing (probably memory leakage) in the next shift.

Like anything else, requirements can be overdone. However, lack of requirements means they can legally deliver any piece of crap they want and there's nothing you can do about it. I've seen first hand what a goat rope that can turn into. I don't want to go there again.

Space activities suffer from the same problems as Software Development. Since the "customer" gets only one shot to give input without great expense, and that very early in the project, they throw in everything they can think of, including the kitchen sink.

The results are projects that are expensive, late and don't meet the customer's needs. And, at least in the software world, most of the features are seldom or never used.

I have long been of the opinion that the real problem with NASA is that its actual mission is to stop large-scale space access for as long as possible, by any means necessary.

There are some very smart people in the American government, and they don't necessarily have the interests of the American people in general at heart, and they sure as hell don't have the interests of the rest of humanity at heart.

Large-scale space access would destroy their nice little bureaucratic empires, and eventually bring to an end the American Imperium. And neither of these is desirable - to such people. The starving billions of the Third World can go hang.

Fletcher Christian:
"I have long been of the opinion that the real
problem with NASA is that its actual mission is
to stop large-scale space access for as long as
possible, by any means necessary."

Interesting theory - along the lines of Wm. S.
Burroughs's notion that "Earth is a prison planet
and nobody is allowed to escape" - and NASA thinks
they're supposed to be the gate-keepers? I think
it fails the simplicity test though - "never
ascribe things to malicious intent if they can be
explained by the predictable tropisms of an
impacted bureaucracy" or something like that...

-dw