Category Archives: Business

The Mess At NASA

There are some interesting comments over at this NASA Watch thread about the impending death of Ares 1. This one was particularly sad, but jibes with my experience over the years, and talking to others who have worked for and with Marshall:

I left MSFC last year after dedicating many years of my life to our nations space program (9 years contractor and 9 years civil servant). I consider that time completely squandered. I would never recommend an aerospace career to any bright young person.

The general mood at MSFC is pure apathy tempered only by greed. Keep in mind a GS-13 civil servant (anyone with 10 yrs experience) is knocking down $90K plus per year, 3-4 weeks vacation per year, great benefits, and near total job security. Needless to say – not very many of them are going to rock the boat. In this kind of environment, managers pretty much do what they want since few of the working troops will challenge them and hold them accountable. The primary promotion criterea at the center is how well you “obey” (ie kiss butt). The resulting incompetence at all levels of management is beyond belief.

Ares I is a perfect example of what this environment produces. Remember what ESAS said was “off-the-shelf” 4 segment SRBs and J-2. How that vehicle could ever meet requirements when the upgraded 5 segment SRB and new turbopump J-2 equipped vehicle barely meets requirements is a question some investigation board should ask. But I can already tell you why that vehicle was recommended. Because the top dog said so. And when the top dog says do it then pesky little things like physics or economics matter not to MSFC/NASA management.

I’ve told family for years “If the American people knew how bad things were at NASA – they would shut it down”. There is no solution for NASA. You can’t salvage it. You can’t fix it. It’s over. The cancer that is politics has ravaged our once great space agency enough. Be humane and put it out of its misery.

That’s unlikely to happen, of course, for political reasons, but the Aldridge recommendation to convert the centers to FFRDCs was an attempt to fix some of those problems.

On another topic, a frequent commenter who calls himself “Ben the Space Brit” has some mistaken thoughts on propellant depots:

Propellent depot-based architecture requires a huge commitment to a sustained LEO infrastructure. To the uninitiated, that means building, maintaining and continually refilling specially-designed satellites that act as ‘gas stations in the sky’.

Right now, there is no reason to do this except to have an EELV-based lunar archetecture and to express commitment to a hazy concept of commercial HSF. Simply put, no politician would right now be willing to commit money to such an open-ended venture. The advantage of a HLLV is that it is something that you spend a big amount on once and then operate at a reduced cost. Depots are something that you have to spend on and then keep spending to keep them operational.

Now, it is true that, in the long run, a depot-based architecture will be key to keeping an early-stage lunar outpost operational. However, just as money for commercial Earth-to-LEO developments only became seriously available when there was a destination (ISS), I do not consider it likely that money for depots and other LEO infrastructure of its type will become available until after the outpost is operational, thus creating a clear target for the investment.

IMHO, depots will never be politically acceptable as a precursor to a lunar mission, only as an investment to bring down maintenance and logistics costs for it once in place. You will still need an HLLV to put the outpost in place and also act as the LV for the precursor survey missions.

This makes no sense whatsoever to me. Where is the evidence that an HLLV will “operate at a reduced cost”? The only example we have is Saturn. It did not have low operational costs. There is no reason to believe that an Ares V, or any other wet dream of the heavy lifter fetishists will do so, either. Why does he think that heavy lifters aren’t “something that you have to spend on and then keep spending to keep them operational”? That is an excellent description of a heavy lifter, and the heavier the lifter, the lower the flight rate, which means that you never get your average costs down to anything reasonable.

Depots, on the other hand, shouldn’t require much in the way of ongoing costs, once in place, except perhaps replacing them every few years. Their cost of use should be quite low, and they allow the cost of propellants (the vast bulk of mass that has to be delivered for missions beyond LEO) to drop by encouraging competition among providers. And such an architecture is much more robust, particularly with multiple redundant depots. If a depot fails, you switch over to another one. If a launch system fails, you switch over to another one. But if you only have a single heavy lifter (and does anyone imagine that we’re going to develop two?) and it has a stand down (and don’t say that it won’t), you’re out of business until you get it running again.

There may be good arguments against a depot-based architecture, but I haven’t heard any yet. They always seem to be rationalizations to defend an irrational devotion to big rockets.

[Update a few minutes later]

One of the subtitles (or themes) of my piece at The New Atlantis (which will be on line Real Soon Now) could be “BFRs? We don’t need no stinkin’ BFRs.”

[Another update a few minutes later]

There’s an interesting discussion in comments over at Selenian Boondocks about the politics of selling propellant depots.

Down Six Points In A Month

The president continues to drop in popularity:

How bad has Barack Obama’s decline at the polls become? Even CBS has finally realized it. Both approval and disapproval numbers have moved sharply over the last month, and in the wrong direction, as voters have discovered that Obama hasn’t a clue about the economy and creating jobs.

There was never a single reason, to anyone with a lick of economic sense, to think that Barack Obama knew the first thing about job creation. He had no experience with it in his life up to that point, and most of his chosen mentors and associates have been Marxists and other economic ignorami. Now that he’s validating those of us who were always skeptical, the rest of the rubes are catching on as well. And even CBS, with its skewed poll, can’t deny it any more.

Brilliant Idea

A surtax on small business to pay for nationalizing health care:

Here’s the ugly income-tax math. First, Mr. Obama has promised to let the lower Bush tax rates expire after 2010. This would raise the top personal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35%, and the next rate to 36% from 33%. The Bush expiration would also phase out various tax deductions and exemptions, bringing the top marginal rate to as high as 41%.

Then add the Rangel Surtax of one percentage point, starting at $280,000 ($350,000 for couples), plus another percentage point at $400,000 ($500,000 for couples), rising to three points on more than $800,000 ($1 million) in 2011. But wait, there’s more. The surcharge could rise by two more percentage points in 2013 if health-care costs are larger than advertised — which is a near-certainty. Add all of this up and the top marginal tax rate would climb to 46%, which hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since the Reagan tax reform of 1986 cut the top rate to 28% from 50%.

Combined with the upcoming rise in the minimum wage, remember things like this when Democrats lie about how they’re interested in creating jobs.

Falcon 1 Status

This post is about a half hour before launch. I’m listening to the countdown status on the webcast.

[Update a little before 11 PM EDT]

They’re now at T minus fifteen, on a weather hold, hoping to pick it up in less than half an hour at T minus three something.

[Update just before midnight EDT]

It looks like a successful launch. Congratulations, SpaceX. This is a huge milestone — the first successful delivery of a payload into orbit. Now on to a successful Falcon 9 launch later this year.

[Morning update]

The launch seemed to be entirely successful. Clark Lindsey has some thoughts on the implications. I particularly like the last one:

Sen. Shelby should be forced to watch the launch video over and over…

I’m sure he’s seething this morning, assuming that someone had the moxie to tell him about it.

More Munchausen By Proxie

Thoughts on the economy:

When I think about the economy I think about a plump man who has just been hit by a truck while crossing a street and is in severely critical condition with internal bleeding. Instead of just stabilizing his hemorrhaging, the doctor decides that while the patient is unconscious, he might as well also do a face lift, some coronary bypasses and a stomach-stapling to keep him from gaining weight while he is recovering (if he does recover). After all, a crisis is not to be wasted.

The problem is that all these ambitious operations create too much of a burden for the human body to bear.

Similarly, we have an administration that is simultaneously seeking to end the recession, discussing drastic changes to laws on foreclosures and energy use and completely changing the health care system. I respectfully question whether all of this makes sense.

It’s a good question. And I’m pretty sure of the answer.

Paul Krugman Acolytes

…versus reality:

…it should be clear that the Fed causing a housing bubble in order to bring about “soaring household spending” was Krugman’s optimal situation, whether or not he thought it was doable at the time. Given the consequences of the housing bubble that did ultimately happen, that alone should be enough cause for the public to stop listening to this fellow.

But…but…! He has a Nobel Prize! And he writes for the New York Times! The New. York. Times.

Not listen to Paul Krugman? Why, it would be madness!

Next, they’re going to tell me I should pay no attention to Maureen Dowd, or Frank Rich.

[Via Joe Katzman]