Ares Manager Steve Cook Resigns From NASA 153
FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."
Rocket scientist going to work for scientolistst (Score:1, Interesting)
Track record; case study in bad/corrupt management (Score:5, Interesting)
This wasn't in the summary, but it's also worth noting that in his 19 years at NASA, Steve Cook was also manager of the failed X-33, X-34, and Delta Clipper (after it was transferred to NASA). I'm trying to find validation, but I think he was also manager for the failed ISS Propulsion Module project as well.
In fact, I've been earnestly looking, and I can't find a single example of a project he managed which didn't end overbudget and in utter failure. The only possible exception I can think of is the Delta Clipper, which actually started under somebody else's management, experienced some success, and was killed off so NASA could focus on the X-33 (also managed by Steve Cook).
The following post by a (now-former) NASA engineer does a great job of summarizing what Steve Cook was like as a manager, although Deger blames it more on NASA management culture than Steve Cook himself:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18523.msg467693#msg467693 [nasaspaceflight.com]
My cut is: the story was "The stick is safe in every way". This made the program not look at problems with the stick that could have been taken care of with some careful engineering design work. Thrust Oscillation, Vibro-acoustics, and SRB disposal all have engineering design solutions, but the party line up front was "none of these are a problem". Any engineer that attempted to fix these problems was removed from the program and made into what the Japanese call a window watcher. I was one of them for trying to get the program to realize the stack was going to be not healthy after an abort and this fact needed to taken care of. I even had a simple design solution to the problem, to take care of it.
I have heard many people that tried to fix TO [thrust oscillation] were removed. I bet the same happened to the first people that recognize vibro-acoustic were an issue that need to be dealt with.
I am in the process of doing my best to design solutions to these problems. It may not be possible because there is no performance margin left.
And to this day, the requirements have not still not been defined.
Danny Deger
Edit: And none of this was caused by Mr. Cook. He did his job exactly as he was trained to do by NASA.
Re:Good news? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, has he done anything good lately? Either the summary is very unfair to the guy or this Dynetics thing is doomed.
Before making my submission I honestly tried to find examples of things which were even marginally successful, but could only find examples of management failures (X-33, X-34, Delta Clipper, ISS Propulsion Module). The only positive result I can find is that he had some pretty cool CGI videos made of his project designs, which apparently helped a lot with making sure that they got money for as long as they did.
Seriously, if anybody has examples of anything good Steve Cook did during his 19 years at NASA, please post them.
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Back out of Plan Affirmative-Action (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:5, Interesting)
Flea, normally, we see eye to eye and agree on most everything, but you are dead wrong here. The X-33, 34, and Delta Clipper deaths can be blamed on Congress and Bush.
Do you have any references for your claims? I'm not suggesting you're wrong of course, I'd just like to read up more on it. From what I've read, the X-33 seems to have failed largely due to the requirement of having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually. With the X-34, Wikipedia sez, "when the first flight vehicle was near completion, the programme died after NASA demanded sizable design changes without providing any new funding, and the contractor, Orbital Sciences, refused." The Delta Clipper I thought was progressing along nicely, although its minuscule budget was cancelled in favor of the X-33.
To blame Mr. Cook for having been on these projects is dead wrong. He did excellent work, but was in the wrong place at the wrong times.
This is actually something I've been trying to get better clarification on, without much luck: How much of the blame for NASA's failed attempts at developing new launch vehicles should be placed on Steve Cook, versus NASA MSFC, NASA in general, the executive branch, or Congress. If anybody has additional insights regarding this question, I'd love to hear.
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:3, Interesting)
Danny Deger is a dipshit. He has tried since entering NASA to get into design work but he simply isn't qualified.. that's why he's an astronaut trainer. Rather than go get the qualifications, he makes waves.. and shitty books.
Basically, if it appears on NASA Watch, it's bullshit, ignore it.
Re:One Person is not a Program (Score:3, Interesting)
Darn, screwed up the blockquotes.
Corrected:
Burt's company is Scaled Composites . I don't think I would trust a flight to the Moon and back, and more importantly, reentry, to a composite craft. On the other hand, if Burt thinks he can do it, he could pitch it to NASA - Dryden is just a short drive from his shop.
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article you linked: "However, this was no surprise to those working on the program, with new information now showing that engineers and designers had protested at the very moment they were informed of a management decision to build a composite LH2 tank."
Do you have any idea if (X-33 manager) Scott Cook was the one who made that poor management decision, was merely a supporter of it, or if he fought it?
Re:Back out of Plan Affirmative-Action (Score:3, Interesting)
As for seeing it in our life times... well
Re:Track record; case study in bad/corrupt managem (Score:4, Interesting)
Your words on "having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually" are true. That is very similar to what is happening with the joint NASA/NOAA/DoD program, The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System [noaa.gov] (NPOESS).
NPOESS' gigantic cost overruns are mainly from an experimental imager named VIIRS [noaa.gov] being placed onto the constellation. The type of contract used for the acquisition doesn't help either..
Re:Good news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, if anybody has examples of anything good Steve Cook did during his 19 years at NASA, please post them.
If anybody has examples of anything good NASA did for manned spaceflight during the previous 19 years, please post them.
Of course NASA has sponsored plenty of worthwhile projects in the last 20 years, but all of them I can think of have been for unmanned spaceflight (Hubble, Mars Surveyor, etc.) Why should we be surprised when the program manager for NASA's seemingly perpetually delayed next-generation manned spaceflight program bails out? When the press description for the most recent Discovery shuttle launch - which cost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars - was that it delivered the Stephen Colbert treadmill and some mice to the ISS, why should we continue to care about or support these efforts?
Re:Back out of Plan Affirmative-Action (Score:4, Interesting)
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. What about the elimination of smallpox?
What about it? [independent.co.uk]
The Internet?
I'd be more impressed if we weren't fighting over net neutrality right now. The internet is not sufficiently inherently peer to peer.
Sanitation?
In which we take dirty water from a river, clean it, shit in it, half-clean it, and put it back in the river for the next city to clean and drink and shit in and put back in the river? Not working out so well in the USA right now. More and more people are finding their tapwater unsafe to drink and having to resort to bottled water.
Prenatal genetic testing?
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society. I understand the slippery slope reasons why we can't regulate it, of course.
I think the crowning achievement of humanity to date has been the fact that we're not extinct. We do seem to be working on rectifying that situation by making our habitat less livable, though.
I could reply to a lot of this... (Score:3, Interesting)
... but I'll limit myself to this one:
[Citation needed]
Honestly, this is ridiculous. While obviously not perfect, our sanitation systems today do a pretty damn good job of preventing epidemics of cholera, etc, that used to be quite common (and deadly). If you have trouble accepting this, try traveling to Africa or rural India or somewhere else where they don't have such systems.
So, to sum up - sanitation: has saved, without exaggeration, millions of people from horrific deaths. Space program: we got to thumb our nose at the Russians, bring back some moon rocks, and made (admittedly very important) scientific progress. I don't think you've made your case that the space program trumps sanitation as humanity's greatest achievement.