3 Congressmen Trying To Tie Up SpaceX 393
An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait reports that a trio of U.S. Congressmen are asking NASA to investigate what they call "an epidemic of anomalies" at SpaceX. They sent a memo (PDF) demanding that SpaceX be held accountable to taxpayers for mission delays stemming from the development of new rockets. Plait notes, "[A]s a contractor, the rules are different for them than they would be if NASA themselves built the rockets, just as the rules are for Boeing or any other contractor. In fact, as reported by Space News, NASA didn't actually pay for the development of the Falcon 9; Elon Musk did." He adds, "Another reason this is silly is that every rocket ever made has undergone problems; they are fiendishly complex machines and no design has ever gotten from the drafting board to the launch pad without issues. Sure, SpaceX has experienced launch delays and other problems, but the critical thing to remember is that those problems are noted, assessed, and fixed sometimes within hours or minutes." Plait accuses the congressmen of trying to bury private spaceflight under red tape in order to protect established industries in their own states.
You don't say.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, about that F-35 fighterplane - will we have a working/function version before it becomes obsolete? And how many more trillions of dollars do you need to complete it?
Are they "small government" republicans ? he he (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the (R) after name stand for "Reprobate"?
3 Republicans against (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how often what they say contradicts what they actually do.
Republicans are as much about red tape and regulation as anybody else -- the only difference is what they think they should be free from regulation, and what they feel they should be able to impose on others through regulation.
They want to ensure business and (their) religion is protected, and everybody else is on their own.
Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why we have the Tea Party now. People were fed up with the Republicans... even other Republicans.
That said, the media have done a great job painting every extremist as the face of the Tea Party (even when that extremist isn't even part of the Tea Party.)
Re:Implausible. (Score:5, Insightful)
...especially not to another of Elon's companies.
Sometimes the best measure of success is how hard other people try to hold you back or stop you.
You keep using that word (Score:5, Insightful)
In the letter, they keep going on about anomalies. They don't understand what those are.
Anomalies are not (necessarily) defects, or errors, or problems. Anomalies are deviations from the norm - something that isn't perfect.
I tried to find an example Space Shuttle mission that I could use to compare, but I can't even find a comprehensive list of "anomalies". I can find rollbacks, where the problem required bringing the vehicle back to the assembly building, but I can't find a list even of countdown stops.
Rockets are expensive. When you see a potential problem, you fix it even if there's a 90% chance of it being fine anyways. You don't take risks. For SpaceX, their caution has paid off in a near-100% success rate (one secondary payload was lost after an engine failed on CRS-1. NASA forbade the second burn to insert the secondary payload because the engine failure had reduced the odds of success to 95%).
Further, these are civilian launch vehicles, not missiles. A missile, you expect to be high-reliability, low-maintenance and weather-tolerant. You can't cancel a battle just because a hurricane is coming and you're not sure it can stand up to the wind. But these are civilian rockets - the increased payload and decreased cost you get from not having to battle-harden everything is worth the cost of having to delay the launch if something looks a bit iffy and they want to make sure it's not going to break and wreck your multi-million-dollar payload.
Oh, and then they somehow argue that having several billion dollars worth of flights sold is a bad thing. They frame it as "SpaceX is too slow to keep up with demand", when really it's "the demand is too high for SpaceX to keep up". They have missions sold out to 2019, and on many of them the payload isn't even ready yet. Replace SpaceX with even a perfect ideal, with an infinite supply of ready-to-launch rockets, and those seven Iridium-NEXT launches won't be happening until the actual payloads are done, the next five ISS resupply missions won't happen until the ISS needs the supplies, and the Falcon 9 Heavy test launch won't happen until that rocket is ready.
Re:Not So Fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this nonsense, and I can't help but imagine that it's coming straight from the ULA puppets. Nobody is given any free passes. They are contracted to deliver stuff to orbit, not to build rockets for the government. The safety and reliability standards are of not much use if you're being paid (or not) for service. The only ones hurting if a Falcon blows up are SpaceX and cargo insurers: the former won't get paid, the latter will have to pay up. That's all there's to it.
So far, Falcon 9 hasn't blown up once. You're just repeating the stupid ULA nonsense. Stop it.
Re:Outsource to Russia (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you mean the traitors to the american people.
Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with being an extremist. Most problems in America are caused by the centrists, not the extremists.
Extreme right: Cut spending to equal revenue.
Extreme left: Raise revenue to equal spending.
Center: Continue to give everyone whatever they want, and borrow money from China to pay for it.
Re:This gave me a chuckle (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure at this rate the Falcon 9 beats every other space delivery system in cost by far (both development and recurring) and reliability (so far at least).
Granted they've had the entire history of space exploration as a guide towards their design...but then again any other company in the space game has access to at least the same information. I'm pretty sure the contractors and companies that built the shuttle and other rockets actually have significantly MORE information than is publicly available on top of it.
Yet who do we see actually DOING this? Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. It amazes me that the 'leadership' in the US can't understand that basic axiom.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought ULA convincing the government to advance purchase 2 years of launches (2billion dollars) a month before SpaceX qualified their rockets was an accurate picture of how Lockheed and Boeing intend to compete which is they intend to use government to prevent SpaceX from competing.
Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he (Score:4, Insightful)
At least, we know of their party-affiliation from the article. Had the gentlemen been Democrats, the affiliation would've been omitted [nationalreview.com].
This is not, in itself outrageous or even stupid. Should an orbit-bound rocket lose control, for example, the results may well be far more disastrous than 9/11...
Perhaps, they borrowed the illogic from the Labor Unions? You know, the guys, who insist, foreign manufacturing be following the same procedures and workers be paid the same as in here?
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well duh! Wouldn't you do the same thing? I mean, it's not like the government creates jobs or anything.
For those not getting the sarcasm, one side of the political spectrum repeatedly trots out the mantra that the government does not create jobs, yet, using this situation, quite clearly the government does create jobs or these Congressman wouldn't be trying to prevent layoffs at these companies if they were to lose government business from the space program.
The argument is that the government doesn't create wealth. While you can look at defense contractors as the government creating jobs it is at best intellectually dishonest. The government doesn't create wealth, it acquires from other parties and redistributes it to further parties. Those first parties, from which the taxes are collected, would have been otherwise able to use those tax monies which would have stimulated other businesses and created the need and opportunities for jobs. Now these specific jobs probably wouldn't exist and the jobs that would be here may not be as well paying but in a climate where we consider part time jobs replacing full time positions to be job creation, I hardly think that matters.
Re:Follow the money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easier to innovate while standing on the shoulders of giants. Without the space program there wouldn't be any technology available for SpaceX to build upon. Get over your Libertarian delusions.
It's not like Boeing, Lockheed and the ULA don't have access to 'those giant's shoulders' is it?
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans often DO make the argument that the "government doesn't create jobs".
While I don't agree with their claim, you are seriously misrepresenting their point. They aren't saying that the government doesn't hire people - that would be very stupid. They argue that the government has to take resources from someone else in order to pay that person. Those resources could be used otherwise in the economy, such that you are eliminating a job's worth of economic activity in order to create a job.
Boeing doesn't create wealth either.
They most certainly do! Every generation of plane that they have created is more efficient, safer, and easier to maintain than previous generations. The plane is a tool for other people to use to make money.
Where I part ways with the "government doesn't create jobs" people is that the view is too extreme. You can look hard and find instances of government creating wealth. They also completely ignore the fact that corporations are in fact granted a charter by the government and have very strong ties to the government. Their argument would better be stated as: in general, private enterprise is more efficient than government. That isn't as sexy, though. But don't completely dismiss their point, and if you do don't try to do it by playing games with language.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't honestly think that contract was totally preplanned for years and that the government always purchases rockets in blocks that large do you?
IMO that contract originated because ULA went to their government handlers and cajoled them into releasing the RFP before SpaceX could qualify. It is my understanding that the government does buy rockets in groups, but a 2 year 20 rocket group is unheard of and that this was the largest rocket purchase the government has ever made. ULA's salespeople will have personal relationships with all the contracting people in government. My bet is that ULA hoped by locking SpaceX out of the market for 2 years they would go bankrupt before they could go after another contract.
There should be a massive investigation going on for how that contract originated, why it's so large and what the relationships are between the ULA people and the government contracting officers.