Does Obama Have a Problem At NASA? 479
MarkWhittington writes "Has NASA become a problem for the Obama transition? If one believes a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, the transition team at NASA, led by former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver, is running into some bureaucratic obstruction." Specifically, according to this article NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made calls to aerospace industry executives asking them to stonewall if asked about benefits to be gained by canceling the current US efforts to revisit the moon; we mentioned last month that cutting Aries and Orion is apparently an idea under strong consideration by the Obama transition team.
I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
... but if I were Obama, Michael Griffin would be so fricken canned.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
Toeing. Not towing. Much less work.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:4, Funny)
While we're at it, it's Ares [wikipedia.org], not Aries [wikipedia.org].
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? You wiki link to a dodge? Minus the glaringly obvious choices of Aries [wikipedia.org] the astrology sign, Aries [wikipedia.org] the constellation, Ares [wikipedia.org] the fraking GOD, or the tiny tidbit that there is, in fact, another rocket named Aries [wikipedia.org]. Your wikifu is weak young one.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't inject reason and thought into this. We are bashing Bush right now so we can prop Obama up.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Funny)
He can't do that. Peter Griffin has rockets that could be converted into makeshift missiles and used to bombard Washington.
Then Griffin would declare the US disbanded, replaced by a Galactic Empire with Griffin as Emperor.
I say give him the cash to keep him quiet. Better that than we all end up slaving in the Uranium mines on Pluto.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
IANAAE (I am not an aerospace engineer) but to me, Ares looks silly. Solid rocket boosters do not burn smoothly, they have a big problem with thrust oscillation. The designers actually worry that these vibrations will incapacitate or kill the crew.
To quote a real expert...also known as Resonant Burning - described as vortices that shed within the solid rocket motors during combustion due to the shearing of internal flow at propellant discontinuities - the issue relates to when the frequency of thrust oscillations is coincident with the acoustic modes of the motor cavity.
Solids work fine when grouped together with liquid stages, but a single solid booster just seems wrong.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
As YAAE, I think it looks silly for several reasons. The first and most important one: you can't actually test fire the engine you're going to trust your life to! You can inspect it, and you can test the process, but you can't test the actual article. Furthermore, the propellant grain is susceptible to handling damage and manufacturing defects, so there is reason to want to test it. There are cases where solids in proximity to humans are reasonable -- small solid motors for ballistic parachutes, for example. Or signal flares. In those cases, you can reasonably test two or three orders of magnitude more devices than will be tested for Ares (mostly because they're smaller). The other cases where solids are better is where readily storable propellants are required, like for most missiles. That doesn't apply here. (There are plenty of other reasons as well, but I won't bother going into them.)
The mistake that leads to thinking solids are a good choice is comparing them to the SSME and other engines like it as if that was the only alternative. It's not. The best design to compare it to is probably LOX/Kerosene running at a modest chamber pressure, with a pump feed (gas generator cycle) where the pump and its drive system are heavier than they could be, but simpler in design and with more margin (and hence more reliable and cheaper). It doesn't need to be a turbopump -- piston machinery works too. For a large system, though, the turbopump is probably enough lighter to be better, but it should really have more resemblance to industrial turbomachinery than conventional rocket machinery. Yes, that won't hit the maximum possible Isp or mass ratio for the stage. But that isn't as important on a first stage (or really, anywhere you'd consider using a large solid -- even the low-performance LOX/Kero rocket will beat the solid). What is important are things like design cost, manufacturing cost, and reliability.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
well, that and the solids idea is pork for Morton Thiokol. . .
(and, the fact that what comes out of the tail end of those things is horribly toxic for the environment.
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Ares and Orion are the correct solutions to a NASA that has been traveling down the wrong technological path for nearly 30 years.
NASA has indeed been on the wrong path for 30 years. But trying to recycle the very same hardware that put them on that path is not the correct solution.
The space shuttle has been the most expensive and epic failure in the history of aerospace technology. Not one single rivet from that program should ever be used again.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be such a Drama Queen... The Shuttle program is a screwed up kludge, but, like many screwed up kludges (say, for example, the Internet), you can move forward instead of constantly reinventing the V2. The Shuttle (and it's attendant support programs and staff) work pretty well. Some spectacular failures - both of them directly attributable to managerial decisions gone wrong. But the damn thing actually works.
NASA should work on a next gen system that doesn't use recycled Shuttle components. But that's a long ways away. Orion / Constellation is (are) a reasonable interim solution.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Shuttle (and it's attendant support programs and staff) work pretty well.
No, they do not. They were originally supposed to be run like airliners, with a cost much lower than expendable rockets. They utterly and completely failed at that goal. Instead, it is by far the most expensive and unreliable (in terms of multi-year gaps in operational capability) launch system ever deployed, with cost ending up orders of magnitude greater than promised. The shuttle should have been canned in the late 70s as soon as they figured out that they had completely blown their original goals. (Yeah
Common Refrains Lacking Insight (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they do not. They were originally supposed to be run like airliners, with a cost much lower than expendable rockets. They utterly and completely failed at that goal.
Such stories as Post-its [wikipedia.org] demonstrate that though something may, at the outset, have an intended goal, it's actual best use may be far off that mark.
I hear this argument a lot; "x sucks because it was supposed to be y and it's not". The question is really; is there any utility to x? For what it did, the shuttle program was successful. What it did didn't happen to be what it set out to do, but only a very narrowly defined vision will see that as a failure.
The real tragedy here is how much of the taxpayers' money has been wasted on this lobbyist-driven boondoggle over the decades, and what we could have achieved in space, had we spent that money wisely.
This is also a common refrain, "Think of what we could have done if we spent the money wisely!" What is never included is what else is needed. Money may be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient - unless you spend orders of magnitude more. Does that seem like a familiar pattern?
NASA has a $17B 2008 budget. Ten times that was dropped by Congress in a tax rebate early this year. More than forty times that was given to the Administration as discretionary bailout spending. Neither of these expenditures is guaranteed to achieve the goal they set out to do, and even if they succeed have no direct permanent benefit to society; forestalling economic collapse is all well and good, but only if you also go in and fix underlying issues.
On the other hand, NASA provides tangible benefits to science, and science has always, in the long run, improved society both culturally and economically. Knowledge gleaned is not lost. As a tax payer, I will far more readily spend $17B a year, even if it's vastly inefficient, for small, tangible scientific advances, than spend ten times that much to cover up major problems in the economy. Nothing is gained by axing NASA, and even less is gained by claiming that NASA is totally and irrevocably useless and has always been.
Long story short: our resource investment in NASA is low, and the claims of it's inefficiency are entirely out of proportion to it's actual inefficiency, meaning that such claims are inherently deceptive.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Griffin is the best thing to happen to NASA since the Apollo program. If Obama cans his ass, he will have lied about everything he said about maintaining the space program.
Well, I will say that Obama has been quite vague on whether he'll keep NASA well funded. It seems like something he's not inclined to do on his own without pressure from the public. On the other hand, the transition team not only asked how much would be saved if the program was canned but also asked how much it would cost to accelerate it, so it looks like they're looking at all options.
That aside, I can't really say that this kind of behavior that should be rewarded or even tolerated in a subordinate. The whole hiding of information and acting like double checking his figures suggests that he's lying about something makes it look like he genuinely has something bad to hide too. I mean, can you imagine keeping *your* job after telling your incoming boss the same thing (and even pressuring business partners to withhold info from him too)?
Even if Obama keeps the program, which I hope he does, Griffin does need to "Go." Right out the door.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:4, Informative)
So what you're saying is that he is pushing, "Change we've been duped into believing?" Speaking honestly for a moment here, I was not a supporter of Obama due to his policies on the Space Program and Energy. (Both of which he eventually backed off on, and even claimed he was a "big supporter" of the space program.) But when he was elected, I was very much hoping that he was the true force for public good that everyone hoped him to be. I don't want to be critical of him, but I cannot help but notice that he is poised to tear the space program asunder. If he can't even give a clear view on where he is going with NASA, how many other areas has he used misdirection to deceive the public on his policy?
So many people have put so many hopes, aspirations, and dreams upon Obama and how different of a President he would be. I could not bear to watch what would happen to the people around me if he turned out to be politics as usual. :-(
I think you're exaggerating the situation. Griffen asked the contractors to keep their opinions to themselves about alternative programs. When the transition team comes knocking, they're going to want to know about the Constellation program. The last thing NASA needs is for every opinionated engineer to pipe up with his own pet ideas. The transition team (who lacks even a single engineering resource!) could easily become confused and fail to look at the Constellation program itself over the din of excited engineers talking about pie-in-the-sky alternatives.
While I agree that Griffin is stonewalling Garver, he has repeatedly asked to speak directly to the President-elect. Given his excellent handling of politics in the past, I have a feeling that Griffin would fall in line if the new President gave him a direct order. He would even make preparations if the President-elect told him exactly what he wanted to happen. But the key is that Griffin reports directly to the President. He does not report to middle men, relationship managers, or any other such nonsense. So the President-elect had better get used to not beating around the bush and simply meet with the man.
IMHO, Obama needs Griffin. Griffin is a very rare type of individual who can bridge the gap between the world of engineering and the world of politics. Loosing Griffin would mean going back to the NASA of the 90's and early 2000's. As in, the one with ineffective leadership which managed to take the space agency all of nowhere. (*shudder* O'Keefe in particular was a pure disaster.)
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to respectfully disagree with you about Griffin. I don't necessarily have a problem with the direction he's taking (In fact, I concur with his ideas for a new manned program and end-of-lifing the shuttle) but the mistake he made was that he claimed he could do all this on the budget he's given. I know asking for more money isn't popular, but he also needs to give Congress and the president a reality check and say "We're trying for another Apollo-level project on a mac-and-cheese budget. We've got to get more money for this."
I suppose we could get it by scrapping the science missions, but at least in the case of the Mars missions, a lot of that is gathering information for an eventual manned mission there. Canning all space science for five years doesn't end space science for five years, it ends it for a generation because all those teams will fall apart, and melt into industry and academia and it will take a decade or more to get where we were before. NASA's space operations budget needs to be increased. I wonder how many people know that just "No Child Left Behind" costs about 20% more than the entire NASA budget, and I don't know too many people who have a kind word for that program, apart from politicians.
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong, flat out wrong.
If "Griffin is 1000% correct here", that means he's absolutely right on all accounts. You don't have to read much about the Ares program to realize there's more than a little dissent among the ranks about some of the design decisions here. You also seem to equate replacing Griffin, who silences opposition as best as he can through demotions instead of communal discourse, with disbanding the entire space program. Seriously, who makes that kind of absolute?
If we can find a replacement who can listen to the educated engineers who think the program is too risky or that it can be done more efficiently, or if we can efficiently accelerate the whole program, why not do it? Seems to me that there's more than enough disagreement on the entire program that there's room for improvement. Nobody seems to think he's got the right compromise between all the objectives.
These aren't the rockets you're looking for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Griffin is dead-set on Ares because it is his pet project. He brought it with him from the university think tank that Bush pulled him from. It is not a good architecture, and even now NASA engineers are fighting basic laws of physics to get the thing to fly.
The ESAS committee rubber-stamped Ares because that's what Griffin wanted. It is not the best approach. Especially when they decided to drop the Space Shuttle Main Engine in favor of the RS68 engine due to cost. The RS68 is cheaper, but much less efficient than the SSME. Once they dropped the SSME, they should have convened another committee to re-evaluate all options using the RS68 numbers.
The DIRECT project is where we need to be. Check it out, check the numbers. NASA has been sitting on this for almost three years now. It's ridiculous.
www.directlauncher.com [directlauncher.com]
Re:These aren't the rockets you're looking for... (Score:4, Interesting)
RS68s are being used because they have 80% fewer parts, meaning less things to go wrong.
Also using direct for LEO is a waste of resources. Ares 1 is a much better solution for reaching the ISS and sending crews into space.
Re:These aren't the rockets you're looking for... (Score:5, Informative)
Reliability was not the primary issue. The SSME's are very reliable and have a very good track record. But they are designed to be flown and re-flown for up to 25 missions. And with Ares (or DIRECT or any non-Shuttle rocket), the engines will not be re-used. They will crash into the ocean when the fuel is used up and the stage is disposed of.
But the SSME costs upwards of $60 million each, whereas the RS-68 only costs about $25 million.
Finally, I am not saying that it was the wrong decision to make. I am saying that they should have re-evaluated all options when the main engines were changed out. That decision completely destroyed the basis for the ESAS committee's recommendations.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analysis is extremely one-sided. The SSMEs may be 10% more efficient, but they're also heavier, more complex, and more expensive to build. Like the use of the J-2s (which I was initally opposed to for similar reasons), the use of the RS-68s was a cost-cutting and reliability measure that made a lot of sense.
Re:These aren't the rockets you're looking for... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not in this case, it's not. The use of the RS-68s as part of the ground-launch engine stack means that pure thrust actually outweighs the need for efficiency. That's why there are Solid Rocket Boosters strapped to the side and why the Saturn V used kerosene-powered engines in the first stage rather than the more efficient LHOx engines.
In fact, the RS-68 is two seconds MORE efficient at sea level than the SSMEs in exchange for the 43 second difference in a vacuum. Which, again, makes the engines ideal for ground-launches.
Yes it did. There were only two engines on the market that would meet the needs: The SSME and the RS-68. Arguments were heard on both sides. The initial decision to come out of the arguments was that the SSMEs would be used on the first generation of the vehicle with a switch to RS-68s in the second generation of vehicle. Because the RS-68s provide almost double the raw thrust, greater payloads would be realized in the second generation of the vehicle.
As it worked out, the RS-68 reached stability and completed testing soon enough to be considered for the first generation of vehicle. Given the significant cost savings in using these engines (~$36 million/engine), it became almost a no-brainer for NASA to switch over.
If you've already retooled your factory, you'd have to either have a damn good reason to lose that investment (e.g. you just retooled for Hummers and gas is now at $4/gal) or you'd have to be an idiot who likes losing money. Changing programs in mid-stream fits the latter definition.
Only to the average layman. For anyone who has even a modicum of understanding in how rocketry works, it becomes clear that two separate vehicles based on the same technologies will be far cheaper in the long run. Why? Because your big vehicle is more complex than your small vehicle. By having to man-rate the big vehicle, you're loosing the cost-savings realized in flying 100s of tonnes of cargo in a single shot. Meanwhile, you're spending more money to send people into space than if you had a smaller, less complex vehicle that was purpose-designed to get people into space.
To use a car analogy, DIRECT is like purchasing a semi as your primary vehicle because you occasionally need to haul a large amount of stuff. Does it make sense to keep driving the semi when 90% of the time you just need to go to the store? Sure, you can unhitch the trailer before using it for day-to-day activities, but that doesn't mean you're saving money on gas. Quite the opposite! Not to mention the safety problems of trying to fit such a large vehicle into roadways and spaces designed for smaller consumer vehicles.
Having two launch vehicles is a no-brainer. Any one-size solution is wrong-headed and significantly outside the bounds of what is ideal under current technological limitations.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not saying that they should have chosen a different engine, and as you point out Direct also uses the RS-68. I am saying they should have re-evaluated the architecture and chosen a better approach.
In the DIRECT plan, the Jupiter-120 is the equivalent of the Ares-I. It simply removes the Shuttle and puts the crew capsule on top of the shuttle stack. The J-120 can lift a fully functional capsule plus 25 metric tons to low earth orbit.
The Ares-I can barely lift a stripped-down capsule to orbit, and has no
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ares / Orion / Constellation are, indeed, important and worthy programs. But that doesn't mean Michael Griffin is the right one to lead them.
If the programs were being managed well, there should be no problem with an oversight committee looking under the hood. If the programs aren't being managed well, we should shit-can Griffin and appoint somebody who's going to get it right, precisely because Ares/Orion/Constellation are so important.
And what's with his assertions that "any change [in the program] would
His alleged behavior is inexcusable (Score:5, Insightful)
Griffin may be, as you say, 100% correct here but telling contractors and others to "support Constellation and not discuss alternatives" as well as demanding "mid-level executives from not meeting with the transition team" is INTOLERABLE (from TFA). Considering this comes from an accredited journalist from a reputable news organization (at least I've heard of them previously), their claims of having witnesses, documents and e-mails to back them up should be taken seriously.
Perhaps Griffin is one of the few Bush appointees who isn't corrupt, incompetent or so politically/religiously biased as to commit criminal acts (justice department I'm looking at you). On the other hand considering the absolute disasters this administration has led us into regarding war, international relations, energy policies, the economy, the environment, civil/human rights, politicization of science, corruption of the judiciary, (oh and did I remember the war on terror?) I think anyone with half a brain would look upon anyone Bush would pick with extreme skepticism.
The shuttle HAS been a disaster for the last 25 years. If his plan has decent merit hopefully it will be allowed to continue. Hopefully Obama's team will consider not just the plan itself but the costs of any delay/change to a new one and will make the best choice accordingly. Of course there is a risk that they may not but we did not elect the president of NASA, we elected the PRESIDENT OF THE USA to make these decisions for us. Even as an avid space buff I have to respect that there ARE things more important than NASA. Considering Obama's top level appointments so far I have confidence that they'll do a good job.
If Griffin's plan is good, he will always be known as the one who got the ball rolling and pushed it through difficult and uncertain times. (Maybe he feels so entitled at NASA because under Bush everyone around him WAS an idiot). IF THE ALLEGATIONS from the newspaper ARE TRUE though, he, with his resorting to tactics reminiscent of his other Bushies, has proven that he does not have the character to lead NASA. Let Ares go without him.
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If the new programs are the best thing to happen to NASA in decades, then it should be trivial for Griffin to find a dozen experts in the field to tell Obama as much. Maybe you haven't noticed, but it really seems to me like Obama listens to his advisors and takes what they say into account.
Throwing a temper-tantrum is not the way this should be handled. Give the president-elect the information he needs to make an informed decision about your organization. If you don't like the dicision later, the throw
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Michael Griffin is the best thing to happen to NASA since the Apollo program.
Then why is he canning the shuttle before the replacement is ready? I know the stated reason is that he doesn't have enough resources for both, but I still find it very disturbing that we are planning for a minimum 5 year period during which we (supposedly the richest and most powerful country on the planet) have no manned space program at all. And that continues to be a major "WTF?" in my book. So if Mr. Griffin is the "best thing to happen to NASA," then I don't want to know what the worst thing would ha
Re:NASA's Future (Score:4, Informative)
For a simple example, NASA came up with the first prototype of creating Velcro.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
This article is pure flame bait, Neither Griffin nor the Transition team have stated that any infighting has been occuring.
In fact the transition team has NASA's full attention, read Griffins Response before you make your kneejerk reactions slashdot:
http://www.space.com/news/081211-nasa-obama-transition.html [space.com]
Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score:5, Informative)
And Griffins Reply:
Today, Griffin replied, calling the charges "simply wrong."
"I am appalled by any accusations of intimidation, and encourage a free and open exchange of information with the contractor community," Griffin said. "I would like to reiterate what I have stated in a previous email to all NASA Officials: we must make every effort to 'lean forward,' to answer questions promptly, openly and accurately."
Gossip (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a lot of backbiting rumors spread by someone with a bone to pick.
It's pretty easy to tell how much money would be saved by cancelling Aries and Orion outright. Just look at how much money they have outlined in budget projections.
The harder question is whether there is some cheaper alternative, and how much it would cost. But that's not something that can be answered accurately in response to a snap question. And saying so is not stonewalling.
Who would have thought? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA defeated the communist Soviet Union by outspending them in the specific industry of aerospace technology.
Wait, what? Did I miss a piece of history somewhere along the way where the Soviet Union was "beaten", rather than fizzled out?
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It always amazes me the mistakes people make because they don't study history, or blatantly choose to ignore it.
The USA defeated the communist Soviet Union by outspending them in the specific industry of aerospace technology.
The USA did not defeat the communist Soviet Union through outspending on any type of technology. The Soviet Union came apart because that kind of intensely centralized control of information could not withstand the subversive nature of widespread use of personal computers... and at the same time adoption of personal computers became absolutely necessary to maintain the Soviet economy.
More than any other single cause, the destruction of the Soviet Union came about because of the self-serving efforts of Mr
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Soviet Union's collapse actually began in 1953, when Stalin died. Krushchev (1953-1964) had neither the personal charisma nor the cold blooded ruthlessness, nor (in retrospect) the egomania that was needed to hold together the empire that Stalin had built. K inherited an incredibly powerful imperial structure, that Stalin had built with what history will deem as the largest and possibly the bloodiest slave labor state the world has ever seen. Ghengis Khan's hordes pale in comparison. It was such a well crafted totalitarian state that it survived despite Kruhschev's failing to be the pure bastard that was needed to run such an organization, and it continued to wilt only slowly under Brezhnev.
Gorbachov recognized that it was no longer possible to maintain the tight controls on communications a totalitarian state requires, and began making it easier to get licenses for things like typewriters, copiers, and fax machines. For the Soviet economy to survive, it had to start trading on an equal footing with the rest of the world, and for that to happen, lateral communication had to be allowed to augment the star-only channels of totalitarianism. But Glasnost could not happen fast enough; the center could not hold.
Glasnost could possibly have worked, if the rest of the world had stayed with 1970s communications technology. But in the 1980s, cheap personal computers gave even small businesses in Europe and the Americas trading and manufacturing advantages that Russia could not compete with. For the Soviet Union to have met that challenge would have required it to acquire and install the entire annual worldwide production of PCs for several years in row. It just couldn't happen.
Every other condition that obtained during the 1980s is something that the Soviet Union could have managed. The reason why it failed during the USA Alzheimer President's watch rather stumbling along for a few more decades was the introduction of the personal computer into every economy the Soviet Union was involved with, except its own.
It really did all have to do with Lotus 1.2.3, PeachTree Accounting, and Word Star, which enabled western institutions and businesses to do things like 'Just In Time' inventory systems and effective cost accounting management practices. This had nothing at all to do with capitalism versus communism; this was entirely about pragmatic computer usage versus totalitarian strictures on communications.
Obstruction == Fired (Score:5, Insightful)
What is with the entitlement mentality within government? I am sure the article blows what actually happened way out of proportion, but if there *was* any sort of conversation asking industry partners to stonewall, resist, camoflage or otherwise derail the effort to understand the risk/reward of future space efforts, everyone involved within the government should be canned. If I did anything of the sort at my place of work, I'd be out on my ass so quickly!
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:5, Insightful)
This (or a perception of it) is a phenomenon specific to the US (and, apparently, a few other countries such as UK). Governments seems to work quite efficiently in a lot of other countries around the world. Maybe you should fix whatever is wrong with yours, instead of whining about how it's too inefficient to trust it with anything (why even bother having it at all, if it's always counterproductive?).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you should fix whatever is wrong with yours
Probably because the last guy who tried in earnest to do just that [wikipedia.org] got shot.
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:5, Insightful)
A not uncommon illusion created by distance. The further away from a government you are, the better it seems to work.
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but it wasn't designed to be flat out incompetent, which seems to be the primary complaint of many a conservative who desires for small government.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They do? Would you like to tell us where, and why you think that?
I really hope you aren't referring to Belgium, which seems to either have no government or about three depending on which day of the week it is.
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:4, Interesting)
Or that is what they tell you...
Any Large organization runs more inefficient then smaller ones (unless the small ones are just poorly managed)
Lets take a look at labor.
For a small organization say 9 people.
1 Boss at 2x salary and 8 people at x salary.
average salary is 1.11x
With 0.8888 productivity
Now Here is a larger organization (a Larger Small - Midsize company)
1 Boss at 3x salary
8 Managers at 2x salary
64 Employees at x salary
average salary is 1.14x
With 0.8767 productivity
Secondly Americans don't want an efficient government, they system was designed to be inefficient on purpose. Efficiencies a trade off from compromise (A good compromise is when both sides are equally unhappy), being too efficient creates a situation where one side wins big and the other side looses big. Also an efficient government can lead to corruption and other evils and dictatorships, which is very dangerous.
Third, if you think your government is efficient then you are probably getting a bunch of propaganda from the government. Say for example some countries are creating record debt for themselves because of socialized healthcare. So the people are happy but there is a fundamental problems that need to be addressed.
Forth American Government is an open government, besides what the conspiracy nuts thinks. You can turn to CSPAN and watch on TV the debate for nearly every bill being passed. So you can see all the problems, while other more closed governments will hide this. Thus seeming more efficient
Inefficiency in US Government is a feature (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the point of the checks-and-balances thing, after all.
Governing least is governing best..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Government, by nature, can't be "trusted" - at least in the sense that individuals allow it to decide what's "best" for them.
I view it as more of a "necessary evil" than anything else. A total lack of government is much like a vacuum on a planet with an atmosphere. It's not going to exist permanently or naturally.
(I've always thought "anarchists" often have the wrong idea about things. Anarchy is a "government changing device", not a sustainable way of life.)
Many nations put together "Constitutions" specifically to outline the duties of their governments (and to ensure they govern in a fair and limited way). Even the USSR had a Constitution (that echos quite a few similar "values" to the U.S. Constitution). Look it up online sometime! The problem is, the lazy and the power-hungry, and sometimes just the misguided, work to ever expand government's "sphere of influence". Given enough time, most "good and just" governments wind up only paying lip-service to their Constitutions, and violate much of it in practice.
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I'm Russian, so don't tell me about your "bad" and "inefficient" government. I know what a truly bad and corrupt government is from first-hand experience.
I also have enough European friends to know what a government can be, and I've seen it for myself as well when I studied in NZ for two years.
Other questions?
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:4, Insightful)
Massive inefficiency is how the government works when put in the hands of government-hating people who want to prove just how inefficient government can be. It doesn't have to be that inefficient.
Re:Obstruction == Fired (Score:4, Insightful)
Large private businesses are probably at least as inefficient as government. It's just that large private businesses don't have access to information laws, publicly broadcast broad meetings and relatively detailed budgets published and teams of reporters and opposition parties searching through all that looking for any sign of misspent money, no matter how insignificant compared to the total operation of government.
We NEED to cut our spending. (Score:3, Insightful)
That means we need to axe a lot of programs, or (a) face potential bankruptcy of the whole country or (b) face the reality that we have to cut Medicare and SS benefits to a needs-based program rather than an entitlement. We have a huge amount of Baby Boomers about to retire, and don't have the money to support them all unless we start saving immediately.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
face the reality that we have to cut Medicare and SS benefits to a needs-based program rather than an entitlement.
That's how they started. SS was never intended to be an entitlement program when it was created in the 1930s.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually extending medicare to everyone would actually reduce the per person cost for medical care. Evidence shows that a universal health care system can be operated more efficiently, provide better coverage and more preventative care, reducing costs through preventative treatment, and operating at an at cost basis to provide the best service for the lowest cost. So actually doing universal health care would save us money, and everything has to be paid for in one way or another, universal health care is de
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Social Security buys Billions and Billions in Treasury bonds every year for this exact reason. Currently, more money is coming in, then going out, and they hold it in trust. However, congress likes to "borrow" against that money, and give an IOU, so thats going to bite us in the ass too.
Re:We NEED to cut our spending. (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, no.
What happens is that the SS revenue is spent on Social Security every year. Then the leftover funds are transferred to the General Fund, in exchange for NO INTEREST T-Bills. Then the money is spent.
When SS needs more money than is coming in every year, they will NOT be able to miraculously redeem those NO INTEREST T-bills. What will happen is that the Government will issue more interest bearing T-Bills to pay the difference. Sort of exactly like the deficit spending they're doing now that people hate so much.
This will continue until and unless the government raises SS taxes on the working people to cover the difference. Which will, of course, happen right away - the government doesn't really want to admit that the "Social Security Trust Fund" is a meaningless example of flim-flammery.
Net effect: we pay taxes, government spends the revenue gained any way it damn well pleases. SS Trust Fund NEVER gets used (because if it were used, we'd realize it's non-existant), and that wall-safe full of NO INTEREST T-Bills just keeps getting fuller till the end of time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>we need to increase taxes across the board by about 50% to pay the debt down
Yes. Or even better: cut spending by 50% for the same effect. The excess unspent money (50 cents per dollar collected in taxes) can then be used to slowly but surely pay off the ridiculously huge debt we borrowed from the Chinese and other foreign nationals.
Once the debt is minimized from trillions to millions, we will better be able to service the Baby Boomer SS/Medicare payouts from circa 2030-to-2060 witho
Re:We NEED to cut our spending. (Score:5, Insightful)
A more reasonable solution is for everyone to support their own parents with the increased money they'll have from not dumping their money into the social security black hole.
Yes, that way whoever has the most kids gets the best retirement. Anybody who reaches old age childless, or whose children die (for example, killed on active service in the armed forces) is clearly a waster who has contributed nothing to society and deserves to be thrown on the scrapheap.
Unless there's a flaw in your argument, of course...
Re:We NEED to cut our spending. (Score:4, Insightful)
A more reasonable solution is for everyone to support their own parents with the increased money they'll have from not dumping their money into the social security black hole.
If we could rely on people to do what's right in the real world, we wouldn't need government in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Everything you put into SS is payed back to you (on average) within 2 to 3 years. Researchers interviewed retirees and asked them how long they thought it took to get everything back that they had put in, most said 20-30! years.
They were all pretty shocked when they were told the reality of the system.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything you put into SS is payed back to you (on average) within 2 to 3 years.
Does that take into account the time value of money on the open market? OK, so I'm asking a rhetorical question. I know it does not, so it is a completely bogus statement, and the idiot who originated it needs to [re-]take Economy 101.
The original articles (Score:5, Informative)
For some reason the submission goes to a site that mentions the original articles appeared at the Orlando sentinel, but doesn't link to the articles. So here they are:
December 11: NASA chief Griffin bucks Obama's transition team [orlandosentinel.com]
and
December 12: NASA chief insists he's cooperating with Obama's team [orlandosentinel.com]
Re:The original articles (Score:5, Informative)
I work at NASA and got this message yesterday:
HQ Special: A Message from the NASA Administrator
A recent report in the Orlando Sentinel suggested that NASA is not cooperating with members of President-elect Obama's transition team currently working at Headquarters. This report, largely supported by anonymous sources and hearsay, is simply wrong.
I would like to reiterate what I have stated in a previous e-mail to all NASA Officials: we must make every effort to "lean forward," to answer questions promptly, openly and accurately.
We are fully cooperating with transition team members. Since mid-November, the agency has provided 414 documents and 185 responses to 191 requests. There are six outstanding responses, and the agency will meet the deadline for those queries.
Also, we strongly urge full and free cooperation by companies performing work for NASA. I am appalled by any accusations of intimidation, and encourage a free and open exchange of information with the contractor community.
The transition team's work is too important to become mired in unsupported and anonymous allegations. The President-elect's transition team deserves everyone's complete cooperation.
Michael D. Griffin
Administrator
Point of contact: David Mould, Office of Public Affairs, 202-358-1898
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Griffin's comment on Global Warming was excellent and probably the only thing about him to like. He simply expressed the biggest issue standing, we don't know what the optimal climate is. If anything the comments of the those who didn't like his remark were more akin to the right wing religious nuts. It is a religion now and will always be one because anything which is brought up to disprove it is immediately derided regardless of merit. If anything the whole GW document is nothing more than a new age B
Re:Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
we don't know what the optimal climate is.
Anything other than the current climate is non-optimal for the current crop of human beings, as the places we live, the technology we utilize, and our very ways of life are a direct response to the local environments we populate. Change that environment, and a *lot* of people will suffer (African drought, anyone?), as they will be maladapted to the new climate.
Of course, humans can change. But when climate change is happening very rapidly (as is the case now), neither we, nor other species, will be able to compensate fast enough, and the results can be devastating.
As such, Griffin's statement is, at best, extremely naive, bordering on ignorant.
You still didn't anwser if this is optimal (Score:3, Insightful)
That is crux of the issue. What about when grapes were grown in Great Britain? Was that an optimal climate? Who decides? Those with the most money or the loudest voices? It obviously was warmer then for a good part of the world, so when was it right?
Plus nature has always been a harsh mistress. It has wiped out more species than we will ever know about. We find examples all the time of species that existed but are gone now. We can have one volcano explode and affect the environment more than man can
Re:Lets get it straight here (Score:4, Insightful)
doesn't seem to be any reasoned middle-ground anymore.
No Money? No Problem! (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA will still exist, but the bureaucrats running it need to go. NASA will have a chance at manned space flight, but they need to figure out a way to do it cheaper. The rest of the nation has tightened its belt, the rest of the nation is concerned about the ballooning debt, NASA isn't exempt from the changes.
If I had my choice, I'd much rather see the billions spent on a shuttle launch go toward turning children into future aerospace engineers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No Money? No Problem! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the problem is that NASA/etc. focuses so much on inspiring the 3rd graders, yet don't seem to care so much once those kids get to high school and can actually develop that interest into something useful towards their future.
Re:No Money? No Problem! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that 3rd graders don't want to know *how* to get there, but high school kids do, and we don't tell them that. We show them all of these cool jobs that they could do when they grow up, and then we don't tell them what they need to do to get there. Oops.
I got into code because I saw some really, really cool stuff being worked on at a lot of companies, and I had the resources to play with it at home. To get people into aerospace you need to do the same - inspire them to get into the field, and t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Money? No Problem! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is my argument also. 700 billion to prop up failing banks who screwed themselves? Or 700 billion for NASA and other science agencies to develop research programs fuel marketable ideas that would create jobs? Billions for the broken, decrepit auto industry (which, thankfully, does not appear to be happening any time soon) that has failed to provide valuable products for consumers (other than mechanics who repair them). Or billions spent to develop new technologies with companies that are trying new thin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had my choice, I'd much rather see the billions spent on a shuttle launch go toward turning children into future aerospace engineers.
Why would you want to do that?
When they graduate how are they going to find a job?
Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
theres a car analogy in there somewhere
NASA Chief "appalled" by these accusations (Score:5, Informative)
This was an easy article to find, that's following up this story... Being on Space.com, it was on Slashdot's side bar... ;)
http://www.space.com/news/081211-nasa-obama-transition.html [space.com]
Bigger problems (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, I don't think we'll be telling them that.
Sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
...sadly, I think many slashdotters are going to be disappointed as NASA funding under Obama takes a backseat to a number of other programs that are targeted at much larger domestic constituencies.
Griffin's leadership (Score:4, Funny)
You're doing a heck of a job, Griffie!
Obama Also Asked to Accelerate Those Programmes (Score:3, Interesting)
Obama's transition team isn't asking NASA programmes only about cutting their budgets to zero. The review is also asking them about accelerating those programmes, increasing their budgets so their benefits are delivered sooner.
Griffin, the Star Wars scientist / CIA "entrepreneur" [wikipedia.org], is stonewalling any change by the new Chief Executive (Obama). Which is of course threatening those projects even worse, because there's going to be less time to evaluate and save the worthwhile ones, as the economic meltdown accelerates and Obama's busy leading the nation fulltime. And of course the stonewalling shows an agency that will need an even more radical makeover by the new administration.
But why should NASA be any different from the rest of the government Bush built? Hey, over in Congress, a minority of the minority Republicans in the Senate (next month their numbers shrink to a nearly insignificant count) are stonewalling even a bridge loan from money already allocated to Detroit. They destroyed New Orleans and New York. Maybe if a Christmas Earthquake hits California they can have laid waste on every coast except Alaska's - which they maybe managed with drilling in ANWR.
Nasa is chump change. (Score:5, Insightful)
If i was an American i would be much more concerned with military spending than with NASA. The various spy organizations and domestic surveillance programs alone makes the NASA budget look like weekly allowence. Add the military spending and NASAs budget is just silly in comparison.
If there is one area where money is spent for nothing its in the military.
Griffin and that US Attorney (Score:3, Interesting)
who say they refuse to cooperate with the incoming administration make me laugh. What part of a 79% disapproval rating for their, that is, Bush's administration and their work do they not get? It has been de rigeur to clap their hands over their ears, say nah-nah-nah-i-cant-hear-you, and ignore reality for years in their places of work, but the reality train is about to run them over and they better get the hell out of the way.
Obama doesn't seem like a vindictive guy, but absolutely pissing off the incoming teams at NASA, NSF, and all the other agencies that fund research and buy big dollar systems with these antics is a 100% sure-fire way to kill your career dead, dead, dead. What company, university, or lobbyist is going to hire a guy who is persona non grata if not dickhead #1 with the only game in town, aka the federal government?
Bad Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
When the incoming administration sends their representative over to see if your programs should continue, stonewalling is a really bad idea. Pissing them off isn't too smart, either.
In the first case, funding will get cut due to ignorance. In the second, out of spite. Either way you are out of a job in a bad economy. More likely, Obama's people wil just figure that NASA management is full of blow hard morons, replace them and put someone else in their place that they can work with.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Tight financial times = time for cuts... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, with everyone talking about creating jobs, how does it make sense to cut NASA hard and put tons of people who are working on Ares out of work?
Because those people work directly for the government. Which means you or I indirectly pay for them. Now if they were doing it because a space transport company was paying the bills, it would be much more impressive and more likely to be real long term jobs that don't need political support to survive.
Re:Tight financial times = time for cuts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing. The economy ain't so hot (I gno, rite!) so how does it make sense to employ a relatively small number of people at a relatively high salary when that money (one BILLION dollars!) could go to some other project that could influence thousands more workers?
Easy, pull troops out of Iraq. Amazing, I just increased NASA's budget by well, well over 100 fold per year.
In other news where is the rival Jupiter delivery system that scientist and engineers were working on after-hours?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The call is wonderfully easy.
Simply put a moratorium on manned missions and scrap manned programs for ten, twenty, or thirty years.
We are losing sight of why we need to explore space, which is to increase knowledge, wealth and power.
Sending meat while our technology is in its infancy is romantic but silly. We can design everything so we don't need meat tourists and use remote control instead. The technology required to do things without people is IMO more valuable because it is more cost-effective than send