NASA Spends 72 Cents of Every SLS Dollar On Overhead Costs, Says Report (arstechnica.com) 166
A new report published by the nonpartisan think tank Center for a New American Security shows us where a lot of NASA's money is being spent. The space agency has reportedly spent $19 billion on rockets -- first on Ares I and V, and now on the Space Launch System rocket -- and $13.9 billion on the Orion spacecraft. If all goes according to plan and NASA is able to fly its first crewed mission with the new vehicles in 2021, "the report estimates the agency will have spent $43 billion before that first flight, essentially a reprise of the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon," reports Ars Technica. "Just the development effort for SLS and Orion, which includes none of the expenses related to in-space activities or landing anywhere, are already nearly half that of the Apollo program." From the report: The new report argues that, given these high costs, NASA should turn over the construction of rockets and spacecraft to the private sector. It buttresses this argument with a remarkable claim about the "overhead" costs associated with the NASA-led programs. These costs entail the administration, management, and development costs paid directly to the space agency -- rather than funds spend on contractors actually building the space hardware. For Orion, according to the report, approximately 56 percent of the program's cost, has gone to NASA instead of the main contractor, Lockheed Martin, and others. For the SLS rocket and its predecessors, the estimated fraction of NASA-related costs is higher -- 72 percent. This means that only about $7 billion of the rocket's $19 billion has gone to the private sector companies, Boeing, Orbital ATK, Aeroject Rocketdyne, and others cutting metal. By comparison the report also estimates NASA's overhead costs for the commercial cargo and crew programs, in which SpaceX, Boeing, and Orbital ATK are developing and providing cargo and astronaut delivery systems for the International Space Station. With these programs, NASA has ceded some control to the private companies, allowing them to retain ownership of the vehicles and design them with other customers in mind as well. With such fixed-price contracts, the NASA overhead costs for these programs is just 14 percent, the report finds.
Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA is the easiest go to for pork barrel politics.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you remove the pork barrel from the equation, with such fixed-price contracts, the NASA overhead costs drops to just 14 percent. This should be the main take-away.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not how it works. Of course NASA's overhead drops when they contract that work out instead of doing it themselves it just means someone else is doing the work and cost where shifted to them. You should be asking does it cost less to contract that out?
Re: (Score:3)
Average cost of management and profit for a private company is around 50%. Add in detailed planning for projects lasting many years and 72% isn't unreasonable. I've seen it as high as 90% for private companies.
We're a service economy now - not a manufacturing economy like we were during the first moon mission.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Except we're not talking about profit here.
We're talking about everything that is not manufacturing the rocket. That is... designing the bloody thing.
The thing I find surprising about the 72% figure is not how high it is - it's how low it is. It apparently is only costing 3 times as much to design an entirely new rocket system than it costs to build the first vehicle.
That's really fucking impressive.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking: people just want you to take a hammer and start putting in nails. Architects and engineers are overhead; just start putting up walls and don't worry about if it'll blow over in the first moderate wind.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. This report smells like sensationalized bullshit that makes light of what things really cost. The cost to essentially re-tool after decades out of the business of anything beyond low-earth orbit space travel has to be paid, and since NASA has to carry out the mission, they're the ones who first have to have everything in place. Measuring this against what contractors get is a head-fake; contractors should be specialists paid just for the piece of the puzzle required from them, so they should get paid less and later, after NASA has figured out to an excruciating degree of certainty what they need and how to get it done right so that contractors don't wind up making something useless.
Besides, NASA is not for-profit like the private sector. Money doesn't disappear down a profit hole, CEO bonuses or golden parachutes. If money is being stolen or misappropriated at NASA, it will be found out - some of that overhead, after all, goes to paper-trailing all the funding. That's why I'm saying bullshit to this article. Unless there are examples of specific misappropriation, then the money's being spent where it's gotta be spent (it sure as fuck isn't going to big, giant salaries or bonuses). It's easy and fashionable to shit on public-sector spending... 'cause it's public so trolls can see it and troll it and feel smug without taking the time to dig into the details... unlike the private sector where their spending is none of your damn business. Pros and cons. Yes, government agencies fuck up every so often and spend tax-payer money on bridges to nowhere and other shit. But they get caught because of the paper trail and the armies of trolls looking to expose them and feel smug about themselves.
Given the high-exposure of NASA, and how crazy fucking hard it is to get a job there in spite of relatively meager salaries compared to what you could get in the private sector, I don't bet there's too much funny business really going on... except only for pork mandated by Congress, because a congressman wants something sweet in his state or district. In THAT case, don't blame NASA, blame the Congressman (and the people who voted for him).
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. This report smells like sensationalized bullshit that makes light of what things really cost. The cost to essentially re-tool after decades out of the business of anything beyond low-earth orbit space travel has to be paid, and since NASA has to carry out the mission, they're the ones who first have to have everything in place. Measuring this against what contractors get is a head-fake; contractors should be specialists paid just for the piece of the puzzle required from them, so they should get paid less and later, after NASA has figured out to an excruciating degree of certainty what they need and how to get it done right so that contractors don't wind up making something useless.
Unless they had private industry do it. Then they wouldn't need to do all this stuff. It's worth noting that NASA actually did a study where they priced out how much a NASA contract for SpaceX's development of the Falcon 9 would cost. It turned out to be an order of magnitude greater than what SpaceX actually spent on development.
Besides, NASA is not for-profit like the private sector. Money doesn't disappear down a profit hole, CEO bonuses or golden parachutes.
Actually a lot of money does disappear exactly that way since NASA depends on private industry to actually build anything.
Unless there are examples of specific misappropriation
Like the existence of the Space Launch System? No reason f
Re: (Score:2)
Did NASA let this happen, or did Congress force it on NASA? The way to get a good launch system is to tell someone competent to do it, give that person adequate funding, and let said competent person get the job done. I've never been confident that the purpose of the Senate Launch System was to put anything into space.
Re: (Score:2)
Did NASA let this happen, or did Congress force it on NASA?
I believe both are true. A key point IMHO was in the wake of the massive downsizing from the Saturn V. NASA could no longer maintain the huge infrastructure of the Saturn period in the mid 70s. But rather than resize their ambitions for the budget they were getting, they overbuilt launch infrastructure (the Space Shuttle) in a gamble to get more funding for actual space exploration and development down the road. The Challenger accident ended that gamble.
At that point in 1986, the Shuttle had failed as a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Turns out NASA doesn't get to say "oops" as often as SpaceX does, which makes things more expensive.
NASA does a lot of stuff which makes things more expensive. In addition to their skewed risk perception, they also reuse the Space Shuttle lineage despite no compelling reason to do so (particularly, the solid rocket motors which generate a variety of costs and risks), employ cost plus contracts (which should be the exclusive realm of gouging law firms), and make some of the worst economic decisions in the federal government.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm so you think 10 billion a vehicle is a good deal ?
Re: (Score:3)
NASA is a project management organization. They don't design rockets - they design requirements for rockets. The Major corporation that take NASA contracts design the rockets, from an engineering perspective.
This is really a comparison between having custom rockets farmed out to someone like Lockheed, vs just using "COTS" rockets from someone like SpaceX.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't design rockets - they design requirements for rockets.
They shouldn't be doing that. Private industry already has adequate rockets for NASA's purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah somehow this "Think Tank" used their thinkers to come up this not-at-all-inaccurate conclusion that:
if ($.destination == #NASA) then ($.Category = #overhead)
elif ($.destination == #Private) then ($.Category = #CuttingMetal)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, it's based on an assumption that everything the government does is inherently overhead, and then uses that false assumption to prove that the government is wasting tons of money.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Informative)
That's why so many space enthusiasts refer to SLS as the Senate Launch System. My friends and I are betting on how many times it will actually fly before it gets canceled (my money's on 2). By the time this thing flies (if ever) SpaceX and Blue Origin will already have heavy lifters available for a fraction of the price. The Falcon Heavy and New Glenn are not quite as powerful, yes, but both companies already have bigger rockets in development which will probably be available in the early-to-mid 20s.
Besides, in the current launch market there just isn't much need for a booster the size of SLS. And by the time such needs develop, the commercial ones from Musk and Bezos will be ready.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm anyone but someone to defend SLS, but this report seems rather flimsy. It seems that they're calling anything that NASA does in-house "overhead". That's not really a fair measure. A rocket is not just its physical construction; there's a huge amount of cost in research, design, testing, and support infrastructure - in the case of SLS, particularly the Exploration Ground Systems [nasa.gov] (EGS). Part of the problem however is that every time NASA builds something new, they're rarely allowed to shut it down. Including major projects with contractors. Congress keeps mandating this inefficiency, when what NASA really needs is the freedom to put large amounts of infrastructure to the axe when it can't contribute toward competitive costs, and reallocate the funds as is needed. So long as they face mandates to keep everything open (both internal, and with specific production lines run by particular suppliers), they shouldn't be criticized for their high costs - congress should.
I really think NASA would fare better if it went back more to the NACA model - a research and support organization for other players, maintaining the common infrastructure and R&D used by others - with the addition of a scientific exploration program. NASA shouldn't be making anything that a private business case can be built for (for example, rockets reaching LEO / GEO), but they should be running the DSN, range support, creating a market for private industry to continually expand/improve its capabilities, nurturing startups to increase competition, and extensively working to bring more advanced technologies (that the market couldn't afford to sink money into due to the risk) from theory into real world - not trying to make "workhorses", but proof-of-concept systems that others will run with if merit and maturity can be demonstrated.
In short:
If there's a business model for it: private industry
If it's too risky or long-term for business: NASA proof-of-concept
If its a common need for multiple businesses in the field: NASA permanent infrastructure
Re: (Score:2)
I couldn't agree more, in particular with the idea of NASA getting back to its NACA roots. And I suspect the SLS will provide some impetus in that direction, as it becomes more and more obvious to the public that it's a colossal waste of money, especially when privately developed rockets almost as powerful as SLS are flying at a much lower cost. If Thiokol (or whatever they're called these days) wants to continue building SRBs, let them compete in the open marketplace instead of bribing Congress-critters to
Re: (Score:3)
A rocket is not just its physical construction; there's a huge amount of cost in research, design, testing, and support infrastructure - in the case of SLS
The problem is that in case of SLS, which recycles half of the STS equipment, if you need to do so much extra research, maybe it was a wrong idea from the very start. One of the things I found utterly laughable was the recent engine testing campaign for the limited amount of engines that already flew (and will be thrown away), just because they've decided to run them slightly hotter. These things sum up in a nasty way. You could have designed and developed not one but several new launchers for the total sum
Re: (Score:2)
No question. But, mandates are mandates.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Can't blame NASA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA is the easiest go to for pork barrel politics.
I would like to remind you that about a trillion dollars a year go toward "defense". The budget for the F-35 is almost as large as the entire budget for NASA! If you want to talk about pork, you aren't talking about spending money on science, you're talking about defense spending.
Re:Can't blame NASA (Score:5, Funny)
So your best defense of NASA's budget is that we also waste money on other things that are even stupider?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So your best defense of NASA's budget is that we also waste money on other things that are even stupider?
Sure, NASA budget needs fixed. Before projects throwing, what, two orders of magnitude more money away?
Re: (Score:2)
Funding NASA has continually paid off with new scientific knowledge, much of which has even been used to make weapons. War only destroys lives.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So your best defense of NASA's budget is that we also waste money on other things that are even stupider?
Depends if you think it needs defending. Think of what you get for your money from NASA compared to the F-35. You want to talk about wasting money? How about a billion dollars for 62 miles of wall/fence. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03... [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Think of what you get for your money from NASA compared to the F-35.
How about we just think about what we get for our money from NASA?
Comparing it to the F-35 is pointless since in no way whatsoever are they alternatives.
How about a billion dollars for 62 miles of wall/fence.
Using that as justification for spending on something completely unrelated is idiotic.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, this all started with Trump. *rolls eyes*
Re: Can't blame NASA (Score:2)
You're right it didn't start with Trump, but he definitely has become the flag bearer for everything that seems wrong with the GOP and US politics in general.
NASA unfortunately is the toy for the ambitions of many senators. Either they get tasked with missions that are overly ambitious or get critisiced for missions that were dictated by the same unrealistic ambitions of politicians.
Re: (Score:2)
Were that true, I don't think we'd see the Republicans rubber-stamping some of his worst appointees or blocking investigation into Trump's potentially iniquitous actions.
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to Trumponian politics.
You know, I seem to recall there might've been a different guy in the White House for the last eight years who oversaw the ridiculous F-35 program and did...well, nothing. Gosh, what was his name? O-something? But who cares, right? Since he was a Democrat he can do no wrong, and since Trump is a Republican he must be blamed for everything, including things he had nothing to do with.
Re: (Score:3)
prisoner-of-enigma sneered:
p>You know, I seem to recall there might've been a different guy in the White House for the last eight years who oversaw the ridiculous F-35 program and did...well, nothing. Gosh, what was his name? O-something? But who cares, right? Since he was a Democrat he can do no wrong, and since Trump is a Republican he must be blamed for everything, including things he had nothing to do with.
Y'know, I seem to recall there WAS a different guy in the White House - a Republican, in case you've forgotten - whose administration came up with the ill-conceived F-35 project in the first place. And got it approved (sorry, I meant "mandated") by Congress, despite its infeasible design. Oh, and wasn't he the one whose "brainchild" the SLS program also was? And wasn't it was his successor (you know: the Democrat) who jawboned Congress into at least eliminating
Re: (Score:2)
Are you ok blaming Trump for the same things you defend Obama on?
If you agree Trump is no more to blame than Obama, then ok. If not then time to self reflect.
Trump is no more to blame than Obama today. It's only March, after all. There still isn't a Trump administration to blame yet, since their takeover is in such a shambles.
But by the time of the mid-term elections in 2018? Yep, his fault by then. Why? Because he's the leader of the party that controls both houses of Congress.
I managed to type that with a straight face. Ok, we can't ever blame Trump for the F-35 or the SLS. We both know he is only the titular leader of the Republican party, not the actu
The big waste is in the defense department (Score:2)
I would like to remind you that about a trillion dollars a year go toward "defense".
The actual number last year was around $600 billion but your point still stands. Coincidentally our federal deficit in 2016 was also right around $600 billion so we basically borrowed every penny we spent on the military last year. So thank your grandchildren for the debt they'll be paying off because we think it necessary to support a military that is grossly oversized but are unwilling to tax enough to pay for it.
If you want to talk about pork, you aren't talking about spending money on science, you're talking about defense spending.
Truer words have never been spoken. NASA is a rounding error compared to the wasteful spen
Nonsense about the defense budget (Score:3)
A lot of things in the defense budget are things that people rely on.
None that are things that have to be covered under the defense budget. Most of the defense budget is for personnel and for war fighting machines (purchase and operation).
Food subsidies at one point were covered through the defense budget for example
I'm not aware of this being true in my lifetime if ever. Citation please.
The GPS cluster maintenance and upgrades are paid out of the defense budget.
Doesn't mean it has to remain that way. Wouldn't be hard to put that into the budget for NOAA or NASA or NTSB or the Commerce Dept.
Originally the US interstate system was a defense project, though it's now funded through gasoline taxes.
The money for it never came out of the defense budget. The project did have defense implications but it ultimately was a civilian proj
Re: (Score:3)
Not to mention that one of the biggest line items for defense, the VA, is not under the defense budget. This is another $130 billion/year that is defense related but not in the defense budget. Paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq doesn't get put into the general defense budget either, so add a few more trillion.
Re: (Score:2)
Paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq doesn't get put into the general defense budget either, so add a few more trillion.
They weren't, under Bush. They are now. The Obama administration brought the war spending into the budget. And took the blame for the increased deficit, even though it wasn't their expense. The next time you hear some idiot hyperventilating over Obama's increase of the deficit, remember that.
Having wars of adventure without paying (Score:2)
And took the blame for the increased deficit, even though it wasn't their expense. The next time you hear some idiot hyperventilating over Obama's increase of the deficit, remember that.
Correct. We went to war and unlike every other time we've done that we did not raise taxes or take other extraordinary measures to fund our little wars of adventure because modern republican politicians break out in hives if you even mention the words "tax increase". In fact congress (republicans) lowered taxes because doing that is always politically popular even though only the wealthy saw meaningful benefit. In doing so our congress gave the bill for the pointless and expensive war to our children and
Re: (Score:2)
I would like to remind you that about a trillion dollars a year go toward "defense".
No it is actually closer to half that [insidegov.com] and if you include veterans benefits it is only about 60%. That isn't to say there isn't waste and stupid shit going on since we all should be familiar with generals and the like saying they don't want something and don't need it but congress approves money for it because it brings home the bacon to their district. Personally I think our military budget is over sized and everyone likes to complain the the US spends more than the next X countries combines on their milita
Re: (Score:2)
... we end up being world police...
Nobody asked us to be, so why are we doing it? You can claim whatever justification you want but we both know it comes down to money.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I realize that packing up immediately would be bad so a deliberate unwinding would be needed.
It'll only happen after we stop buying oil from other nations.
Re: (Score:2)
Privatization always works out great for regular people, like the water supply in Flint Michigan. I wonder if Americans will ever figure out that privatization is a con job by oligarchs to get your money for themselves under the guise of efficiency. Our privatized health care system sucks, and it costs twice as much as non-profit systems that have no co-pays and cover everyone. You're being conned folks.
Re: (Score:1)
I wonder if Americans will ever figure out that privatization is a con job by oligarchs to get your money for themselves under the guise of efficiency.
I dunno. Americans still haven't figured out government programs are a con job by politicians to get our money for themselves under the guise of efficacy. "Hey Taxpayer! You're too stupid to know what to do with your own money so we will take it from you and spend it in ways we think are best for you! Don't object! It's for your own good!"
This is why I'm a Libertarian.
Re: (Score:2)
You are drinking the coolaid for sure. Government is only as good or as bad as the people who voted into office. Business is always about screwing customers to get their money. Now that college is a for profit business, regular people can't afford it. We'll see how you like the Trump administration who says they are going to make the government into a business, and citizens into customers. I'm sure you are going to love it. Not so much for most of the rest of us.
Re: (Score:2)
This doesn't look pork barreley to me at all.
I'm actually amazed that 28% of the cost is going on building the rocket, because you know... Someone has to fucking design the thing.
Why is it surprising that the design of a brand new rocket system costs a significant proportion of the cost of building the first rocket of that type?
What does this indicate (Score:2)
If space is so dazzling, and NASA that incompetent, why doesn't the private sector develop its own space program?
Do these figures instead indicate NASA is providing hidden subsidies to the private sector lined up at its feeding trough?
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I have never heard of Center for a New American Security before, so it would be reasonable to be skeptical about how non-partisan they are. Judging from the article alone, however, it appears that 'overhead' is anything that isn't passed on to external contractors, so potentially this could include any research that is done by NASA scientists. If this is the case, I don't think it is non-partisan at all - the position that only work done by external contractors is 'real work' is a highly biased one to
Re: (Score:2)
1. When the Germans arrived after WW2 they created German supply systems in the USA. The USA copied the best ideas from 1930-40's Germany and is now stuck with that method.
The US was in such a rush to get into space it copied all the faults of 1930's Germany.
No US company or gov worker is going to give up the wage structure and good standards generations later.
The USA finally got quality control but the cost was funding the US private sector to make all the parts to German standards in th
Re: (Score:2)
Because there is no profit in space except where you can take from the government.
The problem here is that we're ALREADY using the private sector (Lockheed Martin and Boeing and a host of other smaller companies) but without any true management or expectations from NASA, these things tend to go over budget or completely replaced every time a politician wants some cred for his next campaign
The NASA budget is indeed small but it's being spent on hundreds of reviews over the same items. Nothing new is happenin
Lots of risk, little reward (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's why pretty much all the U.S. launch vehicles are actually modified ballistic missiles. They were designed (by the private sector under contract) with the goal of dropping bombs on places halfway around the world. And NASA got to re-use that tech at a price heavily subsidized by military R&D.
Historically this was true. The situation has now, bizarrely, reversed. NASA is being used to artificially keep Thiokol alive because they manufacture the solid fuel rockets that are ICBMs, but the Air Force hasn't been allowed to buy more ICBMs since the Clinton era. This is why the Senate Launch System is "architected" the way it is.
Trump has been making noises about the poor condition of our nuclear deterrent. If he gets his way, the Air Force will be able to replace a bunch of missiles directly, and
It is in the nature of the business! (Score:5, Insightful)
Going into space is an incredibly front loaded type enterprise. They aren't opening a a dollar store, they are sending people in to one of the most hostile environments known to man. They say "Measure twice, cut once", but when you have the lives of people in your hands, you measure tens of thousands of times to make sure the final cutting won't accidentally kill them! And before you go and say Blue Origin and SpaceX are doing it so much cheaper, yes, but that is because they are standing on a mountain of research & technology courtesy NASA. R&D done by NASA has given us billions and billions of dollars in spin-off technologies over the years, and I am sure if you charted it out, your return on investment is pretty good.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, they aren't opening a dollar store, but the numbers from TFA are enormous. SpaceX and Blue Origin may be standing on a mountain of previous research & tech from NASA, but NASA itself is also standing on that same mountain. Since it is their own mountain, it should be logical that they would be more effective in applying previously discovered knowledge to their new projects.
And, purely the fact that space is a hostile environment isn't a fact that can be used to explain away any level of bureaucracy
Re:It is in the nature of the business! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they stand on that mountain, but they are still building it! As for your comparison with nuclear, health, etc...sorry, the tolerances there are much greater than for space. Certification for use in the medical or nuclear fields is much easier than getting something space rated!
And most times when a "think tank" comes out with "proof" that some agency has too much bureaucracy, it is a prelude to justify budget cuts. It's just another piece of the propaganda war. :-(
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, they stand on that mountain, but they are still building it!
All the more reason to question their overhead since this "mountain" was already climbed in 1969. You do realize there's almost nothing NASA is trying to do today that wasn't already done better, faster, and cheaper by the Apollo program, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Cheaper? The NASA budget during the space race was almost 10 times what it is now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
In a perfect world, it might be 30-35%, but more often than not it exceeds 50% in the private sector. 76% sounds bad, but I am sure there is a little gaming of the numbers there.
Re: (Score:2)
Something both of them readily admit. SpaceX in particular has continually expressed their gratitude for all of the support they've gotten from NASA over the years. And they have an interesting cooperative model in place now for Red Dragon - no money exchanged, but they get access to NASA facilities and time working with NASA resea
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't opening a a dollar store, they are sending people in to one of the most hostile environments known to man.
"I'm not going up there!... send a droid."
Re: (Score:2)
In most of the business world (Score:2)
Is this a lot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously it sounds like a lot, but i haven't been able to find any source on what they define as overhead. I also have no idea how much the normal overhead is.
It sounds like any cost not going towards a private company is accounted as overhead. Surely NASA has expenses internally that wouldn't make sense to call overhead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is a weird definition of overhead. Overhead is usually defined as the part of administrative expenses as opposed to research expenses. But even like that 72% would not be that big necessarily.
When applying to NSF grant, public state universities have indirect cost, often labeled "overhead", which rate is roughly 50% for public universities (it is negociated per university, but that's roughly what it is.)
What that 50% overhead means is that if $1 goes to the research (paying faculty in summer time when th
Re: (Score:2)
Well, a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money!
It's not exactly 72 on the dollar... (Score:2)
Lost In Space (Score:2)
A book of this title written years ago describes the mess NASA was and still is.
NASA= Not About Space Anymore
Re: (Score:2)
Why do Space Nutters always bring this up? Why is it a requirement that we don't go extinct? By the way, there is no way you can get an independent viable colony of humans anywhere but Earth. Read all the scifi you want, but it ain't gonna happen.
Re: (Score:2)
"Why is it a requirement that we don't go extinct?"
Good question. Hard to answer besides just saying "because".
Since we have a limited ability to foresee the future, applying resources to mitigation strategies seems to be appropriate for a mentational species.
As perhaps the first species with the ability to consciously destroy or save itself, I don't mind throwing a few bones to the "savers", as we already throw massive carcasses to the "destroyers".
Goes Back To Kennedy (Score:2)
Unfortunately, all the big suppliers found they liked
Re: (Score:3)
I once worked at Rockwell-Collins, which had been a supplier for the Space Shuttle programme. When I arrived, they were very stringent about how we handled our time reporting and billing. Why? Because apparently before I got there they had just gotten heavy slapped down for exploiting cost-plus Shuttle contracts. Whenever any project went over budget, they just had employees credit their time to the Shuttle programme.
Nineteen Days Left to File Your Taxes (Score:1)
Whether the numbers a correct - or not, why does any one care?
Seriously. If we could reduce the obscene cost of medical care by even one percent,
the NASA budget could be doubled and we could have a "single payer" health system.
And if you really want to explore "social welfare tax money" don't get me started on the military budget.
We are one nation under a bunch of god-awful, politically motivated morons.
It feel good to rant early in the morning. Try it.
What a load of crap! (Score:1)
Because Nasa does just "overhead"..? They think NASA, maybe because is not private, never does something useful by itself? Without NASA you wouldn't have all these rockets anyways..
And Boeing, Lockeed...are cutting metal...Let me catch my breath! For one dollar given to Lockheed for the F35 how many cents did go to "cutting metal" ?!? These publicly-supported companies are overhead machines by themselves! I worked for some of them in a similar sector (high tech, main client is governments), you wouldn't bel
Private sector will increase costs. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If it costs money to do something and you hand it over to the private sector it will cost money plus profit to make it therefore more.
Wrong. If that were true, the USSR would have economically destroyed the US. That's just one of millions of examples. It's not the case that *everything* is best done by private enterprise, but if the primary goal is to serve the customer at minimum cost, competitive private industry is the absolute best way we know to achieve it. Yes, companies need to generate a profit, but that profit is almost always dwarfed by the opportunities for reducing costs by being more efficient.
In a competitive market, findi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it costs money to do something and you hand it over to the private sector it will cost money plus profit to make it therefore more. If the argument is that somehow the private sector magically has better management then improve the management and reduce the costs but that simply is not true. Better management always equals higher cost as they always charge more than they earn.
Costs are lower in the private sector due to competition in the marketplace. If there is a monopoly on any item or service, you better believe the costs will be astronomical.
What we have seen in the past 5-10 years is the end of a monopoly by ULA as a result of Space X and others. While ULA had a monopoly in the private sector, the SLS made sense. Now that there is competition, that is no longer the case.
They ignored inflation. (Score:5, Insightful)
In it's day Apollo 8 cost 20 billion dollars. In today's money that's about 110 billion dollars.
The SLS costing the about the same in today's money as Apollo 8 cost in 1968 dollars - is actually a MASSIVELY cheaper and more efficient project then. .
The argument is pretty flawed if you make such a silly mistake. Now let's consider the claim about amounts and where they go. Are these people seriously saying that ALL of what NASA does with their share is wasted effort ? Does NASA not have a stake in doing their own testing and validation - making sure that they get what they paid for and that their astronauts will be safe ? Outsourcing that seems seriously irresponsible but even if you DID the private sector companies would have to do the same tests. Maybe they COULD do it cheaper -but cheaper isn't the most important thing here, quality matters a lot more than price for this stuff.
Why exactly is it a bad thing if a large chunk of NASA's budget is spent on the parts NASA does ? Why are these people arguing that NASA should outsource more than they do ? NASA is the customer here - and this seems like a thinly veiled attempt to use politics to force the customer to buy more.
NASA is the dumbest thing to complain about in terms of cost anyway - as a fraction of the federal budget they are a blip. Seriously NASA has had it's funding cut so consistently for decades that, today, they are basically a rounding error on the budget.
Re: (Score:1)
Pournelle's Iron Law (Score:2)
Those overhead figures are no surprise at all. NASA has been around more than long enough for Pournelle's Iron Law to take over. The bureaucracy grows to meet the needs of the growing bureaucracy. Any space science that gets done is purely incidental.
This is a fundamental problem with government agencies. When private companies become inefficient, they (in an ideal world) either clean house or they are overtaken by their competitors. When government agencies become inefficient, there is no pressure on them
Re: (Score:2)
"private companies like VW, Wells Fargo, Enron, Merck, they have all done harm in ways that aren't covered by the Iron Law, but far exceed it"
First, how do you compare? It's essentially impossible, because those things are not alike.
That said, most of the companies you mention were able to cause harm due to two factors: corporate cronyism, and too big to fail.
The one where that doesn't quite apply may be Volkswagen. But even there: it is becoming apparent that *all* auto manufacturers cheated on their emiss
lowest bidder (Score:1)
You realize we're sitting on 45,000 pounds of fuel, one nuclear warhead and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder? Makes you feel good doesn't it?
Overhead includes engineering (Score:2)
This is the sort of idiotic criticism made by people with no understanding of accounting. Part of "overhead" is engineering and the engineering costs for designing a system like SLS are substantial. Since NASA is doing the engineering for SLS in house of course the overhead costs are going to be a higher percentage of their total. If they outsourced it, the overhead for engineering won't disappear - it will just go on the P&L for a different company. You could argue that a private sector company
Everyone already know this. (Score:2)
NASA is a pork barrel project and isn't about space anymore. It was appropriate for the era of getting to the moon and should now get out of the space game and be replaced with separate organizations for supervision and mission funding of private contractors as has already begun. Going to the moon was actually about shifting the high cost of rocket development as well as putting a pretty face on large rocket tests. It was a PR thing. The defense department got their rocket tech which they were going to get
Just imagine (Score:2)
Imagine what NASA could do if it didn't spend 65 cents of every dollar filling out Freedom of Information requests from industry lobbying groups with patriotic sounding names!
From the summary:
"This means that only about $7 billion of the rocket's $19 billion has gone to the private sector companies, Boeing, Orbital ATK, Aeroject Rocketdyne, and others cutting metal."
Jerry Pournelle (Score:2)
Labor Isn't Overhead (Score:1)
You might want a one-off widget which costs $100 to make for every launch, but if the engineering into that widget takes decades to get people to be able to engineer, years to put in place the business infrastructure to supports, months to train up the skilled labor to build, etc then it isn't really $100. Now, if you only need that widget every decade or two it gets even worse because you also have to pay for maintaining that organization which likely has to maintain a very high tech level of production s
Aren't they talking about manned flight? (Score:3)
This is the epitome of news reporting these days.
Step one: gather information to report on something you don't understand (e.g. how to do a manned flight mission)
Step two: make assumptions about a detail you learned on a subject you don't understand (e.g. how to do a manned flight mission)
Step three: complain about money spent (Bonus points for calling out NASA and how successful private industry is)
Step four: compare the risk of two things that are just not relatable (the difference of risk between unmanned and manned flight is laughable)
Just to point out, there is a dedicated team at NASA focused on the safety of everyone involved. This is "overhead".
There are people for quality assurance. This is "overhead".
There are system engineers.
There are people who manage the process.
There are managers at the project level.
There are managers at the mission level.
Personnel managers.
Facility managers.
Security.
Independent reviews.
Do you really want to be known as the one who cut one of these pieces when a rocket carrying people blows up? I'm not saying that the private industry can't handle this. I'm sure they will some day. But to assume they won't be exponentially more expensive???
Look people. Space X saved millions of dollars by borrowing decades old lessons and in some cases even algorithms and hardware from what NASA accomplished. Maybe private is the future, but how can we be so arrogant as to assume that our current success is unrelated to the hard work of people for the better part of a century?
Step five: inflammatory news piece to get your name out there.
confused (Score:2)
Let's consider this.... (Score:2)
1. From a late friend who was a rocket scientist, she was an engineer at the Cape, and used
to complain mightily that the last years she was there, upper management were time servers,
and didn't want to sign anything.
2. How much of that "overhead" is administering contracts? Here's a working example: I work,
right now, for a federal contractor (civilian sector). I have my fed direct
Comment (Score:2)
It better all be over head, because after all they're the freakin' National Aeronautics and Space Administration!
Think Tank = Propaganda with academic support (Score:2)
Think Tanks are almost entirely purposed with creating biased academic like support for propaganda purposes. They do not seek truth, only as much truth that supports their paid positions and maybe invent clever fake science to undermine confuse actual science -- smoking is actually good for you! Some people they hire are honest but believe in the same things and if that changes they are fired. Others are just intellectual whores who sell their minds out for money, arguably worse than a whore.
Think Tanks o
Re: (Score:2)
Using what inflation index? Remember, NASA's costs are adjusted by the NNSI.
Re: (Score:2)