"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Bill Clark wrote:

Despite all its human flaws, the "NASA culture" has a strong can-do,
will-do attitude that makes it possible for them to achieve what
organizations ten times their size cannot. This sets a very bad
standard for industry, giving the shareholders and investors a high
expectation of their capabilities. Without the shining example of
NASA, industry can plod along and people are perfectly content with
shoddy products, nominal innovation, high prices, and poor customer
support. I would even go so far as to say that the aerospace industry
was to blame for the Challenger disaster, not NASA employees.
Industry has motive, the employees do not.


Behold the Nicene Creed of NASA.
You give pretty much any major company in the United States around
1/200th of the total national budget (over 15 _billion_ dollars in FY
2004) to work with, and I think you will be downright amazed with what
they will accomplish.

Pat

Are you truely sure of that. A great many U.S. companies, and foreign
companies do in fact have revenues of greater than 1/200th of the U.S.
annual budget.

1/200th of 15 Billion is ONLY 75 Million. The mid-sized company I work
for does better than that!!! The proposed budget for 2004 is of the order
of 2.2 TRILLION. Even then, the bar for meeting your criteria for
amazement is pretty low since many of our major companies have revenues of
greater than 15 Billion.

Examples abound:
General Electric -- 134 Billion FY2003 Annual Report
Lockheed-Martin --- 31.8 Billion FY2003 Annual Report (Net Sales ;; a
highly massaged figure)
HP/Compaq --- 19.5 Billion expecte annual revenue (Annual report not
released yet.)
etc
etc