With fat days over, NASA must innovate

Sylvia Else wrote:
On 16/04/2010 4:52 AM, Andrew Nowicki wrote:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/...u.space.obama/


Dismantling outdated attitudes and practices at NASA would be a
difficult task.

I think the government should scrap NASA and start again with a new
organisation.


The problem is, who do you hire in the new organization? Most likely the
folks in the old one.

All this does is change the name.


Sylvia.

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:50:06 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
wrote:

On Apr 15, 9:42*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 16/04/2010 4:52 AM, Andrew Nowicki wrote:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/...u.space.obama/

Dismantling outdated attitudes and practices at NASA would be a
difficult task.

I think the government should scrap NASA and start again with a new
organisation.

Sylvia.

Liquidate NASA, because our USAF is good to go as is.

Are you talking about the same USAF that created a competition (EELV)
to pick one new, good, all-purpose rocket in order to cut launch costs
and then decided it couldn't live without both, which ended up
increasing costs?

How's that Tanker decision coming? What, 8 years now since the Air
Force started asking for bids on a new tanker?

How much does an F-35 cost now and when will we get one in the field?
What was the price and timetable when JSF was awarded to Lockheed?
(No blaming that one on the end of the Cold War the way they did
F-22's high cost.)

The same USAF that picked a 1950s helicopter design to be our combat
search and rescue helicopter for the next 20 years?

Let's face facts. Government procurement is hopelessly screwed up
across the board.

Brian

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:29:36 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Are you talking about the same USAF that created a competition (EELV)
to pick one new, good, all-purpose rocket in order to cut launch costs
and then decided it couldn't live without both, which ended up
increasing costs?

That wasn't the Air Force's idea, Congress did that

Not really. It all comes down to the Russian engine. USAF liked Atlas
but didn't need Congress to tell them it was a bad idea to be
dependent on it, so they picked Boeing too.

Brian

On 4/16/2010 2:12 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
Are you talking about the same USAF that created a competition (EELV)
to pick one new, good, all-purpose rocket in order to cut launch costs
and then decided it couldn't live without both, which ended up
increasing costs?

That wasn't the Air Force's idea, Congress did that, just like wanting
the alternate engine suppliers for the F-35 engines.


Pat

On 4/16/2010 4:03 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:

That wasn't the Air Force's idea, Congress did that

Not really. It all comes down to the Russian engine. USAF liked Atlas
but didn't need Congress to tell them it was a bad idea to be
dependent on it, so they picked Boeing too.

Yeah, like we couldn't back-engineer the engine if we needed to.
Lord knows the Russians never did anything like that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klimov_VK-1
....and that still doesn't explain the dual-source F-35 engine
procurement pork-barreling.

Pat

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:40:45 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:


That wasn't the Air Force's idea, Congress did that

Not really. It all comes down to the Russian engine. USAF liked Atlas
but didn't need Congress to tell them it was a bad idea to be
dependent on it, so they picked Boeing too.

Yeah, like we couldn't back-engineer the engine if we needed to.

Look at how long and how much money it was taking us to back-enginer
our own engine, the J-2. Indigenous production was a pipedream on EELV
budgets.

...and that still doesn't explain the dual-source F-35 engine
procurement pork-barreling.

That's a very small contributor to the F-35's out of control cost
growth, and not at all responsible for the large delays to date,
though. And if we cancel the alt engine, we might lose the Brits,
which could drive up costs more anyway.

Brian