Michael Griffinonomics at NASA

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_...e_Not_999.html

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"kT" wrote in message
...

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_...e_Not_999.html

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"Specifically, he argues that a steady budget of about
14 billion FY2000 dollars per year can comfortably
accommodate the Moon landing, Moon base, and
Mars landing programs proposed by President Bush
in February 2004."


......and that's it. Nothing else but the moon.

Fortunately this administration doesn't have
time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
to merge Nasa into Lockheed. By having one
big juicy long term contract take up pretty much
all the money for the foreseeable future.

And a program that only returns benefits to the people
with more White Elephants ...like the ISS.

It's only a matter of time before the climate
change movement/energy paranoia finds it's
way to Nasa and rightly becomes the focus
of our long term space goals.

Cutting edge agencies are for cutting edge problems.
NOT make-work programs for the military
industrial Lockheed complex.




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On Tue, 1 May 2007 20:05:33 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Fortunately this administration doesn't have
time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
to merge Nasa into Lockheed.

Do you really expect people to take nonsense like this seriously?

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 1 May 2007 20:05:33 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Fortunately this administration doesn't have
time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
to merge Nasa into Lockheed.

Do you really expect people to take nonsense like this seriously?


I don't expect them to take it literally, as you always
and conveniently do. But Lockheed and Bush are
joined at the hip and everyone knows it. You honestly
don't think Lockheed orchestrated this attempt to
return to the moon? Are you naive, or just in denial?

These are the guys that designed, pushed and made
the Vision happen.

http://www.spacecoalition.com/AboutUs.cfm

All organized, bought and paid for by Lockheed.
Do your homework, I have. Look at all the paid
shills they've hired, as usual Buzz at the top of list.
Look at all the companies they've organized to push
this through. They've spared no expense...
no expense at all~

I mean wake up, do you know anything at all about
politics?



s

On Tue, 1 May 2007 21:25:04 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:


"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 1 May 2007 20:05:33 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Fortunately this administration doesn't have
time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
to merge Nasa into Lockheed.

Do you really expect people to take nonsense like this seriously?


I don't expect them to take it literally, as you always
and conveniently do. But Lockheed and Bush are
joined at the hip and everyone knows it.

I don't know it, so once again, you spout nonsense.

You honestly
don't think Lockheed orchestrated this attempt to
return to the moon?

Yes, I honestly don't think that. They're not that competent, nor
were they prescient enough to know that they would win Orion.

Are you naive, or just in denial?

No, just sane.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Tue, 1 May 2007 20:05:33 -0400, in a place far, far away,
:"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
:in such a way as to indicate that:
:
:Fortunately this administration doesn't have
:time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
:to merge Nasa into Lockheed.
:
o you really expect people to take nonsense like this seriously?

What's so odd? Why shouldn't NASA belong to the same conglomerate as
the Air Force? :-)


--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Tue, 1 May 2007 20:05:33 -0400, in a place far, far away,
:"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
:in such a way as to indicate that:
:
:Fortunately this administration doesn't have
:time to complete their Nasa Vision, which is
:to merge Nasa into Lockheed.
:
o you really expect people to take nonsense like this seriously?

What's so odd? Why shouldn't NASA belong to the same conglomerate as
the Air Force? :-)


I think Air Force Space Command has first dibs.





--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

On 1 May, 13:22, kT wrote:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_...sy_Is_The_Futu...

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The article is premised on:
"On the other hand, NASA is still buying complex hardware that is
designed by salaried engineers and hand-crafted on a piecework basis
by highly paid unionized technicians. There is still virtually no
automation or mass production in the space industry, due to the
extremely low production volume between model changes. Trained
personnel have become much more expensive relative to ordinary
consumer goods."

I don't really buy this. I know productivity gains are hard in some
service areas, like teaching and nursing, but not necessarily in high
tech engineering. It would be interesting to see what productivity
gains Boeing civil aviation and RR aeroengines have made in their
development areas.

The Engineers who designed Apollo did so on paper based drawings. Now
you can create, modify, disseminate and share drawings and knowledge
easily. You can subject it to analysis which couldn't be dreamed of in
the 1960s.

Furthermore, in Apollo days, lessons had to be learned from scratch.
So much is obvious these days, for example:

- Low Earth orbit launches should be procured on a competitive basis,
and there is no need to design an entirely new launch vehicle for just
a few launches.
- Liquid propellants (Kerosene / LOx) are lower cost than cryogenic or
solids
- Solid rocket booster have inherent survivability problems and really
shouldn't be used for manned launches.
- Costs are lower by having large numbers of medium lift vehicles
(especially if they're already built) than a few very large launches
- Command Module vehicles can be reduced in cost by leaving more of
the accommodation piece to burn up, thereby reducign heat shield
sizes.

all these are obvious, aren't they?

Next sentence:
"NASA HQ has a group of economists to calculate its own private
inflation index, in order to project the costs of projects more
accurately. This group (Code BC) generates the "NASA New Start Index"
which is a much more accurate measure of relative costs over time for
space projects."

Ah - that explains it. How many Economists does SpaceX have?

More simply, just compare the launch costs (including development
costs) of Ares 1 / V versus Atlas / Delta, for 300 tons a year to LEO.
And then compare those to Falcon 9.

Alex Terrell wrote:

More simply, just compare the launch costs (including development
costs) of Ares 1 / V versus Atlas / Delta, for 300 tons a year to LEO.

And then compare those to Falcon 9.

Ah yes, let's bring a launcher that doesn't exist yet into the equation.

First class thinking there.

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On 3 May, 23:37, kT wrote:
Alex Terrell wrote:
More simply, just compare the launch costs (including development
costs) of Ares 1 / V versus Atlas / Delta, for 300 tons a year to LEO.
And then compare those to Falcon 9.

Ah yes, let's bring a launcher that doesn't exist yet into the equation.

First class thinking there.

Are you referring to Ares 1 or Ares V?