MSNBC (JimO) - Hubble debate -- a lot of sound and fury

Herb Schaltegger writes:

Anyway, the hassles of having so many organizations involved with so
many facets of the design process really slowed things down and
complicated matters greatly. Just flowing interface requirements
properly across so many organizations and people was a tremendous chore.
A single, central management entity is really going to be necessary to
ensure that everyone is using the same requirements, that all changes
get flowed through, costed out properly, and implemented uniformly, etc.
The best example I can think of a system like this is how Boeing managed
and integrated the Saturn booster program, despite not actually building
much if any of it, or how operations at many/all of the various National
Laboratories are subcontracted out.

That's what I meant by having a prime contractor. The prime
contractor would be in charge of the entire CEV program, but could
subcontract out various modules. For example, the TLI stage and its
tankage could be subcontracted out, but the prime contractor gets to
worry about how it integrates with the other parts.

If two modules don't fit or can't talk to each other, it's the prime
contractor's fault.

Jeff
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If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

In re the ISS, Rand Simberg is cited as stating that the mistake of ISS is
splitting up the management thereof for political reasons. The writer is of
the opinion that ISS is the classic mistake of running Space out of the
Foreign Ministry's office, instead of the appropriate commission or
ministry. In the UN, that duty is the UN Commission on Space; in the USA,
NASA. And so forth.

The writer goes one further step: the sooner that the Government Agencies
can spin off Space into two divisions -- Science & Exploration, and Commerce
& Industry (including Colonization & Settlement -- the latter to be handled
under the private sector) the better.

--
Leonard C Robinson
"The Historian Remembers, and speculates on what might have been.
"The Visionary Remembers, and speculates on what may yet be."

Herb Schaltegger writes:

The best example I can think of a system like this is how Boeing managed
and integrated the Saturn booster program, despite not actually building
much if any of it, or how operations at many/all of the various National
Laboratories are subcontracted out.


Or for an example outside of the space program, you have the FBM/SWS
program which not only has multiple 'prime' contractors, but (had)
multiple locations where the prime contractors hardware came together
for final assembly. Also their were multiple locations where the
hardware was operated, not only the boats themselves, but the training
and testing/support centers.

SSPO (under varying acronyms) served as a goverment single point of
contact, but there was also a contractor (VITRO) who oversaw various
interfaces.

D.
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Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

The particular flight profile was not relevant; the overall goal (an SSTO
RLV with low per-flight cost) was. So the RFP was written generally enough
for competing approaches to be tried - otherwise, the RFP would have been a
disguised sole-source solicitation to MDAC, since they were the only ones
proposing an SSTO with that particular flight profile.

Not necessarily; if the RFP were written differently, I think that
Lockheed and Rockwell would have proposed vehicles that matched the
DC-X flight profile.

I was a bit surprised to see NASA write the RFP generally; usually, they
are guilty of overspecifying it to the point that you can tell they had a
particular company/product in mind and wrote the RFP to practically assure
that only that product could win. At least in this area, NASA got X-33
right, in my opinion.

Let me put it this way... suppose X-33 had actually worked, instead
of failing : would there have been a "next stage" that would _not_ have
been tied to the Lockheed design's configuration?

I'm beginning to think X-33 should have been less ambitious to begin with,
so that they could have done experimental flight structures and materials,
or advanced heat shielding, without any sort of experimental engines
necessary.

--
Phil Fraering
http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com
"Something's just not right..."
"Sweetie, we're criminals. If everything were right, we'd all be in jail."