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...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!
Henry Spencer wrote: (The consolidation of established firms has been more conspicuous in the last 10-15 years, but it was happening long before that. When it really got going full tilt in aerospace was right after the end of the Cold War; for a while there, it was around a merger a week. Pat |
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...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!
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...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message ... In article , Andre Lieven wrote: Yeah, its pretty amazing. One might say that the USN and USCG might suggest to their US suppliers that the USN and USCG might not be averse to buying ships and boats from overseas. That might put a scare up the " more efficient private businesses ". If you want efficiency, I'm afraid you have to look elsewhere than the government's captive design bureaus. Suitable companies *do* exist within the US; the trouble is that they're not "qualified suppliers", and also that they're typically averse to contracts where the paperwork tonnage exceeds the vessel tonnage (which might not be an issue with the USCG but certainly is with the USN). The current situation among defence/space contractors really is mostly the government's own stupid fault. It's in the nature of the larger and more established firms in a field to merge into still bigger ones, especially when business is bad. The way you prevent this from producing monopolies or oligopolies is to keep the door open to aspiring newcomers -- both by going easy on the paperwork and the "qualified supplier" rules, and by making sure that some of the work comes in packages of suitable sizes (the one-big-contract-every-ten-years syndrome guarantees steady shrinkage of the contractor pool, In the business world this is when a company is controlling an ever larger share of a declining market. A viscous cycle into oblivion. since it's naturally politically impossible to take any sort of perceived risk with such megacontracts). A strenuous effort to preserve competition at all levels, preferably *including* full production, also helps: "you can have one contract for the price of two, or two for the price of two". Problem is it's hard to have market forces work at the supplier level without the same being true for the customers. With the new goal being a replacement shuttle and the moon the govt makes sure only a couple companies could possibly handle it. But with SSP the goal might be to orbit x lbs of payload for y dollars. Then everyone in the industry has a chance to compete. But not now, not anymore, the little guys have only the rich and famous circuit. Which lasts how long? Only to the first accident, that's how long. It's gotta be about payload not passengers, for start-ups, for crying out loud. The start-ups can't afford the risk. Not so much in personal liability, but in having one slip-up among any one of them causing the entire market to dry up overnight. As a business venture that would define high risk. The rich and famous...on a wing and a prayer! Pahlease! It's a business plan that's asking for it. For low cost to orbit advances, for spaceports all over NASA must have a goal that first and foremost requires lots of cheap cargo to orbit where risky is ok most of the time. Much though I hate to say it :-), the current mess is *not* the fault of the current White House. I wouldn't blame them either for all the problems, only for the ones they created. The Bush administration has allowed big business to have a field day, the contracts are all written by, and quite often for, the contractors. And look what happens! Whether with Halliburton in Iraq, or with big pharma writing health insurance legislation, one mess after another. No oversight, no consequences, no competition, just one big gang-rape of the taxpayers. This administration raised the bar on corruption. The previous one, and the one before that, and also the two or three before that, were just as inattentive about this. (The consolidation of established firms has been more conspicuous in the last 10-15 years, but it was happening long before that. In 1961, the RFP for the Apollo CSM -- very much a qualified-suppliers-only affair -- went to *fourteen* companies.) And the vultures are now coming home to roost. Two things though that should be considered. A smaller agency like NASA can be effected far more by these corporate ills than the larger military projects. Congress watches the Pentagon rather closely and everyone gets a say on new programs. But no one really cares about NASA all that much. If Lockheed steals the agenda for it's own purposes, then mucks it all up... Well....not that many people on Capital Hill would raise much of a fuss. Gotta pick your battles in politics and no one is going to take a stand for a directionless mash of pork-barrel projects. And the other thing.... When you combine that sad situation with the simple fact that no one goes to the Dept of Defense or OSHA or the Commerce Dept or any other govt. agency for ...inspiration and hope, or to dream of a wondrous future,...like they do with NASA. All those other agencies serve our physical needs and desires. Each new probe to Mars is little different than the Royal Geographical Society sponsoring another trip by Darwin, say, or to the Arctic. It's about our intellectual and spiritual needs in the sense of understanding and exploring the natural world. SSP creates a market for the infrastructure that will enable almost any future goal. Including the prospect of unlimited clean energy. The moon destroys the market for start-ups consolidates the power of a few corporations while providing little or no forseeable benefits to society. I mean, one choice is great for Lockheed and the other is great for our future. -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
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