Re: Spacefaring by bureaucrats

From: Derek Lyons (fairwater_at_gmail.com)
Date: 03/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 00:56:05 GMT

stevejdufour@yahoo.com wrote:

>The result of these bureaucratic requirements has been to discourage
>the participation of some of the more innovative and smaller new
>aerospace companies -- such as the companies that competed for the
>Ansari X Prize and actually might be able to build something quickly
>and for less money.

Given the utter lack of experience of the Ansari X Prize competitors
in building craft intended to be actually operated and maintained for
more than a few flights over a short period of time... Is this a bad
thing?

>Much of the paperwork seems redundant, however, and accomplishes
>little more than to increase costs, waste resources, slow development
>and keep NASA bureaucrats employed reviewing and filing these reports.
>Companies not only will have to perform a risk-management report, but
>they also will have to maintain nine other safety reports, including
>a safety and mission assurance plan, a fault tree analysis, a system
>safety hazard analysis, a mishap and safety statistics report, and a
>probabilistic risk assessment plan.

And these reports are different from what a builder might reasonably
be expected to provide an insurer or private operator how?

>Worse, in order to reduce their risk in this restrictive government
>environment, the most likely concept these corporations will propose
>for this so-called next-generation human spacecraft will be an
>unoriginal variation of an Apollo capsule, linked to a Russian-style
>habitable module and an only slightly updated Apollo lunar module. This
>fact already can be seen by some of the preliminary design drawings the
>companies have released.
>
>So much for innovation and a bold step forward for American space
>exploration.

This is to be expected... as the Capsule Cabal have been calling for
just such designs for years. (Apollo is k3wl! Soyuz is l33t! The
Shuttle suxx0rs!)

It should also be mentioned that innovation comes in other forms than
moldline.

D. 

-- 
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

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