Re: >>> Apple i-NASA >>>

On 9 Apr, 20:38, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 9, 2:00 pm, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 9 Apr, 18:44, Eric Chomko <pne.cho...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 9, 12:55 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Apr 7, 3:29 pm, Eric Chomko <pne.cho...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 5, 9:14 am, gaetanomarano <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 5, 2:51 pm, charliexmur...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

 NASA is a gov't agency.  It is not for sale

many countries have sold their public companies, so, also NASA can be
sold, it's ONLY a matter of political decision

No! The US government does not sell off its agencies. Can you name an
example of one?

of course, the private companies can use their money to start a brand
new space company to accomplish the same projects, but it's NOT GOOD
for NASA, since the private companies have more funds, no political
influences and work faster and better with less engineers and less
infrastructures, so, if they do that by theirself, NASA will soon
CLOSE and all peoples that work for it FIRED ...that's why I think my
proposal is good (mainly) for NASA rather than Apple & C. :)

You really are clueless aren't you. NASA has an annual budget of ~$17
billion that it spends and by definition does NOT make a profit. Apple
and the private companies MUST make a profit or had better be in a
position to spend ~$17 billion a year without any return on
investment. Not a good business decision.

Also, if private companies can do things in space more cheaply than
NASA does in space using contractors, then that is GOOD for NASA
because it can then buy from the private companies rather than rely on
contractors. NASA would then stop paying too much for what it does and
use the cheaper means that the private companies provide. Get it?

Oh, the irony of course is that those contractors mentioned above ARE
private companies, too, like Apple, but have managed to keep prices
high due to no competition. That is where Apple and those companies
you mention come into play. The private sector competing with the
private sector to drive prices down.

Eric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization

NASA would serve the nation best if it gave up its mission specific
roles and operated much like NACA did in the development of
aviation.

The problem of course for NASA to give up mission specific roles, then
those roles would not necessarily be filled. In the days of NACA
aviation develoment was occuring on many fronts, including
commericially. It made no sense for NACA to create from scratch
expensively what it could buy commercially at a cheaper price.

NASA in many cases has no alternative to its go-it-alone approach,
other than do nothing. The latter isn't progress in anyone's book.

Eric- Hide quoted text -

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Doesn't this depend on flag? NASA would have more commercial options
if it could go to Arianespace or Glavkosmos.

  - Ian Parker- Hide quoted text -

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When advisors broached the idea of a civilian space agency with
Eisenhower his immediate ressonse was, is this what the Russians are
after?   Remember, at that time, Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs were
fresh in everyone's memory.  The advances of the Russians were thought
to be a direct result of spies and leask.  A civilian agency that had
all the secrets of the military missile effort transferred to it just
seemed to Eisenhower asking for trouble.  Of course no one needed to
point out that they already had the capability they needed to launch a
surprise attack, so, we need to move beyond that.  Still, Eisenhower
viewed a civilian space agency as potentially very costly and very
damaging to critical strategic US secrets.

The National Academy of Sciences at that time recommended that
Eisenhower structure an agency with a strong strategic direction
provided by a CEO type person, expert in the industry - vonBraun was
mentioned - surrounde by a board of directors - all expert in the
field - to provide strategic advice to the nation, and organize
funding in a manner similar to the National Science Foundation, or the
Center for Disease Control and so forth.

The idea was that Congressmen weren't medical doctors, or scientists,
so its ludicrous to ask politicians to make rational strategic
decisions about a complex topic like medical research or research in
general.

The development of the resources of our solar system.and the
technologies needed for that, shouldn't become a political football.
Basically, you have an expert team put togethre a five year plan - and
fund it to achieve specific goals - not missions.  Those goals advance
the art of space travel.

Eisenhower finally supported an agency, NASA and begrudgingly
transferred assets to the agency held by the military.  With respect
to the strategic planning role, he put that in the office of the Vice
President - guaranteeing the agency would have no long term direction
or strategic planning capability.

We are reaping the result of this decision.

The agency needs to do basic research in advancing the rocket
propulsion art.  Fully reusable vehicles, lower cost vehicles,
improved launch infrastructure, improved launch rates, improved
automation - these are not as politically satisfying as a mission to
planet X - but investment in these mundane tasks means that less money
can do more.

I am sure if a panel of experts were convened with a strong leader -
not political appointees - they could come up with a better list.
These programs look not to missions - but capabilities.

The Aerospace Corporation attempts to do this, but it needs to be done
more - that is, coordinating private interest in space asset
development with national capability and not done at all - future or
emerging capabiities.  This is routinely done in the electronics
field, where everyone has Moore's Curve plastered to their office
walls and when designing software, hardware, or any product, know what
to expect in terms of capability and cost - when the product hits the
market.  It would be nice to have a few simple metrics to look at and
know that those metrics are improving over time - not as snazzy as
missions - but if America knew that cost was going down while
capabilities were going up over time - and helping private sector take
advantage of it to achieve their mission objectives, there'd be no
doubt whatever that NASA was doing its job.
.
NACA back in the 1920s did this with the introduction of streamlining,
monocoque constrction and single main wings to aircraft - which
improved performance and capabilities - and made airlines more
profitable.  The DC3 was ultimately the result, which was the first
airplane to operate in an airline that didn't need subsidy.  Arthur
Clarke kept saying he was waiting for the DC3 of space.  He never got
it, because no one could see the importance of working on capacity and
capability rather than missions.

There was a gentleman that I hired a few years ago - wow, back in
1995.  He was one of the engineers that worked on the Atlas.  He had a
few ideas of how to  lower costs.  He was not a proponent of
reusables.  He said, look, if we can profitably sell Coca Cola in
disposable containers, why the heck can't we profitably sell space
access the same way?  It was not an idea I agreed with, but I
understood and respected his opinion.

He said the big killer for aerospace companies is that they work on
cost plus basis.  That is, they convince a group of bureaucrats, who
generally aren't engineers - or very good engineers in his opinion -
failed engineers is how he described them or worse.  A group of
accountants from the aerospace company convinces a group of
bureaucrats from Washington, that ALL the costs are justified.  The
company then gets a margin, generally 10% in addition to all the
justifiable costs.

So, the game is, justify as many damn costs as you can.  As long as
the bureaucrats are convinced, that's all that matters.

So, if someone like him came along and said, hey, we can recover those
engines on the booster and sustainer, and cut 80% of the cost out of
launching an Atlas, the company buries it.  Don't let the bureaucrats
hear that.  Because that cuts their profits 80% - and they've already
purchased their tooling and done their staffing based on the approved
design - so, work on something else.  Here, see if you can justify
these added costs so that they meet these rules.

Very demoralizing.

I worked on a project at Ford many years ago, and was a member of
AIAA.  One of the managers there asked me if they could get a tour of
the SSME facility.  Sure.  So, that's what we did when the project
closed.  All those industrial engineers were apalled at how Rocketdyne
at that time, did things.  Their brazing techniques, their forming
techniques, their testing and quality control - engineers who know how
to build reasonably good cars in large quantity at low price - were
flabbergasted that the engineers didn't know they could cut this or
that cost.  Well, no one's ever asked us to think about it. We try to
justify higher costs to meet government rules  Its all very
complicated.

Fact is, missile technology is a strategically important technology.
So, the government has a legitimate interest in possible negative
third party effects - others using the technology to build missiles
that then attack the US.  So, it may very well be that there are those
in the government that LIKE the fact that the aerospace companies are
dependent on government handouts.  That means they can't go out on
their own.  There may be those in the government that LIKE the fact
that space travel is astronomically expensive.  That means that many
will not ...

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There is irony and illogic in what you are saying. I am not saying
illogic on your part. Fundamentally if you HAVE a launcher in being
you can launch missiles. Mind as I said previously you want solid fuel
to get your H Bomb off before it is destroyed, and solid fuel is the
dominant military technology.

Another irony. The main defense problems of recent years stem from sub
national groups. Deterrence on the whole works with nation states. Sub
national groups and small nations with the ideology of "Allah will
save us". Bottom line - Arianespace and Glavkosmos are not problems,
no one has suggested a program involving Iran or Hezbullah.

Is the prime focus of US military policy the "war on terror" or is it
wider? The paradox of wider aims is that nation states are for the
most part deterred at quite low levels of defense expenditure. Quite
low levels of defense expenditure mean a war would not be worthwhile.
Equally the US will be unable to translate military dominance into
hegenomy without unacceptable losses.


- Ian Parker
.

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