How to Avoid Repeating the Debacle That Was the Space Shuttle

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/22-how-to-avoid-repeating-debacle-of-space-shuttle

by tokenadult • 15 years ago

84 65 15 years ago

discovermagazine.com

joblessjunkie• 15 years ago

This article is mis-titled.

It makes an easy argument for "debacle," but omits the difficult "how to avoid" part.

mkn• 15 years ago

I was a little disappointed, as well. It looks like it was perhaps titled by an editor or, conversely, edited down to its introduction so that the title no longer matched.

That said, I do hope, now that the program is gone and the cheer-leading apparatus can (hopefully) no longer feed on it, that the program can come to be analyzed with reference to its poor safety, limited capability, high cost, and needless complexity, rather than with reference to nostalgia and whatever other reality-distortion field that was present that allowed it to receive so little critical attention in the popular mind.

dredmorbius• 15 years ago

It's not highlighted specifically, and it's weak on specifics, but the article points repeatedly at the failure to scope the Shuttle program realistically, and/or to re-scale the program once its true dimensions (costs, risks, launch frequency) were apparent.

The author definitely has an axe to grind. "Failure" is a qualitative assessment, though it's objectively true that the program underperformed on the bases listed above.

cpr• 15 years ago

Amen!

Though how we could ever expect federal government programs be efficient and cost-effective is beyond me, when the work is being done by the governmental agency itself.

We're much better at using governmental funds (which I still think are taken largely by theft) via agencies like DARPA, which operate through private industry and the educational establishments.

nostromo• 15 years ago

NASA does work with private industry and educational establishments. In fact Lockheed Martin manufactured many components on the Space Shuttle and will be building its replacement as well. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5748366

I don't share your faith that this is a recipe for efficiency, as both Boeing and Lockheed regularly lobby congress for wasteful spending (however, usually for defense, not NASA).

econgeeker3• 15 years ago

I think the gap between your perspectives comes from the existence of lobbying and the bid process not being open. Further, there is less competition because the previous control over the entire industry that NASA enjoyed prevented many possible competitors to LM or Boeing from getting off the ground.

Of course there is a wide array of subcontractors involved in NASA projects. I don't think anyone who accuses NASA of being inefficient thinks that NASA workers do all the manufacturing, etc.

stretchwithme3• 15 years ago

What amazes me is how uncritically the media usually treats this issue.

A great many things the government does follow a similar over-promising, under-delivering pattern. The notion that perception is reality and a loss of confidence is the worst thing that can ever happen conspire to stifle public questioning.

We see it with Afghanistan, stimulus spending, TARP. As justifications don't pan out, something else is used to justify things.

Of course, the real root cause is that those paying for things are far removed from the decision making process. If voters individually decided whether they were going to be taxed $500 a year for continuing the shuttle or $100 a year for returning to disposable rockets, this program would have been killed long ago.

But everything is put in one big pot and dollars borrowed to conceal the actual ultimate pain. There are so many deceptive aspects to how this operates, its difficult to describe or even grasp.

kingkawn2• 15 years ago

I would think that the people are hacker news of all places would not get caught up in media-hype trends about how all government spending is waste bla bla. NASA tried to change the paradigm of space travel. It didn't work the way they'd hoped, but that's the risk of trying something different. Comparing it to TARP and Afghanistan is a ridiculous non sequitur that only works if you buy into the anti-government yammering in the first place.

econgeeker3• 15 years ago

So, am I to understand that your position is that NASA is efficient in its spending, and that this who think governments are inefficient (cost wise) at achieving goals are caught up in a "media-hype" that is "antigovernment"?

If that is correct, how were SpaceX and Scaled Composites able to do so much with such limited resources?

stretchwithme3• 15 years ago

Its not based on media hype. If you've had personal dealings with the government, you'd notice that it takes weeks and several people that the private sector does with a single web form.

Its obvious that even software development is bloated beyond belief with no pressure to actually be responsible with the people's money.

From what I can observe, there are plenty of people that believe what politicians say. And that's a far more dangerous thing than listening to all the conflicting superficial voices of the media. There are just as many voices in the media that claim more government is the answer to every problem as say more government is bad.

Government is perfectly efficient at spending money on its pet projects and pet people. 100% of the money go to them.

But what the people who pay for this massive mess care about is what matters.

yardie3• 15 years ago

You grossly overestimate NASA's budget. I believe it gets just a few dollars out of the average tax receipt. In fact you can go here http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt and see that for a married couple making $80k/year NASA received $10.

lutorm3• 15 years ago

So you're implying that the government over-promises and under-delivers, while the private sector under-promises and over-delivers? I would beg to differ. There are as many anecdotal pieces of evidence that shows how wasteful and over-promising private enterprises are (though the over-promising ones are normally not around that long.) There are of course counter examples, but so are there for government (Medicare in the US goverment, many other countries seem to have better functioning governments than the US.)

econgeeker3• 15 years ago

This article makes a lot of good points, but I felt it failed to really break the surface and address the core problem that led to the failure of the Space Shuttle program.

That core problem is misalignment of incentives. Or in short, politics. When you've got a public budget and your goals are political ones, you're going to pursue a specific set of capabilities and policies that help your political career. This is true from the President all the way down to the lowest level of managers at NASA. I think the real cost, and thus tragedy, of this era is the thousands upon thousands of good engineers who were sucked up into NASA because they believed in the dream of human space flight, and were never able to accomplish much over the courses of their careers.

The solution to this problem is very simple: No government agency with control over space. Outsource everything. If government wants to fund scientific research or exploration, great- give grants to institutions that then have effectively complete autonomy. For instance, JPL, could be a separate institute with little connection to government other than primarily getting its funding from the government. If politicians want to send a probe to Mars, let JPL be the master contractor, where JPL hires the scientists, while subcontracting out the design, development and production to private entities.

SpaceX is much more efficient getting to space, cost wise and reliability wise (I believe) than NASA ever has been, and they are using (IIRC) a discarded russian design, off the shelf as the basis for their system (though certainly they've done a lot of engineering work.)

The commercial space industry in the USA has suffered under the government control over all things space since the beginning. I remember when Richard Branson-- the founder of Virgin Galactic, and the one who funded the design and development of SpaceShipTwo was prevented from seeing the design he'd paid for because he was a british national!

In fact, I'm certain that the only reason Burt Rutan and Virgin Galactic were successful is that their "launch" requires only a runway, and thus they can easily do it from just about any country. Previously, NASA and the FAA has made it very difficult for private entities to pursue space access, by denying them the necessary permits to do testing.

After the X prize was won, when commercial operation plans were announced, there was a flurry of congressional noise about regulating the space industry ("for safety" of course.) I think the only reason that died down is that there is literally nothing stopping Virgin Galactic from flying off and launching from a newly crated "space port" in, say, Panama. (Well, except that the government apparently considers their designs "National Security Secrets".)

It is time to dismantle NASA. Let the capitalists pursue profit in space, and government can get whatever it needs launched (or built) by the same contractors under whatever terms the government wants-- but at much lower costs.

VladRussian2• 15 years ago

>The solution to this problem is very simple: No government agency with control over space. Outsource everything.

Blackwater.

pjscott• 15 years ago

You could use that as a fully-general counterargument against government outsourcing of anything. Does it apply here?

jkic47• 15 years ago

Government funded programs in the US and Russia took care of a lot of the basic science companies like SpaceX rely upon. It is unlikely that a commercial venture would have been able to attract or afford the depth of engineering talent that got the Russians the MIR Space Station or the Americans the moon landing. They are treading the path blazed by government funded research. That said, there is no reason a hybrid model (government + private sector) could not work well.

Vivtek2• 15 years ago

Most basic research is government funded - and private companies using that basic research is exactly the way things are intended to be. Open-source the lot of it!

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

Even if it is necessarily, the only governmental organizations I'd hate to see go more are probably NPS and the USFS. NASA is iconic, and I spent much of my childhood dreaming about them.

marze• 15 years ago

Since NASA has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to develop a new rocket (something like $21B wasted in failed attempts over the last 20 years), it certainly makes sense to outsource launch services to the free market instead of trying to relive the Apollo era.

However, since there is a lot of interesting exploration and science that NASA could continue to do that no profit incentive exists for (deep space probes, space telescopes, etc.), so recommending the complete dismantlement of NASA goes too far.

NASA should fund commercial launch providers and buy launch services, and focus its substantial budgets on some really exciting exploration.

Launching things into orbit is a solved problem, no need to solve it again. There is an infinity of unsolved problems NASA could attack once they get over their fixation with building new rockets.

Demonstrating the capability of private industry is SpaceX, who spent $250M in NASA funds to develop and fly a large launch vehicle and a capsule. (econgeeker's details are wrong but the low cost is correct, and Orbital is the firm that is using Russian technology)

$250M is nothing compared with the $20000M NASA planned to spend on its launch vehicle and capsule program.

cfgvjkljhgfb6• 15 years ago

ESA manages to launch telescopes much more complex than Hubble in spite of not owning a single rocket.

WalterBright• 15 years ago

>there is a lot of interesting exploration and science that NASA could continue to do that no profit incentive exists for (deep space probes, space telescopes, etc.),

A lot of the historical "voyages of discovery" were financed by rich people looking for glory, newspapers looking for exclusive stories, and companies looking for good PR.

wisty• 15 years ago

The problem wasn't NASA. The problem was, NASA was told to build something impossible - a cheap and reliable spaceplane. It was many times more complex than anything else ever made (including the Saturn V). It was never going to be cheap and reliable. (Well, it might be possible today, with decades more experience and technology). Only the "yes men" said it was possible, and they got promoted. The rest of the engineers were forced to work in a bubble where a realistic big picture didn't matter.

OK, you can privatize that. But the same problems will apply. Look at Australia's military acquisitions. Every vehicle we buy costs 10X the MOTS price, because there's always a requirement "modifications for Australian conditions". The private operators read this as "complete idiots in command", and charge accordingly. A privatized space sector would work the same way - stupid government orders will get stupid prices.

Retric• 15 years ago

They could have built a cheap and reusable space plane. The problem was they built it do far more than was necessary. You can build a "cheap" space-plane that get's 7 people to orbit at around 100-1000$/lb. (by cheap somewhere under 10 million a flight.) You can't build a cheap space plane that hauls up 7 people and 50,000LB of junk into space at back at the same time. If they just focused on people they could have avoided an external fuel tank and all those fragile tiles. Focus on a reasonable amount of structural redundancy and ended up with something that could get back from space without needing a new paint job let alone a full engine rebuild.

PS: Feathers don't burn up on rentry but bricks do. The shuttle was far to close to a brick to get back without a lot of trauma.

cfgvjkljhgfb6• 15 years ago

NASA was told to build something that was pointless - a LEO satelite delivery system with 7 crew.

It's like being asked to design a 20 seater minivan. Then discovering your only customers are Mormon families on the school run and the Army - then trying to build something that fits both their requirements.

Then being told that it must use a engine built in Hawaii and be assembled in Alaska.

jsmcgd• 15 years ago

Also I think part of the problem is that governments (and business) very often approach an agency or contractor and ask them to produce a design. We know in the software world that big design up front almost guarantees failure as the initial design is invariable flawed.

The agency, contractor or multiple contractors should be asked to produce a number of prototypes over a period of time. What design of reusable spacecraft is the most effective, safe and economical? Who knows? No one has ever done this before! Let's design a process to find out. We shouldn't just punt and cross our fingers.

The common counter argument is that this approach is too expensive but in practice experience shows it's much more expensive not to.

jellicle• 15 years ago

> No government agency with control over space. Outsource everything.

Because that has worked so well with defense contracting.

All you end up with is 1-2 corporations with the knowledge necessary to compete on space projects, and contracts that alternate back and forth between the two, and a budget that includes not only money to go to space but also money to fund a set of corporate executives and corporate lobbying and corporate private jets and so on.

Highest paid person at NASA - about $200,000/year (flies coach)

Highest paid person at Lockheed - about $50,000,000/year (doesn't even count the corporate jets)

carlcoryell• 15 years ago

Maciej Cegłowski's essay "A Rocket to Nowhere" is a much better description of how and why the Shuttle was doomed by political and military considerations.

http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm

tokenadult• 15 years ago

Great essay, thanks. "And we must remember that space is called space for a reason - there is nothing in it, at least not where the Shuttle goes, save for a few fast-moving pieces of junk from the last few times we went up there, forty years ago. The interesting bits in space are all much further away, and we have not paid them a visit since 1972."

exratione• 15 years ago

This is also a good perspective, albeit old:

http://www.spacefuture.com/vehicles/how_the_west_wasnt_won_n...

"This country was bounded to the West by a desert. One day a telescope built on one of the country's mountains revealed what looked like sea far away beyond the desert which would have to be crossed in order to discover if there was habitable land on the coast. So the politicians got together and established a government agency to send some people through the desert. They called it the National Agricultural Frontier Administration, NAFA for short, and charged it with a dramatic task to demonstrate the vigour of the nation: it would carry out a 'mission' to send people right through the desert to the West coast of the continent and bring them back safely, within a decade."

cfgvjkljhgfb6• 15 years ago

The funny thing is that it's accuracy hasn't changed - which tells you all you need to know about Nasa

gus_massa• 15 years ago

I hadn't read this article before, and I couldn't find the publication date in the page.

The first time it appears in the Wayback Machine is in December 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20021217044832/http://www.spacefu...

TorKlingberg• 15 years ago

The whole analogy falls on the simple problem that space is just a lot more difficult than desert. You cannot just put a bunch of poor but adventurous people in a car and tell them there is free land on the moon. The moon is also a lot less hospitable than California.

jsherry• 15 years ago

For the most part, the author is correct: by most objective measures, the shuttle was a disaster. One point I disagree with is his criticism of "the teachers who spoke about it in admiring tones to their students".

Is it really that wrong to try and get kids excited about engineering and science?

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

No, so long as it's science with solid economics and business sense behind it. [/tongue in cheek]

flocial• 15 years ago

I think the F-35 is a better example. The selling point was re-usable components for three different jets. The only thing soaring are project costs.

lutorm3• 15 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the F-35 is built by Lockheed-Martin, not by the government.

How to Avoid Repeating the Debacle That Was the Space Shuttle

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