NASA and Boeing Lock Heads Over Space Station

Ornslo writes, "NASA is getting angry at Boeing about their project management of the International Space Station, thanks almost $1 billion in cost overruns. A NASA report released last week puts much of the blame on Boeing's acquisition of Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas, and how the company underestimated the impact this would cause on development. Because of the overruns, Boeing will lose over $125 million in incentive bonuses. I think World War III will be over money and nothing else if it ever does happen... Visit MSNBC, CNN Space, or Spaceviews for more... "

Comments

This is a surprise. Honest.

[jd]

Nothing Boeing or NASA does surprises me any more. If it were discovered tomorrow that they were both run by different factions of semi-intelligent Jelly Baby, it could hardly be any more of a shock.

Seriously, let's look at this. Boeing was doing perfectly "normal" business, by lying through it's teeth about the impact of buying out a competitor. I mean, that's standard practice, and always has been. It probably always will be, whilst CEOs worship the Great Green Printed God. Reality and business rarely mix, because reality is too damn expensive.

Even with this bonus loss, who's really hurting? Boeing? They gain 1 billion, and lose only 1/5th of that in bonuses, and that's hurting? *COUGH* Give me a break! They're laughing all the way to the bank and there's not a damn thing NASA can do to touch them. And they both know it.

Expect further rip-offs being discovered or announced in future. We all know NASA keeps getting taken for a ride, that the companies they depend upon are charging as much as 10,000% for sheer profit. NASA is a vehicle for American companies to milk. It's never been taken seriously and it doesn't even take itself seriously any more.

Far as I'm concerned, the best thing for America would be if NASA declared bankrupcy, the Government funds transferred to amateur rocket builders, and the licencing laws made more amateur developer-friendly.

Dump the space station - On to Mars!

[ATKeiper]

Sounds like just one more reason the overhyped and purposeless space station program should be scrapped in favor of something scientifically useful and socially ennobling, like a mission to Mars. I largely agree with what Charles Krauthammer wrote in his recent Weekly Standard piece on this topic.

A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society

Re:Hey...

[tesserae]

Unfortunately, NASA took the last two (perfectly good!) Saturn V's and laid them out as lawn ornaments in Houston and Huntsville. And we couldn't build another one now even if we wanted, because we've lost the technological infrastructure necessary to build them.

My real point: A lot has changed since the start of the Apollo Program. When I first started working in the aerospace industry, my boss was an old Apollo vet; he cared about everything he did, just as if it were still Apollo and the astronauts' lives (and our nation's prestige) depended on it. His boss, on the other hand, is the younger jerk who told me that the most important concept I could learn was to say, "That's not in scope."

At the root of it, that's what this present problem is: Boeing (just like all the other contractors) lowballs their bids, in the near-certain knowledge that changes will come down the pipe (often because of Congress, often because of NASA's own internal problems), and they'll be able to make back that money and a good bit of extra change with the "out-of-scope" modifications to the contract.

I think Boeing was just keeping quiet, waiting for this to happen, and they got caught when NASA held to the financial line drawn by Congress. And for its part, NASA doesn't have the money or the manpower to constantly monitor its contractors -- hell, they don't have the time to check their units, or run a complete end-to-end test series on a system (remember the last two Mars missions?).

Things are a mess on all sides: the system has fossilized. I want to get off this rock, too -- but I suspect the only way to make that happen is too do it with other like-minded adventurers, instead of waiting for NASA and the aerospace industry.

Now, does anyone know someone rich enough *cough*Gates*cough* to fund some real space exploration?

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