NASA Inspector General Under Investigation

pinkUZI writes "Apparently, the FBI is investigating reports of NASA Inspector General Cobb doing a poor job with safety inspections and 'retaliating against whistleblowers.' Complaints have been filed by current and former employees." From the article: "The complaints are being reviewed by the Integrity Committee of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. The complaints describe efforts by Cobb to shut down or ignore investigations on issues such as a malfunctioning self-destruct procedure during a space shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center, and the theft of an estimated $1.9 billion worth of data on rocket engines from NASA computers."

Comments

NASA just needs more money

[192939495969798999]

If NASA weren't shortchanged so much on budget, there wouldn't be any of these problems. The original Viking landed successfully on Mars, but the budget for that was ~1 billion dollars -- back then! Not coincidentally, the 250 million (in today's dollars) craft from a few years ago crashed. I think the bureaucracy should be fixed, but also you then need to pump some cash into there, so we get more cool consumer spinoff products.

Re:NASA just needs more money

[AKAImBatman]

NASA just needs more money

NASA is getting more money. President Bush has been slowly increasing their budget to cover the costs of CEV development and ongoing operations.

What NASA has traditionally needed is not more money per say, but more commitment. When Congress says they'll fund a new space vehicle, they need to continue funding the space vehicle until it is complete. When NASA says that they need two different vehicles for different tasks, the President should tell them to make a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none vehicle. When NASA has a perfectly good super-booster sitting on the pad with massive upgrades in the pipeline, the President shouldn't can the thing because he wants to get out of the space business.

As long as NASA can pick a direction and stay the course, they'll get something done. But constantly changing minds and shifting priorities will only lead to a whole lotta nothin'.

Re:NASA just needs more money

[slowhand]

Let me get this straight (speaking as a former NASA contractor). Allegations of waste, inefficiency, SAFETY issues squashed, and purposeful negligence and malpractice by the IG.
And you'd like to give them more money?
I prefer the commercial approach where there is some accountability involved. Not trying to trivialize the MANY excellent and hardworking NASA employees, but something serious needs to occur in their management culture. I think this is indicative of the thoughts of many employees. Hold management up for a vote. I bet No Confidence would be the rule of the day!

Re:NASA just needs more money

[Cujo]

Throwing money at problems doesn't work. It just turns it into a more expensive problem,like the space station, which by my reckoning has cost at least $60 billion dollars (arguably more like $80 billion) and does diddly-squat. In the case in question, the problem is internal NASA politics and culture, which is highly resistant to change, often self-righteously so. This is why most of what NASA really gets done is executed by non-NASA entitites: JPL (run by Cal Tech), APL (run by Johns Hopkins), and various university groups, non-profits and consortia.

The other problem with NASA is a problem everywhere: pork barrel politics. Once money starts going down a hole, it keeps going down there because the congress critters need it to. Here's a summary of my idea to get rid of it:

1. At least triple Congressional salaries and beef up the pension to make the job attractive to a wider talent base. You can't keep two homes, one of them in D.C., for any less than $350,000/year, and current slary for most is $162,100/yr. This small investment would pay off in spades - Ithink we should value our legislators at least as miuch as our college basketball coaches.
2. Let each state determine that state's method of electing or appointing and unseating senators. I think the ideal would be a lifetime appointment by the governor with legislative approval and with recall by a 2/3 vote of the legislature.
3. Representatives still elected directly, but limited to a single 6 year term. Stagger the elections so discontent with a particular party's policies can be felt every two years.
4. Require each congressperson to sign their earmarks.

Re:NASA just needs more money

[Cujo]

"At least triple Congressional salaries and beef up the pension"? They already get ridiculously cushy pensions as it is -- FOR LIFE -- and get more than enough from their lobbyists etc. Who the hell needs two homes anyway? I do just fine with my single one at 1000 sq. ft. We really need to go back to true citizen-legislators.

They're not supposed to be getting any cash for personal use from lobbyists. I can't quote you chapter and verse from the USC, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

And yes, you need two homes. You have to be a resident of your congressional district, in which you spend a fair bit of time when not in session. Decent housing in D.C. is very expensive and hard to find. So, if you want citizen legislators for limited terms(I do), and you want good ones, pay them like you're serious. 160 K$/year is lower middle class in D.C. and surrounds, and would make it difficult for the bulk of our talent pool to interrupt their careers to take the job.

The trouble with monopolies

[dada21]

NASA is a monopoly, one that is in a unique situation that is very hard to debate in terms of allowing more free market competition. I understand that the market doesn't like spaceflight because there doesn't seem to be a profit -- yet. Of course, when computers were first built, there wasn't much room for profit but it is my opinion that the competitive atmosphere of the computer market did more to facilitate cheap and common PCs than any government body did.

When you have a monopoly, you'll have corruption and laziness. There is no one else offering your product for possibly less money, or at a higher quality, or with more choice. The customer is stuck with what you decide to give.

It's funny to me that it is the IG that is under investigation. My experience with my state's own IG shows that it is probably more common than not to see shortfalls in those who "police the police" but yet are paid by the "police" they're "policing."

If no one here is willing to deregulate spaceflight and offer NASA some real competition, how does anyone foresee proper market policing of NASA's spending and development? In the open competitive market, companies fail all the time when they try to take advantage of the consumer. The biggest failures in the open competitive market are usualy companies that are given some monopoly status or public funding (Enron, etc) or are given some form of government power to manipulate the way they report their business financing (Worldcom, etc). There are rarely failures of companies that make truly competitive products at competitive prices.

I wonder if spaceflight would be different if we spun it out of the federal budget and allowed it to be funded directly by states or even world organizations. Could NASA exist solely on donations of the wealthy and the poor, and could NASA exist on its own without any taxpayer allotment?

If not, I would argue that we don't need it right now. NASA to me was always a ploy to keep us aware of communism and the USSR. Sure, some good things came out of NASA, but how many of those things might have come to the market cheaper and quicker without it? We'll never know, but I do know I can see what we've spent over the decades, and I'm not sure that I can accept future spending when we know it is getting wasted by bad management of this monopoly organization.

Re:The trouble with monopolies

[AKAImBatman]

Kuciwalker is right. NASA has no monopoly. Nearly all spaceflight is actually done by commercial interests. The problem with manned space flight is that it simply isn't profitable at the moment. Thus why no one does it.

Of course, when computers were first built, there wasn't much room for profit but it is my opinion that the competitive atmosphere of the computer market did more to facilitate cheap and common PCs than any government body did.

When computers were first built, the Military payed untold millions to have the machines constructed and operated. They didn't reach even the large business market until long after the Military was done funnelling money into the industry.

The same could have been true of the space industry, but it had its throat slit before all the R&D of the Gemini, Saturn, Apollo, and Orion programs could come to fruition.

If no one here is willing to deregulate spaceflight and offer NASA some real competition, how does anyone foresee proper market policing of NASA's spending and development?

What deregulation needs to happen? Privately owned spacecraft already fly. Mini-aerospace companies buy space on other people's crafts to fly equipment. X-Prize competitors are working to put people in orbit. I'm actually amazed at how little the FAA has interfered.

NASA to me was always a ploy to keep us aware of communism and the USSR.

Now that's just nonsense. NASA was developed to provide an environment for rocket development that the military couldn't provide. America was already falling WAY behind Russia in rocket technology. Putting aside the PR issues with smaller countries (many of whom might chose to join the USSR if they were perceived as being more powerful), there was the matter of keeping parity in ICBM technology. If that parity was lost, the nukes just might have started raining down.

Back when it was formed, NASA succeeded wildly in its endevours. But it was also given a free hand. Once Nixon was in office, all that ended. NASA was told to shut down operations and begin building a token space infrastructure. We'd fly up and come back down. Just to show the USSR that we still had the technology. Beyond that, he didn't care if space travel just went away altogether.

Re:The trouble with monopolies

[greg_barton]

When you have a monopoly, you'll have corruption and laziness.

No, it's more like, "When you have a corrupt administration that thinks it has absolute power, you'll have corruption and laziness."

This is a typical Bush Administration ploy: if you can't get rid of a government agency because it's too popular, gut it from within with incompetent appointees. It's working wonders with FEMA, isn't it?

Re:The trouble with monopolies

[flyingsquid]

The biggest failures in the open competitive market are usualy companies that are given some monopoly status or public funding (Enron, etc)

What in the hell are you talking about? Enron failed because they got caught up in the capitalistic frenzy of the Internet Bubble days, borrowed massive amounts of money, spent it poorly on overseas projects and other bad business ideas, ended up with billions of dollars of debt, and then couldn't pay it back to the banks. They were able to get this deep in the hole because they pulled a bunch of shady deals and creative accounting schemes to shift their losses off their balance sheet and make their earnings look better. Last I checked, it didn't have anything to do with a monopoly or government funding. It was primarily the greed and stupidity of Corporate America at work.

I know the libertarian "corporations do everything better than government" sentiment is popular on /., but the truth is that corporations- like Enron- can often suffer from dysfunctional cultures and incompetency, just like Enron.

I do agree that government-run enterprises suffer much more from a lack of accountability than private ones, in general but private industry doesn't cure all evils. There's still bullshit, incompetency, bureaucracy, egotism and politics in the private sector.

Re:The trouble with monopolies

[AKAImBatman]

You almost have to feel sorry for Quayle. He was actually a very intelligent and capable individual, but he couldn't speak in public to save his life. Under Reagan's administration, NASA was given broad powers (led in part by George Bush) to develop a plan to get the space program back on track. Reagan knew it would be expensive, but he wasn't willing to throw away the existing investment in the Space Shuttle. Unfortuntately, Quayle wasn't able to maintain a hold on Congress during Bush's presidency. While part of it was the fact that Bush trusted Congress a little too much (not enough killer instinct there), one has to wonder if Quayle's inability to speak had something to do with it?

Some of his more famous quotes about the space program:

• "Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
• "For NASA, space is still a high priority."
• "[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."

I mean, those are soundbites that make me want to downright cringe. (His best one is his Hawaii bit. Watch the video to get the full experience.) If he spoke in front of Congress that way, it's no wonder they thought they could get away with murder. (Figuratively speaking.)

Interestingly enough, Quayle said that up until his time the Vice President was considered one of the main administration officials in charge of NASA. I don't know if that's true any more or not.

As far as I know, that's still the case. In fact, the Vice President regularly carries out a lot of the busy work that the President doesn't have time to handle personally. That makes the role an extremely important position and not the "find a dumb guy for the role so he won't take the presidency" role that much of the public believes it to be. :-)

Re:Self Destruct?

[Buran]

The system is designed to cause the vehicle to destroy itself and not just shut down the engines, just to correct anyone who may not be sure about that from what you said. It has been used on many launches, though only once on the Shuttle (to destroy the Challenger boosters, which survived and were flying around randomly because there was no longer any guidance coming from the orbiter's computer systems). Valuable evidence of what had gone wrong was destroyed in the process, but given that millions of people were at risk if the boosters turned around and started heading toward populated land, the safety officer executed his or her responsibility to protect those people.

That is why the boosters just appear to randomly blow up in post-explosion footage.