Stern Measures Keep NASA's Kepler Mission on Track

Hugh Pickens writes "NASA's new Space Science Division Director, Dr. S. Alan Stern, appears to be making headway in keeping in space projects like the Kepler Mission at their original budgeted costs. The New York Times reports that Stern's plan is to hold projects responsible for overruns, forcing mission leaders to trim parts of their projects, streamline procedures or find other sources of financing. 'The mission that makes the mess is responsible for cleaning it up,' Stern says. Because of management problems, technical issues and other difficulties on the Kepler Mission, the price tag for Kepler went up 20% to $550 million and the launch slipped from the original 2006 target date to 2008. When the Kepler team asked for another $42 million, Stern's team threatened to open the project to new bids so other researchers could take it over using the equipment that had already been built."

Comments

No news here.

[DerekLyons]

Nothing to see here, move along please...
 
Nobody should be surprised at this 'news', the unmanned/science side of NASA is just as bad at estimating costs and meeting schedules as the manned side. Every couple of years a new broom comes in and makes a big show of trying to change things... but things never really change.
 
Keep this in mind when they start whining about how the Shuttle is eating up all their budget.

Re:No news here.

[Zadaz]

To the contrary, they know exactly how to bid on a government contract: You bid low so you can get any funding at all. Then you keep your head down so no one will notice your cost overruns.

But I still feel that belt tightening is overdue at NASA. No way we're getting back to the moon, much less mars without more clever thinking applied to off-the-shelf components. The most successful of recent NASA projects have been the most thoughtful and focused, not the highest spenders.

Re:No news here.

[DerekLyons]

When the components NASA needs are available off-the-shelf, that will be an excellent approach.

Preflight testing was scaled back

[The Media Mechanic]

"Among other measures, the duration of the four-year mission was cut by six months and preflight testing was scaled back." Way to go guys ! You saved $42 million but increased the chance of the entire $500 million project failing due to not enough preflight tests! Good choice there ! Nice one !

lowest bidder mentality

[timmarhy]

This is what happens when you try use the lowest bidder method of picking contractors.

They are forced to bid low and over charge later, if they don't some other company will do it and they will lose out.

Re:Corporate Sponsorship rant

[Toonol]

Well, it may have been idiots that bought the space, but whoever sold it is a genius...

Stern

[Shooter6947]

Alan Stern is the precise antithesis of a clueless project manager. He is, in fact, a planetary scientist who continues to actively contribute to the scientific community. He took this job because HIS mission to Pluto, New Horizons, on which he is the principal investigator, did end up on budget and on time, and he thinks that the total amount of science would be maximized if others did the same. He's right. On the astrophysics side there isn't money left for hardly any science at all these days, what with the Hubble-successor James Webb Space Telescope hoovering up any dollar not glued down. What Alan Stern is doing makes sense from the standpoint of maximizing the science return from a fixed yearly budget.