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Setbacks Cast Doubt On NASA's Ares Project
stoolpigeon writes with this excerpt from an Orlando Sentinel article about the Ares program, which paints a bleak picture of the program's future: "Bit by bit, the new rocket ship that is supposed to blast America into the second Space Age and return astronauts to the moon appears to be coming undone. First was the discovery that it lacked sufficient power to lift astronauts in a state-of-the-art capsule into orbit. Then engineers found out that it might vibrate like a giant tuning fork, shaking its crew to death. Now, in the latest setback to the Ares I, computer models show the ship could crash into its launch tower during liftoff. "
Experts say its problems stem from changes to the original design. These modifications, such as changing the engines and making the solid rocket boosters longer, created unexpected problems, including excessive shaking and the launch drift.
Changing design too late in the game, not enough time to review what consequences those changes might create? Too many requirements squeezed into too tight a schedule?
Hmm, sounds familiar to us who are doing large software projects.
You know many technicians, mechanics, and repairmen have a similar complaint about engineers - really smart people who don't know a damn thing about physically working on something. The Dilbert-esque manager is a simplistic stereotype, when the problems are likely much more complicated.
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I remember, as a kid, being very excited about reports that the reusable 'Space Shuttle' was going to be like a 'space pickup truck' and reduce launch costs to $50/lb. It was still expensive, but I remember calculating the price for a kid my size. ($4500. Wow!) Then the cost went up to $100/lb. Not great, but still cheaper than what we had. Then $500/lb. Tolerable, I guess. Then they quit talking about it at all.
NASA has done a lot of amazing things in the last 30 years, no doubt. But their manned program is a complete fuck-story. Just once, I'd like to see senior NASA management acknowledge a problem in the manned program, own up to causing it, and taking the action necessary to fix it. I like it that they've split cargo and humans (after 30 years of agonizingly expensive lessons that have greatly diminished American space capability) and are going back to mostly disposable systems (again, after 30 years of expensive lessons). But, why--Oh, why!?--can't they get this right?
It looks like they're going to drive this thing into the ground, just like the shuttle. The public secret is that the NASA manned program shows all the signs of a dysfunctional organization, and has for 30 years. The next president, senate, and congress need to seriously look at scrapping NASA's manned program and building a new one from scratch, possibly outside of the auspices of NASA. For the good of the country and of humankind, I hope that they do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we had a series of really nice, multi-stage rockets... what, forty years ago? Just off the top of my head, we had... Vanguard, Atlas, Saturn, Delta, Titan.. And they all worked pretty well.
We seem to have made them in the "dark ages" of technology, too, relatively speaking.
What's the problem now? Are our engineers less smart? Do we have fewer materials? Are we under a budget that's too strict? There has to be something that's keeping us from being able to do this. I mean, we made a fricking space plane twenty years ago to build up public opinion and convince people that we were on the edge of the future -- now we can't go back and make a rocket?
I mean, at worst, what's keeping us from looking at, say, the Saturn design and updating it with modern technologies, materials, and safety measures?
I feel like I'm missing something here.
"That's the Peter Principle."
Yes, I remeber reading my dad's copy in the early 70's, and it doesn't say that "incompetent people get promoted" it says people get promoted to their level of incompetence and then remain at that level.
BTW: The "zen" of the Peter Principle is to realize it applies to EVERYONE, including yourself. This is why the best project managers will happily admit they "don't know anything" when in reality they probably have 20+yrs experience on the floor.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
well they're already trying that concept with the Lunar Lander challenge.
but space research has already been commercialized. all of NASA's technology is developed by private contractors. that's why it costs so much to build and launch the shuttle. on top of the actual development costs (materials, salaries for engineer/scientist/researchers, etc.) a large portion of their budget spending is needed to feed commercial profits--companies like Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. as well as smaller private contractors that also need to make a profit on each contracted component.
cut out the CEO salaries, corporate profits, and replace business politics with a scientific meritocracy, then you'll see a much more efficient space agency. a lot of other national space agencies seem to be able to do more with less (as with NASA in the past), so there's no inherent problem with public space research.
i don't have anything against the commercialization of space per se. if private corporations want to invest in cutting-edge technology like space travel, they should do it. but the commercial sector prefers to wait for the pure research to be done by someone else and then come in only after the technology is stable enough to develop commercial applications that they can profit from.
so it's usually up to the government to fund pure research. and that works great when it's truly public research. but when you mix public research with commercial industries, that's when you get the problem we're faced with today, where the government is basically subsidizing a commercial space industry that has gradually replaced public space research. and this just shouldn't be happening. if private corporations want to commercialize space, they can do it on their own dime.
besides, no one is stopping commercial industries from doing space research. just look at Virgin Galactic and Space X. national space programs has pioneered space technology and done much of the hard work for private industries. we shouldn't have to pay private corporations to commercialize space. commercial research doesn't benefit the public. it's like subsidizing the telecom industry and then letting the private telecoms charge us to use the infrastructure we paid for in the first place.
To my admittedly outsider's eye, NASA looks and acts exactly like your classic dysfunctional monopoly bureaucracy. These things are common and seem unavoidable - everything that I've read about the Ares debacle is right in line with a sclerotic, mismanaged, change-averse (and risk-averse .. just not the right type of risk) fiefdom-addled government clusterfuck we see time and time again. Hell, not just government - occasionally we see this in the private sector too, when a trenchant monopoly manages to establish itself somewhere and then proceeds to lose sight of everything that got it there in the first place and rots from within. Microsoft of 5 years ago, by all accounts, got pretty close to that, but there are many others, especially in defense.
What kills this is competition, genuine competition, that forces the organisation to adapt or perish. Nothing other than imminent risk of complete death will force such organisations to subject themselves to the kind of creative destruction needed to re-invent themselves.
I personally believe that NASA in its present form is lost, but forms can change. The key element is the competition now arising from other countries' space agencies. NASA no longer has a monopoly; it will not take long before the results from other agencies - done better, faster, cheaper - will force radical change at NASA.
It's not the 1960s again yet, but when China and India announce dates for their moon landings, you can bet the clock will start spinning backwards within days.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. I love America, but it desperately needs competition. The same could go for NASA. Well, it'll get it soon enough.
Funny how NASA - and America in general - needs foreigners to keep itself in line. Back in the day it was Von Braun. Now it's Hu Jintao who will provide the electric shock necessary to revive this intransigent patient.
America isn't a country, it's a team. It needs to fight, it needs to compete, it needs constant challenge. If there's no "enemy", it gets lazy and tears itself apart. Just like every other empire in history. I use that word without any perjorative intention, by the way - there is simply no other way to describe a country with so many overseas military bases. Of course America is an empire, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But god, it needs competition. The good news is - competition is on the way. In space, and everywhere else, America now faces its first real competition in generations.
I for one am on the edge of my seat, waiting for the games to begin, and looking forward to what the "real america" - the one that competes, and wins - can come up with. USA!
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
I certainly would trust the Saturn V and its safety record over the Shuttle.
Saturn V, zero failures in the first (and only) 13 flights.
Space shuttle, zero failures in the first 24 flights, one failure, then zero failures for the next 87 flights.
If you "trust" the safety record of the Saturn as better than shuttle, this is only by an artifact of low statistics-- the Saturn V does not have a long enough flight record to say it has a better record than shuttle.
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