NASA May Outsource

The Wall Street Journal is running a piece about the growing momentum behind the idea of NASA outsourcing to private companies everything from transporting astronauts to ferrying cargo into orbit. Quoting: "Proposals gaining momentum in Washington call for contractors to build and run competing systems under commercial contracts, according to federal officials, aerospace-industry officials and others familiar with the discussions. While the Obama administration is still mulling options and hasn't made any final decisions, such a move would represent a major policy shift away from decades of government-run rocket and astronaut-transportation programs such as the current space-shuttle fleet. ... In the face of severe federal budget constraints and a burgeoning commercial-space industry eager to play a larger role in exploring the solar system and perhaps beyond, ...a consensus for the new approach seems to be building inside the White House as well as [NASA]. ... Under this scenario, a new breed of contractors would take over many of NASA's current responsibilities, freeing the agency to pursue longer-term, more ambitious goals such as new rocket-propulsion technology and manned missions to Mars. ...[T]hese contractors would take the lead in servicing the International Space Station from the shuttle's planned retirement around 2011 through at least the end of that decade."

Comments

Re:Is really a bad, bad idea...

[vlm]

Well, for example: Forget hardware like the Spirit Mars Rover (build to last few months, but still working after two years) if you outsorce the manufacture.

Too late, spirit was an outsourced project. Oddly enough, the wikipedia page for Spirit/MER-A has no manufacturing details. But the main MER project page is believed accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover

Nasa outsourced the whole project to JPL to manage and generally run. The Wikipedia page details whom JPL subcontracted to for various parts... for example, the aeroshell exterior capsule thingy was outsourced to Lockheed. IBM-Federal made the radiation hardened CPU chip, but their division got sold around and was part of Lockheed at one point.

Anyway, the whole point is that no spacecraft that I'm aware of, at least for the past 40 years, have any components made by NASA... NASA does not "do" anything, other than distribute budget to various contractors.

Those are the facts. As for opinion, I believe there are no personnel accepting paychecks from nasa that have ever touched a soldering iron, screwdriver, welding torch, or milling machine...