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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."
Anyone involved in actually running a business knows that you should focus on your core competencies and strategic intellectual properties. Using competent 3rd party vendors is always either cheaper or faster than developing in house, so I'm a little worried to hear that NASA wasn't doing this from the outset.
Engineers are smart people, but sometimes they haven't got a bit of sense. Business acumen doesn't come at the pointy end of a slide rule, it comes from understanding how to strategically use existing resources to maximize output. If that sounded like gobbledygook to you, congratulations, you don't have what it takes to climb the corporate ladder.
NASA needs to stop doing all the work themselves and start working with companies who can deliver cheaper and better solutions in shorter time frames. JPL, SLAC, Skunkworks, and all the rest are great to have as specialists, but gruntwork should definitely be handled externally.
"With NASA, its science oriented. With business, its profit oriented."
If that were the case, NASA would have dropped the manned mission tourism/entertainment effort and made vastly more efficient use of their funds by fielding many unmanned systems. The resources used to transport and protect delicate human space tourists do nothing to expand our knowledge of space. We need robots on the earth, under its oceans, and in space because most human activity is "dull, dirty, and dangerous". Accelerated development of robots will help us learn about and exploit space. The glacially slow development cycle required to build manned space systems at our current GENERAL state of technology is a burden we can drop. Let commercial outfits do it for profit if it is so important, and use government resources to send machines instead of men.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If the government can't figure out when they're being screwed, then that's a problem with government, not with business; if the government is willing to pay ten times as much as any other customer, why would any sane business not charge that?
Ah, the voice of a true American patriot. I sense that you did a lot of work in Iraq and are heading off to Afghanistan. Oh, and that you vote Republican.
It's this attitude that's destroying the United States. Good on you! I'm going to go brush up on my Chinese...Because if your attitude continues to win out, I'm going to need it to interact with the new government.