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Ares Manager Steve Cook Resigns From NASA
FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."
are you accusing me of throwing accusitions?
I know how to use MS Project - I'm qualified! I'll send my resume. First, I'll have to get aquainted with some Congresscritters so they can order NASA to hire me!
I need ajob.
Sounds like there's going to be new disappointing information coming out in the near future about the Ares program.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
He is leaving NASA to become a scientologist? This is a sad loss for science.
The problems at NASA coincided with the rise of affirmative action, starting in the mid 1970s. Note that the missions to the moon were all done prior to the onset of affirmative action.
Even the Russian space engineers -- hampered by budget cuts and an authoritarian society -- design more reliable spacecraft than the American engineers.
To understand the direness of the problem, note the infamous problem that arose when some NASA departments failed to convert between metric units and English units. This utter stupidity completely wrecked an important mission to Mars.
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going (out the door).
BTW, who thought solid propellant primary propulsion was a good idea (no rocket scientist but you got zero control of the burn).
Why would the departure of Steve Cook raise doubts about the future of an entire program? If that is the case, then NASA really needs to work on hiring and/or training more Program Managers.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Maybe he's going to build some space-ships that look like DC-8s, and fly to the Galactic Confederacy to meet Xenu.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Regardless of the reason for construction, a vehicle capable of interstellar travel is an impressive feat of engineering.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares .... which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study...
So, has he done anything good lately? Either the summary is very unfair to the guy or this Dynetics thing is doomed.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
This wasn't in the summary, but it's also worth noting that in his 19 years at NASA, Steve Cook was also manager of the failed X-33, X-34, and Delta Clipper (after it was transferred to NASA). I'm trying to find validation, but I think he was also manager for the failed ISS Propulsion Module project as well.
In fact, I've been earnestly looking, and I can't find a single example of a project he managed which didn't end overbudget and in utter failure. The only possible exception I can think of is the Delta Clipper, which actually started under somebody else's management, experienced some success, and was killed off so NASA could focus on the X-33 (also managed by Steve Cook).
The following post by a (now-former) NASA engineer does a great job of summarizing what Steve Cook was like as a manager, although Deger blames it more on NASA management culture than Steve Cook himself:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18523.msg467693#msg467693
My cut is: the story was "The stick is safe in every way". This made the program not look at problems with the stick that could have been taken care of with some careful engineering design work. Thrust Oscillation, Vibro-acoustics, and SRB disposal all have engineering design solutions, but the party line up front was "none of these are a problem". Any engineer that attempted to fix these problems was removed from the program and made into what the Japanese call a window watcher. I was one of them for trying to get the program to realize the stack was going to be not healthy after an abort and this fact needed to taken care of. I even had a simple design solution to the problem, to take care of it.
I have heard many people that tried to fix TO [thrust oscillation] were removed. I bet the same happened to the first people that recognize vibro-acoustic were an issue that need to be dealt with.
I am in the process of doing my best to design solutions to these problems. It may not be possible because there is no performance margin left.
And to this day, the requirements have not still not been defined.
Danny Deger
Edit: And none of this was caused by Mr. Cook. He did his job exactly as he was trained to do by NASA.
If We are to REALLY get private space off the ground, THEN WE MUST fund Bigelow. Now. The reason is that we need him to get his production line going and start building ANOTHER destination or more. The easiest and cheapest way to pull this off is to buy a sundancer from Bigelow and attach it to the ISS and use it for storage. Then buy the BA-330 and attach it as well. The BA-330 can be used for lots of scientific storage. It would have the ability to place lots of science experiments in there. Later switch to using the Sundancer for living (much much quieter than the tin cans). Also create an X-prize (like COTs) for a "tug" to do-orbit some of our old sats and put up a fuel depot. If we do this, we can clean up our space while at the same setting up private companies to be hired by other nations. But if we want to get to the moon by say 2017, then we need to push private with some incentives.
If Steve Cook's track record is what it takes to get a cushy "executive position," where do I sign up? I can probably lead several failed engineering projects in a row, if I am willing to ignore ethics and I try hard enough.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
Flea, normally, we see eye to eye and agree on most everything, but you are dead wrong here. The X-33, 34, and Delta Clipper deaths can be blamed on Congress and Bush. The X-33 WAS delayed on the tanks, but Bush's admin killed it (contrary to opinion, it was NOT NASA that killed it; History is funny about that; Bush saw that many things were blamed on just about everybody else even though a number of people are now out and out saying that they were doing what Bush's admin said to do). At the time that the X-33 was killed, it was ready to test fly. The DOD tried for 5 VERY LONG YEARS to be allowed to simply launch it and test it. BUSH PERSONALLY SAID NOT A CHANCE IN HELL. They forbade it. Likewise, X-34 was killed by Bush's people. As to the Delta Clipper, that was Clinton's screw up. He should have been smart and continued funding of BOTH X-33 and the Clipper. I never thought that the clipper really made sense for cargo launch from Earth, but it was perfect for the moon, and for people. To blame Mr. Cook for having been on these projects is dead wrong. He did excellent work, but was in the wrong place at the wrong times. I think that it is a lose to NASA for his leaving. OTH, perhaps, he will be able to build real LVs.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/29/2047237/Communication-Lost-With-Indian-Moon-Satellite
I heard even the Indians are taking a pass on the services of Stevo.
Steve Cook has done more to damange the US space program than any foreign enemy government could hope for. Now that he's gone, maybe things can start to get back on track. He will /not/ be missed.
Flea, normally, we see eye to eye and agree on most everything, but you are dead wrong here. The X-33, 34, and Delta Clipper deaths can be blamed on Congress and Bush.
Do you have any references for your claims? I'm not suggesting you're wrong of course, I'd just like to read up more on it. From what I've read, the X-33 seems to have failed largely due to the requirement of having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually. With the X-34, Wikipedia sez, "when the first flight vehicle was near completion, the programme died after NASA demanded sizable design changes without providing any new funding, and the contractor, Orbital Sciences, refused." The Delta Clipper I thought was progressing along nicely, although its minuscule budget was cancelled in favor of the X-33.
To blame Mr. Cook for having been on these projects is dead wrong. He did excellent work, but was in the wrong place at the wrong times.
This is actually something I've been trying to get better clarification on, without much luck: How much of the blame for NASA's failed attempts at developing new launch vehicles should be placed on Steve Cook, versus NASA MSFC, NASA in general, the executive branch, or Congress. If anybody has additional insights regarding this question, I'd love to hear.
Danny Deger is a dipshit. He has tried since entering NASA to get into design work but he simply isn't qualified.. that's why he's an astronaut trainer. Rather than go get the qualifications, he makes waves.. and shitty books.
Basically, if it appears on NASA Watch, it's bullshit, ignore it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yep, Ares P2P network might use some improvements...
Thanks for the memories, NASA.
It's about time.
One might suspect that his departure would raise hopes and not doubts. Consider that if he was project manager of a project that experienced bad management results, maybe it was about damn time the helm was given to someone else.
since we made the non nigger patrons but now they're Obsessives and The live and a job to POSTS. DUE TO THE your own beer where it was when CONDUCTED AT MIT
Basically, if it appears on NASA Watch, it's bullshit, ignore it.
Sorry - not everything on NASA Watch is bullshit. Granted - being all hell-bent on whistle-blowing NASA means a lot of bullshit does surface there. But it's not all crap. The problem, of course, is separating the wheat from the chaff.
I was about to say the same thing - Danny Deger is always 110% right but completely unappreciated by his bosses. Or so his story goes, in reality, he's an complete loon. After he was scoffed at on the sci.space.* newsgroups, I'm unsurprised to find him in bed with Kieth Cowing. (Another complete loon.)
Read this for most of what you want to know. There is more, but not on-line.
Ares was a nasty god of bloodlust and slaughter. Why would anyone name a, supposedly, peaceful civilian program after him?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
From the article you linked: "However, this was no surprise to those working on the program, with new information now showing that engineers and designers had protested at the very moment they were informed of a management decision to build a composite LH2 tank."
Do you have any idea if (X-33 manager) Scott Cook was the one who made that poor management decision, was merely a supporter of it, or if he fought it?
Disclaimer: I am an employee of NOAA
Your words on "having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually" are true. That is very similar to what is happening with the joint NASA/NOAA/DoD program, The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
NPOESS' gigantic cost overruns are mainly from an experimental imager named VIIRS being placed onto the constellation. The type of contract used for the acquisition doesn't help either..
WTF? Ares has a manager? P2P my ass! I'm using one swarm for now and on...
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
We've already had the bad news - moon and mars are utterly unattainable with the current budget. Everyone's said it over the last few weeks, and I just heard it reiterated again in a dinner talk by Charles Kennel, who used to be a NASA associate administrator and is now on the Augustine Commission. So if you're Cook, you know your baby got knifed. No harm in bailing.
Kennel said he thinks it's time we suck it up and treat our international partners like actual partners, including depending on them for launch capability when we need to (after all, we already depended on Russia for a few years after Columbia) - and for really big projects like moon or mars, not go it alone when there's really nothing to gain by doing so.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
So the guy leaves a couple of turds on the rug at NASA, then slinks out the back door to work for a private company. And people think corporations do a better job of running things than the government?
NASA probably didn't know any better when they hired him. What's Dynetics' excuse?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
[...] Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study [...]
So, the guy's name is associated with development problems, massive cost / schedule overruns and discredited studies, yet we are supposed to care that this guys is finally out?
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Q: For just how long was Bush Emperor of America?
A: Not for a single nanosecond, the US has Presidents not Emperors.
Q: Why is the US a failed federation masquerading as a nearly failed state?
A: In order of most blame: voters (not necessarily citizens hah), citizens, Congress, Presidents, and States.
That's right, the buck stops with the US voters! Not the other way around! You have yourself to blame. The truth sucks and I bet you can't handle it.
Truth is you've had and still have better politicians than you ever deserved. Yeah they suck but you suck worse.
This is a good thing.
The whole problem with NASA is it became hopelessly politicized. Thus, as has been proved with the Bush administration, planning was done in the interest of the 'good old boys', rather than scientific and engineering reality.
That is why the shuttle was not re-furbished and failing components, like the booster tank foam re-designed so it didnt fall off.
The shuttle should be re-ferbed, and more built if needed, see the F15 aircraft programs. Commercial competition should be embraced not excluded and rational program risk analyses re-instated but most of all NASA needs to be run by senior engineers not political flaks.
The Huntsville Times (of all places) gets the story half right and half sensationalistic speculation based on ignoring the rest of the facts, and in posting it here the summary turns to 25/75, prompting shadow tippers to pretend they know enough to continue the line of assumed criticisms and innuendos.
Cook has been on this project since it began, working his way up and filling bigger shoes capably, including those of his previous supervisor. Now he's leaving with the blessings of NASA to rejoin his previous supervisor, working for a contractor specializing in space craft test telemetry and analysis, including that of (The Rocket Boys' "Miss Riley"? no. My Shiny Metal Ass? no. Wait for it...) Ares.
Cook is not leaving the project, he's only leaving federal employment. That's not necessarily true, he may be tasked with other work, but figure the odds they'll waste his experience on something else as long as Ares is viable.
Now, my money says it's not viable and will get canceled and Cook will continue to make good money elsewhere, but at this point neither NASA nor Dynetics is betting that way, and that's how the story should have been written if it had been intended to be journalism. Had it been, it may have even been reported as such here. Of course that would never stop such dedicated and learned critics from toppling every perceived ivory tower with their Tonka Trucks of Truth as long as the facts can be safely kept outside the sandbox.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Amazing what 24 hours and a press release can do when combined with the synthetic outrage that the 'net in general (and /. in particular) does so well at generating.
/. had even heard of Steve Cook - though given the high profile projects he's managed and they're all experts on they should have known him well... And now he's Satan incarnate.
24 hours ago, none of the soi-disant experts here on
I don't know anything about the internal NASA management bureaucracy, but I do know about bureaucracy in business and government agencies. It is by no means guaranteed that Mr. Cook is responsible for the failures of the projects that he managed. He might well be, but it certainly does not automatically follow. Bureaucracies excel at separating authority from responsibility (in fact, it can be argued that this is a core purpose of a bureaucracy, although personally I would disagree with that goal). Mr. Cook might well have known, for example, how to salvage on or more of those projects. Many of the failures to complete R&D on next-generation launch technologies were due to the budget over-run problems of the Space Shuttle program, which left the other programs continually starved for and competing for limited funding pools which were stretched too thin. NASA didn't have the budget flexibility to sustain an R&D program like X-33 through to completion.
The relatively well documented failure of the X-33 VentureStar project, for example, is known to be in part due to a project requirement (a cryogenic carbon fiber composite H2 tank) that the Lockheed Martin engineers identified as a risk (due to immature materials technology). Yes, it was NASA who insisted on taking the risk without proper scheduling and funding for risk reduction, and that is a failure of project management.
However, the internal NASA politics that led to this may be pretty complicated, and I haven't seen any discussion of that. Mr. Cook might well have fought on behalf of the engineers, but lost. It's also possible to look at the X-33 program and decide that it was on the verge of success. The project was under-funded, but the problems appeared to be reasonably clear engineering and materials science problems, which also appeared to have pretty clear solutions paths available (for a fee). The ramp for the aerospike engine was too heavy, and the carbon fiber tank technology was immature. Both of those are materials technology problems where the solutions could be had. In fact, it appears that the tank problem was solvable with current tech (aluminum-lithium alloy, like the modern version of the Space Shuttle external tank) and improved carbon fiber technology, which was apparently demonstrated after the cancellation of the X-33 program. The aerospike ramp weight also could be solved. Meanwhile, the heat shield technology developed was apparently impressive, and the aerospike engine work was also viewed in retrospect as pretty successful.
Another thing I've observed is that government agencies, at least under the Bush administration, were literally obsessed with talking about "lessons learned" from failed projects. Unfortunately, they tended to learn the wrong lessons, often because the real lessons were not politically or organizationally acceptable. Here's an article on the X-33 as an example: Lesson in Failed X-33 Bid, New Engine Promising. The real lessons: doing something useful (reducing the cost of payload to LEO) is hard work, the X-33 was close to achieving the difficult objectives the project was assigned, and yes, it would have been well worth an extra $1 Billion to complete the project and demonstrate the suite of useful technologies developed. Instead, NASA senior management internalized a false "lesson" because they don't need to admit management failure when they simply throw up their hands and blame the concept of a reusable LEO launcher.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The raging success of the Hubble Space Telescope is due almost entirely to manned spaceflight. Without men and women in space to fix it and upgrade it periodically, that program would be viewed as a hugely embarrassing colossal blunder. Successive generations of instrument replacements have dramatically improved the quality and amount of science that the instrument is capable of performing. It is undoubtedly the single greatest testament to the importance of being able to routinely place men and women in space.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Yeah, that's a fascinating and little-told part of the X-33 history. "Ready to fly" is perhaps a slight overstatement, but the tank problem had basically been solved in two different ways (switching to an aluminum-lithium tank was feasible with the tech demonstrated by the second generation Shuttle external tank, but also, cryogenic carbon fiber technology improvements were demonstrated and ready). X-33 certainly could have been made ready to fly, and DoD was ready to fund it. The other successes of the X-33 program have been overlooked, largely because the vehicle didn't fly. The program was not able to demonstrate the turn-around time and other aspects of the overall system design, which were intended to reduce operations cost.
Bush also torpedoed NASA by giving them the directive of going to the Moon and Mars without funding the directives. This led NASA management scrambling to "get on board" with the Bush directives, with the only mechanism available to them being to cancel all the programs which were designed to advance technology and lower cost of access to space. Oh, and shut down the ISS prematurely.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The causes of the X-33 program failure are the subject of considerable debate. Here are several good sources of information. You can see that the program received criticism from the GAO, and other sources. I've seen several references to the DoD effort to fund the flight test program, and that request being over-ruled by the Bush administration. I can't recall if these sources below include that claim or not, but you can probably find one or more if you use Google.
excellent X-33 overview
X-33 VentureStar what really happened?
New Mission for Lockheed Spaceplane?
X-33 and NASA's Proposed 2001-2005 Space Launch Initiative
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Status of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Progress of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
NASA Defends Itself Against X-33 Critique
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Area Manager? Area man?
... but I'll limit myself to this one:
[Citation needed]
Honestly, this is ridiculous. While obviously not perfect, our sanitation systems today do a pretty damn good job of preventing epidemics of cholera, etc, that used to be quite common (and deadly). If you have trouble accepting this, try traveling to Africa or rural India or somewhere else where they don't have such systems.
So, to sum up - sanitation: has saved, without exaggeration, millions of people from horrific deaths. Space program: we got to thumb our nose at the Russians, bring back some moon rocks, and made (admittedly very important) scientific progress. I don't think you've made your case that the space program trumps sanitation as humanity's greatest achievement.
Sell NASA to the highest bidder and pay down the debt. Who's with me?
I will never, as long as I live, understand the Slashdot readership's fascination with the idea of offworld mining. So here's a challenge: name something, anything, that can be mined in space and delivered to customers on earth more cost-effectively than we can just mine it on earth. Don't bother telling me that mining space minerals would be great for building stuff in space, because we don't have any reason to build stuff in space... except maybe more space mines. Hopefully the circular nature of that argument is self-evident. Nobody lives there, remember? Neither does anyone have any reason to live there (economically speaking).
Also don't bother bringing up any materials that have no earthly use (example: He3), or are used in such small quantities that it's unlikely anyone would finance such a mining operation in view of the risks involved.
Look, do really think that if there were such vast amounts of money to be made in space, the US government would be able to STOP private companies from getting involved? The Lockheed Martins and Boeings of the world would just buy them a few senators, and they'd be in business. The fact that no such thing has happened speaks volumes. Private industry is not going into space because there is quite simply no money to be made in space.
Teh stupid! It burns me! No, they almost certainly will not. Based on even wildly optimistic estimates for drops in space travel costs, there's no way you could count on more than a few space tourists per year. You couldn't build a hotel on freakin' earth with that kind of occupancy rate, and of course a space hotel is going to cost unimaginably much more.
This is the biggest non-sequitur that I, personally, have ever read.
Slashdot space economics fan-boyism: I'll never understand it.
Most anybody who was left at the end of the 70s was fired by Reagan
Got a citation for that? Reagan's administration began in 1981 and according to this wiki article, NASA's budget for that year was $11.2 billion, and steadily increased (in real dollars, adjusted for inflation - these are real increases) except for one year, 1985. There was a one-time spike in the budget in 1987 when they got extra money to replace Challenger.
I haven't heard that Reagan fired engineers, and I'd love to see your source
A draft report form Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released late last month, however, could set off the alarm bells in boardrooms around the world.
The report is weighing a total ban on exporting rare earth metals needed to produce circuitry in consumer electronics, such as smartphones, MP3 music players, liquid crystal displays, and advanced battery technologies. The problem? China currently produces more than 90 percent of the global supply for production of such electronics.
Perhaps more importantly, in respect to green technology initiatives, the ban will also give China control of the development of green technology with products like electronic or hybrid cars, wind turbines, and energy efficient light bulbs all reliant on rare earth metals.
If the above happens, then it will KILL manufactuering around the world. What is shows is that China is VERY much in a cold war with the west and reagan, Clinton, and W really fucked things up. Esp. W. More interesting, the west will either need to consider one of several different actions:
Personally, I want to see us looking amongst the solar system now for these elements. They are out there. More importantly, we CAN find it. I also suspect that we can find more of these around the earth, but they WILL be limited.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's likely that, with current technology, it wouldn't have been possible to send robots to perform the repairs that humans actually did perform, to the Hubble. The idea was explored by NASA and rejected due to the almost certain failure of such a mission.
The argument that you meant to posit is that it might have been cheaper to build 4 generations of Hubble telescopes and launch them, than it was to remodel one telescope in orbit. (This argument doesn't get you laughed out of the room.)
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.