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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."
He is leaving NASA to become a scientologist? This is a sad loss for science.
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.
What's really interesting is that much Russian space technology hasn't changed from the 70s as a result of limited funding. As a result, they've pretty much got all the bugs out of their craft and it's very reliable. I think it's impressive that the American space hardware is just as reliable considering equally strenuous time constraints and stupid management in the US. Just imagine what could be accomplished if these space agencies were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed. Spaceflight continues to be the crowning achievement of humanity; something we can all be proud of, no matter where we're from.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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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.
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.
Really reliable except for a series of Soyuz spacecraft that nearly burned up on reentry, due to the thrust unit not being released properly. They still have no idea what is causing it. See for example: http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/20/soyuz-crew-safe-after-a-violent-re-entry-and-landing-400km-off-target/
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
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.
Just imagine what could be accomplished if these space agencies were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed.
That's like asking for dehydrated water.
Who spoke of 50 billion? Under 500 million would get us a sundance AND a ba-330 added to the ISS (that includes the LV). Likewise, the MULTIPLE tugs will come if we offer up multiple contracts to de-orbit sats. And flea has it right. We NEED mutliple companies in this game. Not just the Boeings and l-marts. We need companies like the original scaled (now owned by Northrup), SpaceX, Armadillo, Bigelow, Blue Origin, etc. Basically, we want MULTIPLE providers in each space. That also means that at some point we need multiple providers of space stations. If we start the push for private into our orbit, then the rest will come. More importantly, we will see a real drop in price so that we can afford to go to the moon AND mars AND NEO asteroids (which is probably more important to America).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Spaceflight continues to be the crowning achievement of humanity
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. What about the elimination of smallpox? The Internet? Sanitation? Prenatal genetic testing? I won't argue that space flight has been a terrific triumph of engineering, but I'd hesitate to say it's the most important and impressive thing humans've ever done. Say it again when we have a permanent settlement on another planet and maybe I'll change my mind, but for now I'd rank it not quite at the top. Certainly very, very high on the list, tho'.
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..
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.
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
If the Shuttle has a severe problem during landing, it blows up. There is literally no room for error.
Do you see where I'm going here? There were likely some gross oversights that led to the incident you linked to -- however, by virtue of the fact that Soyuz is both simple and mature, the craft is able to survive the statistical fluke of a faulty explosive bolt.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
That's really uninformed and outdated scare mongering. The soyuz spacecraft did NOT nearly burn up, it entered in a ballistic trajectory (i.e.without lift). This is uncomfortable, and undesirable as it is a backup emagency mode, which causes brief periods of high G and causes the craft to land off-course but is still safe. The problem was investigated, fixes determined, and recent soyuz launches work fine. Cites : http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp16/080422descent.html http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/24/soyuz-hard-landing-the-facts/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/23/nasa_says_soyuz_all_fixed_now/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-13
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
If the Shuttle has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in different countries.
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. What about the elimination of smallpox?
What about it?
The Internet?
I'd be more impressed if we weren't fighting over net neutrality right now. The internet is not sufficiently inherently peer to peer.
Sanitation?
In which we take dirty water from a river, clean it, shit in it, half-clean it, and put it back in the river for the next city to clean and drink and shit in and put back in the river? Not working out so well in the USA right now. More and more people are finding their tapwater unsafe to drink and having to resort to bottled water.
Prenatal genetic testing?
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society. I understand the slippery slope reasons why we can't regulate it, of course.
I think the crowning achievement of humanity to date has been the fact that we're not extinct. We do seem to be working on rectifying that situation by making our habitat less livable, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
Spaces, bitches. I'm talkin 'bout the United States of Space!