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Senator Makes NASA Complete $350 Million Testing Tower That It Will Never Use
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Phillip Swarts reports in the Washington Times that NASA is completing a $350 million rocket-engine testing tower at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi that it doesn't want and will never use. 'Because the Constellation Program was canceled in 2010, the A-3's unique testing capabilities will not be needed and the stand will be mothballed upon completion (PDF),, said NASA's inspector general. The A-3 testing tower will stand 300 feet and be able to withstand 1 million pounds of thrust (PDF). The massive steel structure is designed to test how rocket engines operate at altitudes of up to 100,000 feet by creating a vacuum within the testing chamber to simulate the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Although NASA does not expect to use the tower after construction, it's compelled by legislation from Sen. Roger F. Wicker (R-MS), who says the testing tower will help maintain the research center's place at the forefront of U.S. space exploration. 'Stennis Space Center is the nation's premier rocket engine testing facility,' says Wicker. 'It is a magnet for public and private research investment because of infrastructure projects like the A-3 test stand. In 2010, I authored an amendment to require the completion of that particular project, ensuring the Stennis facility is prepared for ever-changing technologies and demands.' Others disagree, calling the project the 'Tower of Pork' and noting that the unused structure will cost taxpayers $840,000 a year to maintain. 'Current federal spending trends are not sustainable, and if NASA can make a relatively painless contribution to deficit reduction by shutting down an unwanted program, why not let it happen?' says Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union. 'It's not rocket science, at least fiscally.'"
a $350 million rocket-engine testing tower at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi
compelled by legislation from Sen. Roger F. Wicker (R-MS)
will cost taxpayers $840,000 a year to maintain.
Hey let's pour money into my home state plzkthx
I have several friends that work at General Dynamics here in Metro Detroit and the government spending has them in a quandary: they are forced by politicians to create a bill as high as possible - mandatory junkets and overtime, even when there's nothing to do. "Research" projects are the only thing that they do and they just post youtube videos, cancel the project and start something new. None of them can quit, even though the economy has recovered, because they are being paid so well as a result of the requirement to bill taxpayers so much.
Does anyone know why the Republicans came right to the table on the sequester this time around? Because offense spending (thinly veiled as "defense" spending) was to be rolled back to 2003 levels. That is absolutely evil if you are a member of the Republicans.
...meet Bridge to Nowhere
I work for Lockheed-Martin (I work for a completely different program that is within budget) and I can say that we have to keep the Gov. from changing the rules to the game every few seconds. It is like playing "calvin-ball" with calvin (of calvin and hobbs). They come up with an idea, and all of the sudden another part must be added to keep another senator/representative happy (jobs in his/her state). If we could stick to ONE design for any true length of time we could be ahead of the game, but not when the rules get changed ALL THE FREAKING TIME.
The article acts as if they are wasting $350 million by completing it. But it does not say how much has been spent already. Maybe there is not that much money to save by cancelling it?
And I can't believe that the NASA will not use it in the future, the article also gives no real reason for that.
Considering US debts are overwhelmingly dollar denominated the effects of inflation on ability to repay debt are quite muted.
But they only shower federal dollars on business owners in Mississippi. No medicaid expansion for the poor in Mississippi. Fuck the poor!
Can't they repurpose the tower?
It would make for an awesome theme park.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
It is hard to re-purpose it. The best thing to do would be to stop and preserve it the way it is or finish key parts that are already paid for or nearly complete. The only people who might use it would be SPACEX but considering the location that is not too likely. SPACEX would need to change enough stuff around that the work should be halted until there is a known need.
Yes, it's called NASA, and in particular NASA Advisory Council, and a parallel, independent, council from the National Academy of Sciences.
A politician with pork on his mind doesn't give a crap about any of them.
I see nothing but deflation right now.
Either you are not looking very hard, or you are basement dweller raiding your parents fridge. Seriously if you actually track what your spending on groceries, gasoline, clothing, and healthcare; I would be STUNNED if you still claim there is deflation.
The only deflation out there in recent years has been in heating costs (for folks using nat gas) and electricity in some areas. Housing had its big gaps down in 2008-2010, but has pretty well been inflating if slowly since that time. I don't rent but friends tell me rents have gone way up everywhere and its keeping them in their current apartments.
There has been no deflation in the things 99%ers spend their money on other than housing. I don't care what the FED claims; because their numbers are fucking retarded, I don't buy a new TV every week, I sure as hell do buy bread and gasoline though.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I got distracted when I posted the previous post. I meant to say that taxes don't actually fund expenditures since the government can print money to pay for any expenditures it authorizes.
So what are taxes for? 1) If you have to pay taxes in dollars, then you better have some dollars. Taxes help ensure that a government's currency is used by its citizens. 2) Taxes can control inflation by destroying money (i.e. taking it out of the economy) 3) to implement policies (e.g. redistribution)
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
May I introduce you to the Saturn V Dynamic Test Stand?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"I see nothing but deflation right now."
Evidently, this guy doesn't get a cable bill.
Oh and yeah,we have weak inflation, not full deflation. So prices are rising, but lower than the 2% target inflation rate. The problem for 99%ers isnt inflation so much as a stagnant wage.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Maybe this facility is useless, maybe it's not.
NASA thinks it's useless, and I think they are the ones most likely to know.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Why did the rest of the senate go along with this? And what about the house?
They'll need his vote when a project in their state comes up...
Maybe they can rework it into a 300 statue of Jesus?
You tella car company that you're going to pay them a half million dollars for a special custom car. You sign the contract, which requires that you pay them $500000 and that they give you a car when it's completed. Halfway through the process you suddenly decide that you don't want the car after all.
Well, tough. You already signed the contract and they're already building the car. You have no choice but to pay for a car that you aren't going to use.
That's what goes on in vases like this. The government signed the contract saying that they'll pay. They can't renege on the deal just because they decided they didn't want what they were paying for any more, so instead they have to pay for it and let it gather dust once they have it. I can guarantee that if you or I signed a contract that said we'd pay for something we wouldn't be able to get out of it just because we no longer wanted what we were paying for.
This isn't so much about grandstanding politicians that want money for useless programs, but about grandstanding politicians who like to decide the government doesn't want something for which the contract has already been signed.
and the bureaucracy for getting reimbursed for anything is crazy enough that sometimes I just take the loss (getting parts from Digikey, etc). And this is where the money goes?!? I dig doing my little bit to help the space program, but this is frustrating.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
I work for Lockheed-Martin (I work for a completely different program that is within budget) and I can say that we have to keep the Gov. from changing the rules to the game every few seconds. It is like playing "calvin-ball" with calvin (of calvin and hobbs). They come up with an idea, and all of the sudden another part must be added to keep another senator/representative happy (jobs in his/her state). If we could stick to ONE design for any true length of time we could be ahead of the game, but not when the rules get changed ALL THE FREAKING TIME.
And why do you think this is? Do you not think it benefits Lockheed-Martin? Every time a requirement is changed and the contracts are re-written there is an opportunity to pack on some more lard. And do you think it is an accident or "neutral business planning decision" that the major aerospace contractors have subsidiaries and major suppliers in pretty much every state? Every time an unnecessary carbuncle is added to a project to satisfy a senator, the contractor has an opportunity to renegotiate costs, and also gains another ally who will not want to see the project die, no matter how irrelevant it becomes to the nation's needs. In some ways it's like bribery, except the cash is flowing in the opposite direction to normal...
Sure it might be irritating to an outcome-focussed engineering type who wants to work on technically successful projects, but from management's perspective a politically unkillable project that meanders on for decades, neither finishing or being allowed to fail, can be a far lower career risk.
SpaceX just cut a deal with stennis for testing of their new raptor family. The first engine of this family will be 1/3 of an F1. And yes, it is using these towers. So, this is wrong.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
May I introduce you to the Saturn V Dynamic Test Stand?
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985, which is really too bad since it in no longer much use to any modern space programs, and sits unused and badly rusting. The could tear it down, but will not be able to until it starts falling apart itself.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
We can use the vacuum test chamber to see how Time Warner Cable executives breathe at 100,000 feet altitude, film it and charge $1 pay per view. I'm thinking recovery of the 350 million won't take long.
no matter if it were a republican (low tax, low spend)
Ha, you're funny. As this article demonstrates, Republicans can spend (and/or waste) just as much, if not more than, Democrats. They just don't want to spend any of it on poor people or minorities.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Didn't they lease or sell one recently to SpaceX or one of the other private companies? Sounds like the money was already allocated as well, so what's the damage?
The damage is the cost of completing the tower (so far unspent monies) and the $840,000/year maintenance fee. Fuck that the money was already allocated bull shit. If it's not needed and won't be used, reallocate the remaining funds somewhere (preferably within NASA, since that's where the money was really allocated) it won't be nothing but waste.
This "allocated funds need to go where they were allocated no matter what the current situation" and "spend it or lose" it crap is responsible for so much waste, it's ridiculous.
slashdot, fix your damn editor to recongnise a blank line as a fucking line brake, like everyone else in this century.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
yeah, that approach has worked great for reagan and W. Certainly helped balance our budget. .....
Oh wait,
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Don't get me wrong. I want NASA spending that money on something useful, not a 'tower to nowhere'. I do kind of relate to the senators too. Jobs shouldn't be temporary. I know, a lot of younger people think they are.It can be nice to regularly change things up for a while. Eventually one has to grow out of that. Staying in place is what gets you benefit time, raises, etc... It used to be how one gets a pension too back when they had those. I save a lot in my 401k but I don't see how I am ever going to retire!
This stuff becomes important when one goes to have a family. Even without the family, one day hopefully we all realize that we need to work to live, not live to work. Stay and build up that vacation time!
NASA projects unfortunately aren't stable enough for this kind of life. The problem is every politician has to go and cancel whatever the one before had NASA doing and build their own legacy. Of course they actually have no legacy because the next one will just cancel it anyway but I guess they all expect the next guy to be better than themselves... Meanwhile jobs are created and destroyed. Workers are hired and layed off. At least these porky senators are helping workers have a reason to want to work for NASA. Any organization that wants to do great things like space exploration is going to need to attract the best people. Why would they go to a place that will lay them off every time the whitehouse changes it's curtains?
Of course, a tower to nowhere is still a stupid way to spend taxpayer's money. The real problem isn't the pork, it's the politicians that keep changing the goals!!!
The government's ability to repay debts is mainly based on its power to tax to raise the funds. Governments that rely on printing currency to repay debts or for general spending tend to end up in the history books (Weimar Republic) or the newspapers (Zimbabwe) as economic basket cases crippled by hyperinflation.
Apparently nobody with mod points is reading your sig.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Protip: decreased inflation != deflation. Intro to calculus would have taught you that much. The article you linked to mentioned fears about deflation, but no actual deflation. Being afraid of something doesn't make it manifest.
So basically your own source, were you to deem it credible, would serve to show that even the EU is still experiencing inflation.
By who? This isn't a railway. I can count on one hand the number of companies in the private sector who could make use of these, and none of them work with anything similar to what this test rig was made for.
Yeah maybe it'll get used once or twice, but will it pass cost benefit? Hell no.
At least any I've come across. Yes, the Gov't has to pay for work already performed, but it's a recognized fact that one Congress can't bind future ones to financial deals, and money to finish a particular contract may never arrive.
So by and large, as someone else pointed out, the Government has a clause in contracts allowing it to terminate the contract for convenience.
--PM
Well, if the allocated money doesn't go where it was allocated for, then it shouldn't go anywhere.
That is a problem I see with some people. They think there is some entitlement that if you don't spend X on something, you can spend the rest on something else. Well, not, because the funding wasn't approved or allocated on something else. It would be like you using your corporate credit card to purchase window treatments for you car because they cancelled that trip to a meeting 3 states away. If they do not spend the money on what it was allocated to be spent on, then they need to get permission to spend it in other ways. The money is not theirs to do as they please, it is theirs to do as the government pleases and they demonstrated that intent by allocating it for a specific use.
The President didn't want SLS either. It was pushed by Senate.
Do you have anything backing this assertion that doesn't solely exist in your mind? Wicker is being targeted by the Tea Party in MS to remove him from office. Seems sort of contrary to your assertion.
It's actually exactly right.
It's historically divergent because for most of history, nations didn't use fiat currencies.
Now they do.
That has some implications. Implications that most people haven't gotten, and the ones who do get it are quiet about it.
I recommend you to the writings of Warren Mosler; the topic is "Modern Monetary Theory".
You can find his works online. Try "Seven Deadly Economic Frauds".
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This isn't true.
The US hasn't raised enough money via taxes to fund its annual operating expenses in a very long time.
Yet a US government check has never bounced.
It is 100% clear that, no matter what politicians say and what our household models of economics say, the Feds do not need your tax revenue to pay for anything.
The key difference between the post-1971 dollar and previous macroeconomic situatinos is that the US dollar is no longer redeemable in anything else. It is now entirely a fiat currency. It is a currency that can buy anything in the US economy because of two reasons
1) Legal tender laws -- the Feds force anyone in the US to accept USD for any debt, public or private
2) Taxes. The feds require most of us to pay taxes, and those taxes must be paid in USD. That means we need to do things in the real economy in order to get USD, so that we can give the govt a portion of that USD.
That's it. That's the whole game.
Why tax us at all? To force everyone to trade in dollars -- and critically -- to reduce private sector spending power when newly injected government money is chasing after the same economic output. If public and private dollars are chasing the same items, price appreciation will happen, and thats politically a loser. And, as you point out, it can become hyperinflation.
But really, after Nixon closed the gold window, our money is entirely artificial. If you brought in a sack of $20k in cash for your federal income taxes to some IRS office, they wouldn't say, "finally, we can go pay our debts!" or "finally! we can go buy that highway we need"
They'd update a number in a database and drop the sack of cash in a shredder. Nobody wants to move around all that physical cash.
Please read the writings of Warren Mosler, and on the topic of Modern Monetary Theory.
You are correct about one thing -- reckless currency debasement can become hyperinflation.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If you want to see not only the actual stats for what inflation has been going on, note that inflation in America has been hovering around about 10% annual on most goods. See also this site:
http://www.shadowstats.com/
It not only shows the real statistics (based upon the formulas that were in use in 1980 and earlier), but explains what sort of manipulation has been going on with the CPI, why it is a bad thing, and why your claimed source with the NY Times is full of the proverbial BS.
This isn't the only site to try and correct the government numbers, but it does use credible metrics for proper comparison as opposed to deliberate understating of inflation. This also impact things like changes in the GDP and other economic health statistics as well.
In other words, you are just flat out wrong about your assumptions that inflation is not happening
True. And while US politicians might not give a damn whether the Chinese hate us, that would devalue huge amounts of debt held by US retirees, banks, and small investors, and they do vote.
Printing money is, effectively, a tax on everybody who happens to hold money.
That would mean that prices have quadrupled since 2000: are rent, houses, gasoline, food, cell phones, jeans four times as expensive as in 2000? Of course not. Many of those things have actually gotten cheaper.
Inflation and CPI aren't particularly well-defined numbers, so people can legitimately get different answers and use/misuse them for various political purposes. But anybody who claims that they are around ten percent obviously is an economic charlatan.
I used to work on the government side of things, and this was a political requirement. Congress insists on individually approving annual funding for any program over a certain value. If a program was to be funded, we had to ensure that there were significant subcontractors in every relevant political district. This made no engineering sense, it raised costs immensely, and it made us all want to declare open season on Congresscritters (no bag limit).
It's the system. It needs changed, but the very people to change it (Congress) are the primary beneficiaries. It's nothing more or less than corruption: one of the reasons that being elected to Congress is the same as being elected to the millionaire's club.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
What drugs are you smoking? because I really need some of that delusional crack you are smoking.
Deflation? every dollar I have is worth less every single day, only someone that had been hit in the head over and over and over again with a sack of nickles would think that my money is growing in value. Inflation is at double digits the economists are so corrupt that they now have a very narrow measurement to manipulated the outcome.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So yes, in theory we could operate taxless
He isn't proposing operating the government taxless. He's saying they don't need those taxes to pay for anything, the function of taxes is not to allow spending, taxes are not "income" or "revenue" for the government. Taxes merely destroy currency in the economy. Spending creates it. There doesn't need to be a 1:1 balance between the two, with any difference made up by borrowing. Governments only need to balance the two effects to match an increasing supply of currency to the actual requirements of the growing economy. Too much, you get inflation, too little deflation or stagnation. Everything else is just about redistribution.
If that happened, then people would would stop lending money to the government
MMT says that government borrowing in its own currency is a fiction. It means nothing. Stopping it means nothing.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
A quadrupling of price is not a 400% increase. It's the original price, plus 300%. Also, it would take much less than 40 years. "Simple math" doesn't include compounding. Someone please correct this if I'm wrong, but I believe the actual answer would be a bit over 14 years via the Rule of 72.
Just another day in Paradise
No. Much shorter.
.
Simple math says:
(1+10/100)^y = 4 =>
log (1.10^y) = log(4) =>
y * log(1.10) = log(4) =>
y = log(4) / log(1.10) = 14.54
After 14.54 years you quadruple; after 15 years you would have a 418% increase.
Didn't they teach you exponentials and logarithmics in high school?
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
You obviously need to learn some comprehension, as well as math.
The poster above was disputing the fact that inflation has been hovering around 10% because of what that would imply about the price level since 2000.
1.1^13 = 3.45. So not quite quadrupling, but that would be pretty close.
And a 300% increase does in fact correspond to a quadrupling (a 100% increase is a doubling etc.)
QED
The Ghosts of Jamie Whitten and John Stennis live on in Mississippi. Bringing federal dollars to pork barrel projects.
Jamie Whitten was the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and any appropriations bill that passed by had to have something for Mississippi. Stennis was the same way in the Senate and together they always got something for Mississippi it seems in every appropriations bill.
That was true when the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor was mandated by Congress after the Challenger incident. NASA didn't want it but if they wanted to fund the shuttle and other programs, they had to take the ASRM too. Things like having to deliver the ASRM rockets on barges were put into bid contracts to prevent Thiokol (the supplier of RSRM engines for the shuttle) from bidding on the contract. Oh, they just happened to have the site at Iuka MS, which among being the site of a defunct Nuclear Reactor project by the TVA and was also a former weapons depot.
You see that's the problem with the seniority system in Congress, you can get politicians re-elected by people and they just move up the ladder on all these committees and it's the committees where all the power is in Congress. You can't just put legislation on the floor of either the House or Senate, it has to go through Committee first and if you have ranking congressmen and senators blocking projects until they get what they want, then important legislation can be held up indefinitely. It's been that way since our Federal Government was formed and handcuffs well meaning legislation with bad things that garner support from fringe members of Congress to get the votes necessary to pass the whole package.
Even though everybody thinks that Earmarks are supposedly a thing of the past, they're still around. The testing facility in MS shows again that port barrel spending is alive and well and a lot of things still get through, for example with the recent budget deal. Did you also know we have a STARBASE program as well? Well in 2012 it received $5m in funding and while most won't consider it a lot, it's really a glorified recruiting program.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Henry Ford paid his workers $5/day in the 1920s. About $0.62 per hour. The value of gold at the time was about $20/oz.
Gold is currently valued at about $1200/oz. So if you think gold represents an intrinsic non-inflationary value, as goldbugs do, then the "inflation corrected" equivalent of Ford's $5/day is $37.50/hr.
(Likewise, the median weekly wage in 1925 was about $25/week. So a gold-equivalent of $1500/week today. The actual median wage today is $510, and the median houshold income is about $860)
Of course, there's a gold bubble. But I think the point is useful to make. The growth in the US economy has not gone to the majority US citizens.
Wages have been stagnant because a lot money has been transferred to non-wage benefits.
That's a myth. It came from a paper (from Heritage, IIRC) that assumed that every worker takes 100% of available benefits. Which is functionally impossible.
I don't actually like MMT, but it is an accurate depiction of reality.
The implications of MMT are very unsettling if you've grown up with a classical view of economics.
Keynesians are discredited and irrelevant. They have no basis for their objections because they were never coherent to begin with. Keynesians have consistently failed to predict economic events or why their policies don't have the intended effects.
MMT isn't something you can understand in a few minutes. You can hear the basic arguments in a few minutes, but it takes a while to internalize and re-orient your thinking.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
but a lone senator can't keep a program funded
Sure he can. Here's how: Put a hold on all legislation going through his committee. Any senator can do this, and the effect is to gum up the works so much that the rest of the Senate can either do as the one senator asks, or not be able to engage in any legislative activity at all that relates to whatever committee he's on. The other senators will likely decide that it's easier to fund his pork project than to deal with the hold.
I am officially gone from
Misses the point. You have to pay taxes in dollars, so come tax time, everybody has to have some dollars. So while a business might not accept dollars, it will end up paying taxes in dollars...
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
These are technicalities. The treasury can mint platinum, but can't print money except through the bond process. However, congress has the constitutional power to make money at will.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Name the tower after the Senator. Boy, will he look foolish.
NASA should rename the tower after Wicker, and hold a big press conference combining the naming ceremony and the commencement of mothballing, just to make it really clear.
I sure would but you have to cross that personal security barrier first! People need to have a ce thousand in the bank so they can write a check to get furnace replaced in February when it fails. Only then can they start putting their extra savings into investments. It's easy for me and likely you to forget just how hard putting away even a few grand is for lots of people.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html