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NASA's $349 Million Empty Tower
An anonymous reader writes: In a scathing indictment of NASA's bureaucracy, the Washington Post documents a $349 million project to construct a laboratory tower that was closed as soon as it was finished. From the article: "[The tower was] designed to test a new rocket engine in a chamber that mimicked the vacuum of space. ... As soon as the work was done, it shut the tower down. The project was officially 'mothballed' — closed up and left empty — without ever being used. ... The reason for the shutdown: The new tower — called the A-3 test stand — was useless. Just as expected. The rocket program it was designed for had been canceled in 2010. ... The result was that NASA spent four more years building something it didn't need. Now, the agency will spend about $700,000 a year to maintain it in disuse. ... Jerked from one mission to another, NASA lost its sense that any mission was truly urgent. It began to absorb the vices of less-glamorous bureaucracies: Officials tended to let projects run over time and budget. Its congressional overseers tended to view NASA first as a means to deliver pork back home, and second as a means to deliver Americans into space. In Mississippi, NASA built a monument to its own institutional drift."
It's simply not realistically possible to always perfectly plan multiple complex multi-year projects, when every your budget gets cut a little further, and you never know -- it's a roll of the dice -- if or how much it's going to get cut by -- then there is the secondary knock-on effect that of the small budget that remains*, the managers need to very carefully decide where to constantly try shift things around to try keep remaining projects going. The rocket program canceled in 2010 was probably canceled due to budget cuts. NASA's budget has consistently been cut, what, every year for the past 15 years? You can't entirely blame NASA - nobody can plan properly under those circumstances. Nobody, not you, or me, could end up not wasting any of it as a result of the constant shunting around.
Also, *all* large organizations have at least some expenditure that in hindsight was wasted. Hindsight is always 20/20. Look at the R&D allocations for any large organization, public or private, and you'll always find plenty of projects that went nowhere - whether it's an IT company or a mining operation or a shipyard or energy utility etc.
* NASA budget is less than 0.5% of the total federal budget. We're really going to nitpick over this while literally trillions get regularly poured into completely wasteful military destruction? We're being played and manipulated by articles like this - look carefully who *benefits* from articles like this that attempt to portray the real bad guys (spending-wise) as those who take less than 0.5% of the budget.
My other UID is three digits.
senator bob: I want to fund a NASA mission to mars. heres a budget rider for whatever they need, in my state.
NASA: ok, thanks. we'll start on this 25 year plan. we need to test some rockets first.
senator ted: NASA wastes tax dollars and the mars mission is a terrorist anchor baby that I dont understand. STOP working on this now and start working on a public/private partnership in my state. heres a congressional mandate. you're studying asteroid mining now because i saw a movie about it and it had my favourite actor in it.
NASA: uh....okay. mission aborted. **shuffles papers** looks like we're going to mine...uh...something.
Private company: thanks for giving us all the free rocket designs and code. uh, mission accomplished and because asteroid mining isnt profitable we're just going to do a defense project with it. defense sells real good.
NASA: wait...what?
Senator ted: good job but i cut your budget because I had a bad dream about Terrorists and now i think all government research is secretly communism.
Senator Bob: What the hell are you guys doing with that old communist rocket monument you made in my state? i havent seen the lights on in a month. can you do a mission to the moon again? I miss stuff from the 60's that im familiar with
NASA: uh...wat?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Little in return?? Why just look at all the generous aerospace contractor donations this project generated for Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker. You call THAT a FAILURE??
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
In the 1980s when I was in the rocket business, we once un-mothballed a lab complex that had stood idle since the 1960s. Its most interesting feature was a pair of gigantic waldoes, which could pick up huge, heavy objects while an operator manipulated controls from an elevated glass observation room. Incredibly cool, precisely machined hydraulic art.
After we removed the owl-shit covered tarps, unwrapped the many layers, removed the final thick coat of grease, and flushed the old fluid with new, everything worked perfectly.
That building had never been used before. It was half built when the government project that required it was canceled, but my employers wisely continued on the project and mothballed it as soon as it was completed.
20 years later we used it extensively and AFAIK it is still in use. If not, they will have mothballed it again for the future.
If NASA makes a minimal effort to keep the tower useable, it will be used in the future, and this will have been a wise investment.