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."

Comments

Quoted from TFA

[SpzToid]

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.

But, at first, cautious NASA bureaucrats didn’t want to stop the construction on their own authority. And then Congress — at the urging of a senator from Mississippi — swooped in and ordered the agency to finish the tower, no matter what.

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.

Re:Quoted from TFA

[floorgoblin]

Yeah, it's hard to see why the article frames this as an indictment of NASA's bureaucracy, given the article explicitly says a senator from Mississippi explicitly forbid them from stopping construction. This is just another reflection of how money is more important than reason in Congress these days.

Re:Quoted from TFA

[UnknowingFool]

And you 100% they didn't?

Since then, it’s spent an additional $57 million to keep building it, according to a February 2013 report by the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin. Testifying before the House space subcommittee in September, Martin highlighted the A-3 as an example of how lawmakers, looking to keep federal dollars flowing to their states, can block efforts to cut unnecessary spending. “The political context in which NASA operates often impedes its efforts to reduce infrastructure,” he said."

This was reported by BusinessWeek almost a year ago.

Re:Quoted from TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt it was completed due to the sunken cost fallacy.

No, it was completed because (quoted from TFA) "Congress — at the urging of a senator from Mississippi — swooped in and ordered the agency to finish the tower, no matter what."

What's worse is that NASA already had a test stand for testing engines in vacuum, built during the Apollo program in Sandusky Ohio. The question had been whether to upgrade that one to test the new engine, or build a new one, and the original cost estimate for building a new one in MIssisippi was, uh, somewhat lower than the actual cost turned out to be. So now NASA has two unused large engine-test vacuum chambers.

Re:Quoted from TFA

[Geoffrey.landis]

But the converse of that is not saying that they must continue. I would assume that means they may stop, but are not obligated to. I can't imagine that NASA doesn't have enough self-governance to not spend money.

You may not be able to imagine that, but this merely represents a failure in your imagination.

When Congress passes a bill stating that NASA "shall" spend money on project X,this is not optional. They must spend that money.

That was the language in the bill:
“Wicker Three” was an amendment sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). His amendment said NASA “shall complete construction and activation of the A-3 test stand with a completion goal of September 30, 2013.” That language was included in the bill that passed the committee, then the Senate, then the House. In October 2010, Obama signed it into law.

Re:Quoted from TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

To be fair

[SourceFrog]

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.

Pork, Republican pork, previously documented.

[ankhank]

This was forced on NASA as a pork barrel money grant by the Republican senators, and this isn't news.

Senator Makes NASA Complete $350 Million Testing Tower ...
yro.slashdot.org/.../senator-makes-nasa-complete-350-million-testing-to...
Feb 1, 2014 - Roger F. Wicker (R-MS), who says the testing tower will help maintain the ..... The other senators will likely decide that it's easier to fund his pork ...

im sure nasa is used to this,

[nimbius]

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?

Not useless

[geogob]

I hate it when people qualify infrastructure as useless. Especially infrastructure destine for research and development. Even if the foreseen use is deprecated, it doesn't mean it's useless. A test stand can always become of use, even if it's not for the originally planed engine. If they are wise about it, they could even rent the infrastructure to third parties such as Space-X.

Stopping the construction in the middle after 100% of the costs were already incurred, and then destroying the structure for even additional costs would have been a real idiot move.

Re:Thanks middle class!

[NotDrWho]

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??

It's because it's by David Fahrenthold

[langelgjm]

I guessed that before even opening the article. He has a habit of writing misleading Washington Post pieces about government waste. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of government waste, but blame does not fall squarely on NASA. I complained about a piece he wrote last year:

David Fahrenthold's April 24, 2013 article "Feds spend at least $890,000 on fees for empty accounts" incorrectly states that the Pentagon spent $435 on a hammer. That claim has been repeatedly debunked for a number of years. The hammer was $15, and the the $420 represented R&D costs for a project spread evenly across all items. See, e.g.: http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/1998/12/the-myth-of-the-600-hammer/5271/

To which he responded:

Hello, Dave Fahrenthold here from the Washington Post. I wrote the story that dealt with the cost of “zero balance” accounts, and so I was forwarded the correction request you sent earlier. First, thank you for reading, and reading the story so closely. At this point, I don’t see the need for a correction to the story. Here’s why: the story says that the Pentagon “paid” $435 for a hammer. I had written it that way consciously, since I’d seen the findings you referenced in that govexec story: the hammer’s cost to the Pentagon included $420 worth of overhead (which had been distributed evenly among all the items for which the Pentagon was charged in that same order). The cost of the hammer, at least on the Pentagon’s books, was $435. To me, it’s still correct to say that’s what the Pentagon “paid,” no matter how that cost had been calculated. I’d welcome your thoughts, however. I’m grateful again for the feedback. DF

Nice enough, but to me this shows that he very well knew the full story but chose to present it in a purposefully misleading way. Given that there is so much real waste, I don't understand the need to latch on to myths like this.