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US Air Force Overstepped In SpaceX Certification
Rambo Tribble writes: An internal review commissioned by Air Force Secretary Deborah James has concluded that Air Force personnel tasked with evaluating SpaceX's certification treated it as a design review, going so far as to dictate organizational changes in the company. This was judged contrary to the intention of promoting a competitive environment. The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, concluded, "The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach. Both teams need to adjust."
Government bureaucracy reviews private corporations, implements government bureaucracy?
LOL .. Congratulations, gentlemen, you're exactly what we've come to expect from years of government training.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Air Force auditors start experiencing mysterious "accidents". Others get it hot water for unexplainable large deposits to their bank accounts.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach."
But this is what Boeing and Lockheed wanted. Keeping in mind Boeing/Lockheed have a space launch vehicle non compete consortium in partnership with the U.S. government. The Air Force has done absolutely whatever it could to prevent them from using Space X - and the very cosy relationship with Lockheed and Boeing probably has something to do with this. Just look at who's profits might be threatened and follow the money.
How will the Colonels and GS-15's justify their existence? They must put their mark on it in multiple places.
There should be 3 lines on the proposal:
I need payload weight and size X, in orbit Y.
Can you do it? Y/N.
How much will it cost?
One of our customers for my company is a medical device company regulated by the FDA. The FDA a few years ago came down hard on them with fines and a consent decree whereby they couldn't sell products due to issues in their quality control systems. We are very familiar with this company and while they did have issues, the FDA has essentially forced a complete reorganization on them, some of which will be good but much of which is utterly pointless.
I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of Control Plans, FMEAs and other documents for products we've been making for well over a decade to support this customer. These documents will serve no useful purpose and in all likelihood never get looked at again. I'm also validating test equipment which I assure you at the end of the day will prove nothing. It's necessary to help our customer stay in the good graces of the FDA but really is pretty much a waste of everyone's time since these sort of documents are supposed to be done when the product is being developed, not ten years later without any evidence of an actual problem.
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
How will ULA survive if the government doesn't force SpaceX to operate like a traditional defense contractor sucking at the cost plus fixed fee teet. The Airforce has to help them get there because this commercial competition non-sense will mean the loss of plenty of high paying executive jobs and ULA.
If anyone ever wondered why government contracting is so expensive, this is it. The government customers demand customization of commercial products that drive up development costs and complicate manufacturing while the bureaucracy's demand for documentation and "transparency" places a massive overhead burden on contractors to meet the requirements. Add on to it the government's lack of discipline in developing requirements and making changes, and your "cheap" program triples in cost with delivery moving two years to the right. As someone who worked in a business that dealt with both commercial and government clients, the former looks for a product that fits their needs then buys it whereas the latter looks for a product, modifies it, then continuously alters the requirements over and over right up to production.
Sometimes, I think this is also the reason why the government clings to cost-plus contracting: with fixed price, they have to be disciplined about the requirements because once the fixed price contract is in effect, they can't tinker with it any further. Cost-plus, they can keep changing requirements, and the contractor will simply roll it into the bill.
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
Actually ULA (boeing, lm, etc) gets sweetheart contracts too. For example their launch contracts don't include fixed costs like launch facilities and many other parts of the "infrastructure". ULA gets a separate contract to pay for all the fixed costs. That may be a good idea to make sure this infrastructure is ready and available independently of what the launch schedule may be but the fact remains that SpaceX includes such infrastructure costs into their launch contracts. And SpaceX launch contracts are still far less expensive than ULA.
What they mucked up was how spaceX didn't have the systems in place for accountability as mandated by federal law. This is a problem with acquisitions law, not the bureaucracy the law mandates. I know a few of the people on that team. The only way spaceX could have gotten close without those changes would have been to buy even more politicians to get the law changed even more in their favor.
Yes, as usually, big company got a billion dollars and the taxpayers got screwed. Only good marketing makes you think spaceX is any different.
This is the fundamental flaw with bureaucratic thinking. Define metrics, design criteria but let the contractor build it. This is why government projects are so fucking expensive. Rules, Laws, Legislators and stupidity get in the way of innovation.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If it can't be seized and placed under control of the military during times of war*, its not going into space. Gotta make sure we know the key people and which pieces we'll need to grab should we need to mount weapons on it and send it up.
*That means pretty much any time. As we are always conducting a War Against Something.
Have gnu, will travel.
What if Elon gave the AF the bird and started selling the Falcon 9 to the ESA and India? Would the AF back down then?
On the other hand, might it be a good thing to make them go through the costly process so that they lose the competitive advantage over the companies that did it usefully at the beginning of development?
The documentation I'm referring to has nothing to do with any competitive advantage. If anything, not doing it is a competitive disadvantage in their particular marketplace. The potential liability costs, warranty/service costs, reputation costs, etc easily outweigh the cost of the paperwork and structure. This particular company was badly structured and was actually incurring all sorts of needless costs and problems by not having their house in order. If anything the FDA will make them more competitive in the long run.
But why should I expect my private business to incurr costs to make some future militarization easier?
Have gnu, will travel.