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Dissecting a $231 Million High-Tech Boondoggle
The L.A. Times takes to task the U.S. Congress, the Obama administration, and various military agencies for their combined role in supporting the expenditure of vast amount of money on a system called the Precision Tracking Space System. All told, according to the paper, the PTSS program -- which was to have provided early warning of missile launches, and precision tracking of the missiles themselves -- ended up blowing through more than $230 million before being cancelled. After talking to defense experts and reviewing hundreds of documents, the Times comes to what probably sounds like an easy conclusion for any big-budget military program that never reaches operation: it shouldn't have even left the drawing board.
A single F-35 costs more than that program does, although I suppose an F-35 can at least fly.
The F-35 program is an insidious example. With contractor offices located in 44 states, it's very hard for Congress to cancel the program and explain to the folks back home why they voted for local layoffs.
In addition to all the other comments about $231 million being chump-change, recognize something else about advanced technological research: sometimes it doesn't pan out.
That doesn't mean that we should never try to research new things though. Not everything can be discovered the way the Japanese like to do it, through hundreds of small polishes to an existing working design. Sometimes you need to think big to make a real breakthrough.
I would also put this story and some of the kneejerk responses to it in the category of "why the US isn't as successful as it once was". If the 60s were like today, with anti-science teabaggers controlling half of congress, would we have made a manned mission to the moon? Especially given that every one of those missions could easily have ended in disaster?
No people. Even the vaunted Solyndra failure came out of a program that overall had a better success rate than most private funding, and in the end, not only advanced technology, it made a considerable profit for the taxpayer. The willingness to scream and cry and throw tantrums by the anti-technology/pro-fundamentalist haters, every time some risk doesn't come out out 100% perfectly, is a cancer on the body politic. And we're sinking due to the over caution that results.
large uncontrolled budget, with unlimited spending increases, and zero common fiscal sense.
In terms of military budgets, $230M is nothing. We have other boondoggles that have burned through a thousand times that. In fact, this program is such a trivial amount, I suspect it is being emphasized to distract people from the real waste. The F35 program burns through $230M every three days.
A typical republican budget plan.
This program was proposed by the Obama administration, and passed by congress with plenty of votes from both parties.