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New NASA Launch Control Software Late, Millions Over Budget (go.com)
schwit1 writes: The launch control software NASA is writing from scratch for its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is way behind schedule and way over budget. According to ABC News, "Development of this new launch control software is now projected to exceed $207 million, 77 percent above 2012 projections. The software won't be ready until fall 2017, instead of this summer as planned, and important capabilities like automatic failure detection, are being deferred, the audit noted. The system is vital, needed to control pumps, motors, valves and other ground equipment during countdowns and launches, and to monitor data before and during liftoff. NASA decided to write its own computer code to "glue together" existing software products a decade ago -- while space shuttles still were flying and commercial shippers had yet to service the space station. Both delivery companies, SpaceX and Orbital ATK, rely on commercial software, the audit noted."
In other words, even though NASA could have simply purchased already available software that other launch companies were using successfully, the agency decided to write its own. And that decision really didn't come before the arrival of these commercial companies, because when it was made a decade ago that was exactly the time that SpaceX was beginning to build its rocket. This is simply more proof that SLS is nothing more than a pork-laden waste of money designed not to explore space but to generate non-productive jobs in congressional districts.
In other words, even though NASA could have simply purchased already available software that other launch companies were using successfully, the agency decided to write its own. And that decision really didn't come before the arrival of these commercial companies, because when it was made a decade ago that was exactly the time that SpaceX was beginning to build its rocket. This is simply more proof that SLS is nothing more than a pork-laden waste of money designed not to explore space but to generate non-productive jobs in congressional districts.
That last few sentences were really inacceptable. Could someone edit this?
There is no software on the planet that is more scrutinised and more meticulously developed than software for spacecraft.
Start a Softwareproject like that without having it properly planned or the right people involved and your project will go over budget manifold inmediately.
No surprise here.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
What kind of summary/ story is this? This was only the executive summary. We want to know what systems the stuff runs on, what programming languages are used; you know, the geek stuff!
even though NASA could have simply purchased already available software that other launch companies were using successfully, the agency decided to write its own.
NASA decided to use existing software that was known to work and was fully understood rather than rely on commercial software which could be total shit. besides, they wouldn't be purchasing the software, they would be licensing it which means they would likely have to pay $X for Y computers for Z years. also, what happens when they want to add feature XYZ and they are unable to? freedom isn't free... it's 207 million dollars.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
. . . .and when the FBI started to develop its' own case manager, the "Virtual Case File", which was one of the more spectacular failures in Government IT Development.
When the post-mortem finally comes in, I'd be more than willing to bet that it was due to (1) lack of formalized baseline requirements to hang an initial design on, and the real program-killer, (2) constant requirements creep. Because contractors are unwilling to tell a Federal Customer "no" (because it usually results in decreases in funding in the next task order, or re-allocation of slots to another contractor. . .), there's a constant "just add this one little thing". Over and over again, until you have an unworkable mess and a design that looks nothing like the initial requirement.
The same kind of pressures destroyed the Navy A-12 "Avenger" attack jet in 1991: constant scope creep, until the aircraft was too heavy to fly off an aircraft carrier. The resulting legal fight lasted 13 years. . .
I guess the standards of proof I require are greater than jumping to great conclusions on very limited insight.
A friend of mine worked on a project for a big telecom's provider, only a couple of years duration. After about a year, outside commercial offerings in the same space became available, they conducted a review, concluded the outside offerings were good enough and cost effective enough, so cancelled the remainder of the project.
Really I guess that's the story/question here, at what point does/did continuing the project become throwing good money after bad?
How about letting H1B slaves working on the project?
Better still, why don't we simply outsource the whole thing to India? Their space agency is capable of producing really really cheap rockets
28-page PDF
Yes, I'm sure you're going hungry because an average of $0.20 per year over ten years was sent on learning about a whole new class of planet that may represent the dominant form of equilibrium celestial body in the universe.
Things like NH are exactly what NASA should be doing.
Don't get me wrong, I strongly oppose SLS. But you know, it's perfectly understandable that they keep ending up going down these roads. They have too much infrastructure and too much personnel focused on building large rockets. The infrastructure especially, as you can't just "lay off" (or phase out) it like you do with people, and it costs you money to maintain. And the people making the decisions - congressional representatives - aren't experts, they're just ordinary people, and thus easily swayed by arguments made by advocates of these jobs (direct and indirect) in their districts.
It's understandable. But it needs to be fixed.
There's long been resistance to the privatization of rocketry. We remember the first privatization battles back in the Shuttle era, and how much resistance there was to letting Atlas and Delta go private rather than just disappear altogether. Indeed, the new battle in much of the launch market isn't so much over privatization as it is over "old school" vs. "new school" private companies, with the former offering evolved expendable launch vehicles with generally good track records but high price tags, and the latter offering ground-up vehicles with short launch histories but very low price tags.
Regardless of how this battle goes, there really isn't a place for NASA in it, any more than there would be a place for a government car maker to compete with giants like GM, Ford, etc and upstarts like Tesla in terms of making passenger cars. There certainly could be grounds for a government agency to conduct basic research that can advance automotive technology, things that private companies wouldn't pay for because it doesn't provide a short-term fiscal payoff or would help their competitors as much as it would help them - public health and safety, advanced concepts for the future, etc. But they shouldn't be making cars.
The same applies to NASA, only moreso. There's a *lot* of basic research in the aerospace industry that's either too expensive for its risk level or only associated with long-term payoff for them to conduct. And this is where NASA should be: planetary science and advanced concepts. But getting there is difficult, as it means having both an administration and congress who recognize the need to reorient NASA and are willing to accept the economic pain involved in doing so. It doesn't necessarily mean budget cuts - but it means closing facilities, selling off hardware for well less than you paid for it, and jobs leaving certain areas, even while new facilities open, new people are hired elsewhere, etc.
SpaceX wants to take over the private launch industry and use the money to go to Mars? The reaction shouldn't be "Oh noes! That's our goal, back off!", it should be "Awesome, that will save us a ton of money! How can we help?" And then let them spend their money on the glamorous stuff while NASA works on the less glamorous stuff behind the scenes. "That's a nice looking gigantic methane-fueled engine you've got there - we could hear it for miles when it fired up! So anyway, what do you think of this long-lifespan dirt scoop we made to dig up mucky ice for the habitat? And this water nanofiltration system to maintain electrolyte concentrations in the necessary levels in the electrolysis unit - want to see it? Oh, you're too busy playing with engines? Oh okay..."
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
LIPSUM
After 8 dreary years of the Obama space program; the broken promises, spectacular failures and cronyism of commercial space; tedious and trivial grind of the ISS mission; the side show spectacle of billionaires increasingly absurd attempts to recover rocket stages, you'd think people would finally be ready for the successor to Apollo. Give me SLS and a real goal, to return to the moon, any day.
Privatise Nasa... then take bids for whatever projects the US government wants to engage in. Problem solved. What's that I hear? The wailing and gnashing of teeth of socialists scorned?
Being over budget is good for NASA... NASA just ate $207 million of tax payer money... that is a win for them! This is why government agencies make wasteful decisions, because the waste is them!
Send them all home! Stop being stupid! Demand Trump!
That is the whole problem with NASA, they don't kill anyone. If they at least blew up some brown children now and again this would have gotten so much funding it would have been operational already.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
A government program, years late and millions over budget and still isn't as good as what the private sector already had? SHOCKED! Shocked I am!
Clearly these same type of people need to be placed in charge of our healthcare!
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The "outsource everything" mantra of the 80s is still with us. It doesn't say in the article, but most of the work done by NASA is actually performed by outside contractors, and wI would bet a dollar that this is the work of USA (United Space Alliance - aka Lockheed and Martin Marietta) or one of the other giant government contractors like CSC or Booz. It may be NASAs project, but congress pretty much has gutted the real workforce so everything merely has project managers rather than actual engineers.
As for the submitter's (and, to some extent, the article writer's) take, I think they got it backwards. This project was started BEFORE there was any commercial launches of significance and so the code simply didn't exist for a robust launch control system as envisioned. The article does point out that there is more software available today, and that it could be an option. OTOH, we're talking about proprietary code from one of two competing firms with no outside review of the codebase. That's fine for putting up a couple of tons of food and electronics, but a private company has yet to successfully, reliably put humans into earth orbit. And that kind of responsibility is an order of magnitude higher than supplies.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Internally Retired.
Sun Microsystems assigned a consultant to me to roll out 100 servers in a data center at Moffat Field. The guy they assigned normally works on a NASA contract. He was installing (1) server a day. I flew out there to see what was going on and he explained the whole scam to me. "This is very fast compared to how I normally work."
The last paragraph of the post is spot on.
That's all well and good except governments need space level military infrastructure... with the likes of awesome space spy stations tank on the moon theres some stiff competition.
SpaceX, solar power generation, battery technology, electric cars, anti-nuke, etc., etc. His shills are all over /.
'...it's time to eliminate NASA and privatize space flight.'
f'ing-A right ! Let's get our minimum wage astronauts on top of the rocket built by the lowest bidder right way, and save ourselves bushels of money.
You're not secretly the donald, are you?
All the planning in the world doesn't guarantee meeting budget. Budgets are made to show that you tried to plan out your project, not that you planned 100% correctly. Plus there's no incentive to over-budget; no one will let your project even get started.
using the same argument, we should certainly be privatizing the military.
... as every popular language today states it's used by NASA!
I think he meant $2.00 per taxpayer. I have no idea if that is accurate or not but on the wild assumption that two thirds of your population are tax payers then that's about $400,000,000 and the given cost is $700,000,000. So actually more like $3.50 per tax payer (if my wild guess of 200,000,000 tax payers is close).
Also, you can't spell motherfucker, stupid.
I think he was talking about your personal contribution to it, not the overall cost.
Unless you're the only taxpayer in the US, no he didn't say that. He's saying you paid $2 towards it.
A couple of key points: 1) Software development at NASA is unlike anything 99.999% of the tech heads here would recognize. The scrutiny and the level of detail and failover protection in their code is unbelievable. Lives are at stake with their code or at worst millions of dollars of hardware crash into the surface of Mars and an entire mission is ruined. For most of us, if we have a bug in our code we patch and life moves on. If NASA has a bug in their code someone may die. 2) I have a friend that works for NASA. After SpaceX's first successful launch I said to him "big deal, NASA gave them blueprints, designs so this wasn't much of an accomplishment". His reply was "no, NASA did go to SpaceX early on and offered assistance in design but SpaceX turned them away. SpaceX is in business to make money and they cannot carry the burden of triple and quadruple redundancies that NASA has in their spacecraft. NASA's designs are too expensive." So if SpaceX is using off the shelf software you should recognize that SpaceX is willing to accept defects in order to ensure their profitability. NASA's needs are fundamentally different; they are to protect life and missions. SpaceX will take risks that NASA will not(and BTW, go ahead and sign up for that ride on a SpaceX rocket knowing this). This is why I am sure NASA did not choose off the shelf software and decided to write it themselves. This post is way off the mark to call this just a pork play.
Ahem....no. That's the per capita cost. Total cost for the mission is about $720 million, or about $2 per person.
Comparatively, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program cost is $1.3 trillion, the Boston Big Dig cost $24 billion ($7 billion was federal money), the new Vikings stadium is expect to cost just over $1 billion (and will probably run way over). New Horizons was a bargain and exactly what NASA should be doing, not SLS.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
> It's a frequent refrain that government agencies are overspending and missing deadlines.
The implication being that private companies don't ever have budget and schedule problems. Which is -- of course -- quite untrue. They have the same problems as the government. All the time. Read up on the Trans Alaska oil pipeline some time.
I'd suggest the big projects will always tend to have problems. The reason is simple. Scheduling is done using the most probable time for each task. But some tasks take more time than projected and some take less. The distribution is skewed. Sometimes a "one month" task only takes two weeks. But perhaps equally often it takes two months. String together a dozen or so complex tasks and you can bet on usually taking longer than you expect and spending more than you budgeted.
And that's when you do the planning well ...
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Let's see - NASA or Space-X...not even a contest
nothing to see here - move along
Because if this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Happened at a nuclear power station or a nuclear missles launch system a lot of people would be in deep radioactive shit.
The vast majority of software development projects are late and well over budget. There is a lot of competitive pressure that forces bidders to give false expectations on both fronts, over and over and over again. If your offer is projected to take x million and y months, and your competitors' is 4x/5 million and 4y/5 months, who is going to win the bid? Of course, the winner will probably end up requiring 2x million and 2y months to get the job completed (if at all) so next time your bid will be 3x/5 million and 3y/5 months, lest you lose again. And the vicious circle is up and running.
May I perhaps suggest... a 2230 E Rocket Launch Controller?
...even though NASA could have simply purchased already available software that other launch companies were using successfully, the agency decided to write its own."
Yeah, other, incorrect words. "...when it was made a decade ago that was exactly the time that SpaceX was beginning to build its rocket." Because when a commercial rocket is being built is the time to decide it's software is ironclad? And that the software you have available from NASA that was tried and true was definitely defunct? NASA has a lot of process to go through, including COTS and acquisition, so I'm not sure what you're proposing here was a better alternative without hindsight.
There is no Commercial Off-The-Shelf launch software.
I never should have posted earlier and lost my mod points. You trolls need to be modded down
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Outside of your mom's basement is a mere 20 meters, but what's the point, right?
Yes, the article seems to be trying to manufacture outrage out of nothing.
It's a make-versus-buy decision. Industry does these decisions all the time. When your applications are unique, the decision tends to go toward "make your own;" when your application is something that many other people also do, the decision tends to go toward "buy the commercial product".
Buying off the shelf comes with hidden costs unless what is available exactly meets your need-- if you need to write a new contract for every change (and since you still haven't designed the system you're launching, there will be a lot of changes needed, as you keep refining requirements) every single change is a chance for the vendor to demand large dollar payments.
And the article's statement "why doesn't NASA just use what Space-X used" is absurd. Ten years ago, Space-X was an unknown company who had just launched their first rocket. Which failed. As did their next launch. And the one after that.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Spot on rei.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We did. That is why we had issues in a number of these nations
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's still on the same planet, but that means a hostile barren vacuum is just the same, right?
How much of this planet have you explored? How many countries? How many different people have you met?
Yeah, didn't think so. You play video games and stay inside 99% of the time, not even looking at what's right here, all the while demanding we retrieve rusty dead rocks from Mars because SCIENCE!
Fuck off.
No, the submitter has 3rd grade reading comprehension skills and an agenda. And it's in the summary which suggests that software was available, TFA quote is actually "Commercial software products would be a better option for NASA as well, according to the audit, especially given recent advances in the area." Note the use of future tense, not past unreal conditional. IOW, it still might be more economical at this point, but it wasn't an option when the project was started.
The commercial firms which are servicing the space program had never delivered a payload to orbit at the time of the original design specification and plan, and had no tested software at the time. NASA, otoh, had subroutines already written which had been tested and vetted for decades, over hundreds, if not thousands, of successful launches and NASA wanted to use those [tested] routines in their new launch control system. The contract was to put them all together into a cohesive whole. Not a trivial task, but also not writing from scratch.
More importantly there is no COTS software in this arena. This is not Word with a custom skin. This is piece by piece built based on the unique hardware and control systems which are part of the critical safety path of the launch sequence. Even if SpaceX or another space transport company has software they use, it would have to be stripped, rebuilt, and re-tested for the configuration at the KSC launch complex to be used for these flights.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
SLS may be really The Crap. However, the original post is surely the proof Space is too sweet for the flies to leave the pie in peace...
Whoever thinks "private" soft is more effective than any government funded project is dumber the dumbest ass on the road. He does not know nothing about space travel, specially the fact that there are still lots of unknowns behind the "simplicity" of celestial mechanics. These problems are hard enough to turn a well-planned trajectory into the nightmare of a very fluid situation, specially if there are people inside the crap. Now tell me what commercial venture will risk its head on such things. Or has anyone took off the "Ltd." out of modern business?!
NASA glued stuff? Great! That's exactly what we all do today. We GLUE stuff! We "optimize expenses", cut budgets by the half, mix apples with carrots to sell them in Tetrapacks. Oh! And you don't need to be a government agency for that because EVERYONE does it! That's what we call "Business Processes" without even thinking that there is a first principle voiding everything we do - "No changes/improverment shall stop the work of the current business..." But we are above that! Let Hell freeze over, we make a revolution! We create "the stuff" able to work everywhere for everyone everytime.
The only ooops here is that even before NASA sent people to the Moon, even before USSR sent the Sputnik and the nazis lauched its V-2... There was such stuff! It worked everywhere for everyone everytime. Its name - "snake oil".
That'll just reduce the demand for Mexican goods and hence reduce the tax revenue they raise. If Mexico's other markets don't make up the shortfall of a vastly reduced market in the USA then the country will become even more impoverished thus increasing the number of people who desire to wish to live elsewhere. And there will be no wall to the north because duty on Mexican goods wont have raised enough money to pay for it after demand for them collapses.
I always like when a project predicts a budget to three significant figures and then misses the target by a factor of 2. Then rinses and repeats.
How the hell do you spend that much when all you need is a fuse, a match and someone who can run very fast.
I don't know for sure, but I would bet that it involves government contractors. Have you ever looked at how they actually choose contracting companies?
It starts with the fact that they have all kinds of preferential treatment involved. Is your company run by veterans? How about a disabled veteran? How about a disabled veteran woman? Best yet, a disabled veteran native American woman! Now you get the contract for sure!
I interviewed at a few of these kinds of shops. The heads were all FIGURE heads, not actually smart people. I could not stand talking with them as they clearly knew absolutely nothing about software development. Likewise, everyone they attracted was people who were not turned off by this. No wonder we get the crappy software in the government space we do.
I considered opening my own shop and bidding on some of these, because honestly the software is SO bad I would only have to half try, and it would be stellar. But after looking into it, I determined the only way I would ever be successful is to make my wife the head. In order to really get ahead, we had to prove her connection to her Native American past, and we haven't been able to conclusively close that loop yet. I joke with her that she should join the military and get shot just to help the cause, but she hasn't been willing yet.
Bring back fair and open bidding on these, and don't just go to the cheapest solution. I think that is what ends up costing all of the extra in the long run is that these companies under bid, have no idea what they are doing, and usually end up missing the deadlines. Most are not run by people who know how to build modern softare.
I'd suggest the big projects will always tend to have problems. The reason is simple.
Really simple. The big projects aren't easy, and often have never been done before. And that's not how private industry works. Their idea of a big risk is New Coke or Pepsi free. Maybe an app for our smartphones. Going to the moon, or Going to Mars, or a freaky awesome new jet fighter isn't even on their radar, unless they can mitigate the risk.
Or a nuclear power generation plant either. I wonder, have there been any built without Government help?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> There certainly could be grounds for a government agency to conduct basic research...
I would say basic research, AND tactical purchasing contracts to motivate hardware manufacturers to develop to broadly useful standards and capabilities.
For example, they could order the first batch of "orbital tugboats" designed for permanent orbital service, including maintenance and refueling. Vehicles which could be broadly useful platforms for a wide variety of services, but would involve some very different design compromises than existing vehicles. Once NASA has absorbed the initial development costs, the same basic vehicle can then be sold to everyone else at much closer to production cost. Include in the specifications a need for specific royalty-free docking hattches and external mounting points and you've also just created a de-facto standard for all other manufacturers to build to.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Just make a very big wall, with some stairs on top to the Moon.
Indeed. I'm a fan of COTS-style programs as well. NASA can ensure a market for something in the beginning while giving the actual market time to develop.
What I wrote isn't to mean that NASA should "get out of rocketry" entirely. The key issue is, if they're doing rocketry, it should be to innovate - as mentioned, advanced concepts. To develop fully functional technology demonstrators rather than workhorse deliverables. To build on as small of a scale as possible for a given new technology, with full acceptance that project failure might occur. Airbreathers, metastable fuels, ballistic launch, active suspended launch structures, composite cryogenic tanks, inflatable reentry, you name it... any untested technology that claims significant benefits but is too risky/expensive for private enterprise to develop from scratch, that should be NASA's domain. But it shouldn't be approached with the intent to make a workhorse. We wouldn't accept the NHTSA making and selling cars and trucks, the FAA making and selling passenger jets, or the DOE making commercial power plants - and nor should we accept NASA doing the same with rockets.
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
I'd prefer to not see all the posts by Libertarian trolls and their absolutist, theoretical, impractical, and anti-social nonsense.
Heeeeey, are we talking about NASA software or Star Citizen?
Last paragraph is Pathetic Click-Bait by some clueless Internet Dude who sniff's and licks Elon Musk's ass. "Ain't nobody got time for that." Off to a real news site.
The big difference between private companies and government is that a private company who screws up with budget and schedule problems (like Rocketplane Kistler.... a private space launch company started well before even SpaceX and even won a similar COTS launch award to bring cargo to the ISS like SpaceX), they simply go bankrupt and go out of existence providing a niche for a new company to take its place. Managers and employees in that old company going bankrupt don't hold the same positions in any new companies, so they need to prove themselves all over again and more importantly can't make the same mistakes.
Governments on the other hand also have budget and schedule problems, but making bad governments go away is sort of a tough thing to do. Government agencies or even sections can almost never disappear. Entire governments almost never go away... or when they do they usually cause a whole lot of bloodshed and other civil strife that accompanies that sort of event. There are often counter-productive things that happen in government agencies too simply because the purpose of that government is not necessarily to provide a particular product or service, but instead has other significant goals well outside of the core principles. A good example of this is the Muslim outreach that Administrator Charles Bolden did with NASA... something that has absolutely nothing to do with aircraft R&D or sending vehicles to Mars.
There is nothing specifically wrong with governments doing things, and sometimes they get done well with government agencies too. It is how to deal with them when the organization falls apart is the problem.
Wait, what happened here? I thought the /. answer for this sort of shit was "Rust"? I'm gone for a few days and this is what happens?
...an app that sends a command to say "launch"?
But this is great!!! Just draw what you want and split the software up in to ten layers running on different machines and the use as many strange libraries you can find!
WTF! This isn't what was supposed to happen? I guess we have to throw it all away and try again.... as usual.
The real number is between 52 and 53% are taxpayers so it's more like 162 million tax payers.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Just when I thought that SLS couldn't disappoint any more. Everything about it and its associated programs seems to result something that costs orders of magnitude more than originally projected with less capabilities than initially stated.
I'd like to know what programming languages, operating systems, development methodologies, quality assurance, etc. are being used. COTS software is usually not designed to be used in the critical operations which NASA performs. Lots of software even says that it is not for such things in the license agreement.
We have to keep the typical moron programmer far away from NASA projects. It is customary for programmers to criticize MBAs and other managers for having no coding knowledge. Well, too often coders have to deep computer science or systems integration knowledge, and can't manage a project which has more than three people working on it.
Last count Mexico gets $500 million/year in US foreign aid. Given how corrupt Mexico is, I'm confident that money is now 'the property' of someone important. He has likely made financial commitments...
It's not like there isn't a money stream to divert. The political will isn't there.
If they wanted the illegal immigration to stop they would enforce the laws in the workplace. They don't, hence it's approved. Everybody has noticed too, hence they are working just about all the construction jobs these days (which has crappified those jobs somewhat). 'Only crap jobs' is BS for old folks who think they know what's up, when it was 'only crap jobs' people wore onions on their belts.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
To be fair, Alan Stern called the four years he spent leading the development of New Horizons a blur. That was half the length of the typical development cycle for comparable probe/satellite projects, and put an enormous personal and professional strain on all the people working on it. It is not reasonable to expect people to perpetually work at that pace. The New Horizons program was a bargain largely because it put undue and unsustainable strain on the employees and contractors involved. Yes, it was a well-managed program and is a good example of cutting a lot of red tape to get a project done, but you should expect a comparable program to cost half again that much if you're not overworking your employees. The only reason the project had such a short timeline in the first place, IIRC, was because the calculated launch windows were so rare.
In other words, NASA should, quietly, do all of the hard stuff, and then let the private sector take all of the credit and reap all of the rewards.
Wow; I cannot imagine why they're not falling all over themselves to worship your brilliance.
Slashdot posts have had their ups and downs over the years, but this kind of information-free, foaming-at-the-mouth crap is really beyond the pale. The article submissions should include at least some informative content - if any dead strawmen need further beatings, why, that's what the readers are here for.
As to the topic at hand. Love the SLS or hate it, whoever thought NASA should have used off-the-shelf software for SLS launch control should be punished by 5 years working SAP ERP's support desk. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. But at that level of scale, complexity, and criticality, off-the-shelf should not be your go-to option.
Right, because the whole point is showy things for the camera, rather than silly distractions like advancing the human species.
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
That is precisely what happened in the Aeronautical side of things, NACA did all the basic research, and the private sector built the planes. (The public sector also reaps the rewards through a dynamic and tax paying industry and their employee's).
It's not a far fetched statement.
Which taxes are you counting here?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
A lie. The first fixed-wing commercial flight happened in 1914 (in Florida). USPS established airmail in 1918. How embarrassing, no wonder, you'd rather remain anonymous. Yes, carrying airmail was a big part of the early airlines' business, but it was not what started the industry. USPS was a (happy) customer — not an investor.
Another lie. The government-created monopoly came into being many years after various competing phone companies appeared — and froze innovation in it for decades, I might add.
Government-built roads existed, yes, but personal automobiles were created independent of government support — a risky investment, that paid off.
An anonymous liar is in no position to tell me — nor anyone — what I "need to do".
I may have. But, if it were useful, had the government not made it, it would've been made anyway. And, likely, done better.
The point remains — tax-monies spent on things not required for the country to continue to exist represent tyranny.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Federal income taxes, I just did a bit of googling and found I was off a smidgen, in 2013 the 50th percentile paid 2.8% of the Federal Income taxes and 45% are estimated to pay no income taxes, therefore 55% are tax payers.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
There's more taxes than Federal income taxes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
With little to no oversight, millions over budget, and behind schedule, and proprietary? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I say...