NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/space/18691

Text File | 1993-01-04 | 4.0 KB | 86 lines

Newsgroups: sci.space
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From: [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: Latest Pegasus news?
Sender: [e-mail] (news access account)
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Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:27:26 GMT
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In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

>Yeah, I'm saying a factor of two isn't enough to cover the likely
>stretchout in the development timeline as problems appear. I said
>in the other post that realistic numbers based on other new spacecraft
>development programs would be a tripling of MacDD's projected base costs
>and a tripling of their projected development timeline. That would still
>be cheaper than the monsterous delays and costs of Shuttle development.

Oh?  What new spacecraft are you talking about?  Apollo came in on time
and under budget.  If the time line had been tripled, we wouldn't have
landed on the Moon until 1991.  (Assuming the project wasn't cancelled
in the interim, as it almost certainly would have been.)


>I think *everyone* agrees that the Shuttle development program was about
>as badly managed as is possible while still getting a working system in
>the end.

But, Gary, the Shuttle is the quintessential example of the engineering
management philosophy you espouse.  The ridiculous Rogers Commission
report to the contrary, the Shuttle program was not "success oriented."
It was a failure-seeking program if there ever was one.

As it turns out, both approaches work about equally well.  The success-
oriented approach generally produces success.  The failure-seeking
approach generally produces failure.  Not a bad result in the eyes of
government employees for whom failure and delay spell lifetime job
security.  The only thing is, some of us really prefer success.



>I think comparisons to new airliner construction, such as the references
>to the progression of the 7xx series, is bogus because SSTO is attempting
>something no other craft has ever done,

Bogus right back at you, dude.

Every aircraft is designed to do something no other aircraft has done
before.  If an existing aircraft could do the same job, no one would
bother designing a new one.

>with an engineering team that has no experience with similar reusable
>spacecraft to draw on.

Next to Boeing, McDonnell Douglas's engineering teams probably have
more experience designing commercial aerospace products than any
company in the world.  Practically all of them reuseable.

I can almost hear you sucking breath every time you type the phrase
"reuseable spacecraft."  Strangely enough, you don't have the same
reaction to the phrase "reuseable aircraft."  Perhaps because you
don't know enough history to realize how much engineering and development
the first commercial aircraft required.  Or perhaps you know how silly
you'd sound if you spoke about aircraft development in the same apocolyptic
terms.  But mainly, I think, it's just the technological superstition,
which NASA has helped to instill, about anything connected with "space."
After so many years of seeing the way NASA spends money, you believe
there's just *got* to be a good reason for it; anything connected with
space must be at least an order of magnitude more difficult to do.  When
you hear that a vehicle is going to operate in space, without any air
outside, the superstition takes over, and you believe that the principles
of engineering that govern other aerospace systems don't apply.