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- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!tilde.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall
- From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
- Subject: Re: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity
- Message-ID: <1993Jan5.212905.9567@mksol.dseg.ti.com>
- Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
- References: <n1348t@ofa123.fidonet.org> <72527@cup.portal.com> <1992Dec29.191524.2413@iti.org> <72597@cup.portal.com> <JMC.92Dec29222737@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:29:05 GMT
- Lines: 41
-
- In <JMC.92Dec29222737@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
-
- >The reason Shuttle costs are so much more than projected is that the
- >Shuttle requires this army to maintain it between flights. Hydrogen
- >isn't much more expensive than expected, and I doubt the solid fuel
- >is either. When the Shuttle was first proposed, the idea of operating
- >it like an airline was part of the plan from the beginning. It
- >turned out that the Shuttle operated too close to the limits of the
- >materials and structures of which it was made. That's why it needs
- >so much maintenance.
-
- Well, actually, it's even worse than that. The original design
- concept for the Shuttle system was totally different. It was
- projected to initially cost more and have much lower maintenance
- costs. Due to Congressional budget cutting and all the various
- political wars, the design eventually decided on was one which was
- cheaper to get the vehicles but which was known to have significantly
- higher maintenance requirements and operating costs. Let's put the
- blame for this one where it belongs. One CAN blame NASA management of
- the day, but to my mind it makes more sense to blame a micromanaging
- congress that forced the choice between building a vehicle that was
- initially cheap or not building anything.
-
- Now, if you were running a space program and had a choice between
- using some optimistic numbers and opting for a design you CAN have,
- knowing that it will be expensive to run, and using pessimistic
- numbers and not getting diddly (and hence essentially killing what was
- going to be left of the space program), which would YOU do?
-
- Oh, sure, there is more than enough blame to go around to NASA
- management of those days over other decisions, but let's understand
- how they are forced to operate by the process. You want NASA space to
- work better? Change the process (like multi-year appropriations for
- entier programs, so that Congress doesn't come back later and
- 'stretch' them out, nickel and dime them to death, etc.).
-
- --
- "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
- in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
-