Congress Tries To Thwart the "Commercial" Aspect of Commercial Crew
Olson, Colleagues Urge White House to Correct Safety Glitch (NASA Commercial Crew)
“Rep. Pete Olson (R-Sugar Land) and several colleagues today urged White House Office of Science and Technology Director John Holdren to follow through on his understanding that NASA should retain all encompassing responsibility over the safety requirements for development of commercial crew vehicles. Under proposed agreements between NASA and commercial crew entities, NASA would not have the necessary authority to oversee and approve the safety measures needed to keep our astronauts safe.”
Keith’s note: This is really starting to get wacky. Republican (supposedly pro-business) members of Congress are trying to undermine the core principles that comprise “commercial” crew. For all intents and purposes they are slowly re-erecting all of the tradtional government/contractor interactions NASA has used for decades. Every time they do this, they diminish the ability of the private sector to do this “commercially”. Do commercial aircraft get built this way?
Two steps forward, six steps back. Geez, I liked it better when my grandparents generation ran things.
… your grandparents were “scared smart” by WWII and the cold war.
So when America started fractionating stupidly, they put the kibosh on extreme politics. This meant that while it was less pure, it was less damaging and more effectiveness could be engineered. That’s what you miss.
The purity of political movements seek to win at any cost, because then “they’ll be the big boss” and this kind of thinking leads to much misadventures done in the name of purity or “bipartisanship” that isn’t.
Pragmatism over purity must prevail. You do this by holding them to the exact details of political principles, which is extremely tedious because you have to fight the easy simplistic notions that wreck it in the fine print.
… your grandparents were “scared smart” by WWII and the cold war. and the Great depression as well?
Actually, the Depression experience meant that when things started getting “non strategic” in the 70’s recession, the great generation stopped a variety of things to keep it from getting worse.
Too bad this didn’t happen with our current recession – maybe it would have also staved off the worst.
You assume Republicans are pro free enterprise. You also assume that they support separation of business and state. Their actions speak louder than any words. What they really are is a group of socialists who want to privatize profit and socialize risk and loss for enterprises that maintain close ties to their political machines. Not only is that what they will actively support, but they will actively oppose any upstarts that threaten their position. Someone somewhere has done a balance sheet of what the space market looks like with Space X operating and is pushing the Republican Congress to to make sure that new market dynamic does not come to be. I’d love to see those projections and hear what the ‘stake holders’ have to say about them.
No. They simply devoutly distrust motivations behind budget, and wish to force it through their own lens as a result. Because of this devout cynicism, they become blind to the reactionary effect that undermines their own conservative principles. It’s like watching Wile E. Coyote hammer himself into the ground ignorantly – the passion overwhelms the principle.
They get it later but are too embarrassed to recover from the miss in not being “right” on something. So they overlook the net effect of acting like a socialist.
I suggest that a good way to understand this is to follow the money. There are a great many “old-space” firms whose business models are built around the old, inefficient, costly methods of procurement and management which the Congressman would like to restore.
The leaner, more cost effective, fixed-price SAA model does not mesh well with their traditional way of doing business. It also presents them with potential competitors capable of delivering similar services at much lower cost to the government.
Round up the usual suspects.
A contradiction of the conservative mantra. Believe it or not, they label “commercial crew” as a socialist handout that denies budget to the real business – the established prime contractors (e.g. large businesses that contribute to them are the only businesses that are true business and not a shill business).
This is actually reactionary politics, it injures conservative thought. But it is so useful and insidious that they wolf down this “red meat” before grasping the poison present – e.g. what if the industry base is shifting. Then they are actually working against their principles.
Yes – follow the money, but also hold them to their principles.
The true flaw for them is the neglect of principles. It bites. Hard.
Yeah, what oldscientist said, this happens all the time in stagnant industries–wealthy (and politically connected) incumbent firms, in the name of safety or environmental friendliness, etc lobby Congress to throw up roadblocks to their competition. Sure it increases their costs too, but a) it serves as a very good barrier to entry, and b) in the kind of cost-plus world they like to operate in, extra cost == extra profit.
Here is a perfect example:
NASA estimates that it will cost 12.9 Billion dollars to make
TWO LEO birds:
http://www.spacenews.com/ea…
While ESA signs a deal to make SIX GEO birds for 1.8
Billion:
http://www.spacenews.com/ea…
I find it kind of hard to believe that TWO LEO spacecraft can cost SIX TIMES more than SIX GEO birds
Are these guys being bribed by RSA and the Soyuz manufacturers?
Do commercial aircraft get built this way?
Not sure you really want to go there in your argument. The reason being that NASA has NO SAY in how commercial aircraft are built, nor whether they are certified. I have predicted before that if NASA is the airworthiness certifying authority (rather than the FAA), your costs are GOING to be higher. No fuzz on this peach. The reason is that the FAA, in the form of the FARs (e.g. FAR 25) are known entities. There is little risk of NEW (late) requirements being levied by the FAA on a commercial aicraft developer. That is so very NOT the case at all with NASA. For example, their human rating requirements are full of subjective BS where you are at the whims of a program manager to tell you what some requirement is, or what “safe” means in some case. NASA as an airworthiness certifying agency for commercial spacecraft is a complete unknown, and that represents risk, and risk translates to money. You can poke at Boeing as being “old space”, but it is exactly because Boeing knows the FAA, and thus knows the risk inherent of NOT knowing the real NASA regs, that they would rather the FAA certify commecial spacecraft. No doubt about it.
This looks like another good opportunity to quote some words from Jefferson Airplane’s “Blows Against the Empire”, which in turn come from John Wyndham’s Re-birth:
“In loyalty to their kind, they cannot tolerate our rise;
In loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate their obstruction.”
So, I’m confused.. On the FAA wikipedia it says
The FAA’s major roles include: Regulating U.S. commercial space transportation? There is a GAO report on this too; wherein the GAO recommended that FAA take several actions to improve its oversight
of commercial space launches, including assessing its future resource
needs.
http://www.gao.gov/products… Why FAA and not NASA? Is it because it has to launch and descend through airspace (posing safety and assurance issues)? How does NASA work with the FAA on this?
NASA is an R&D organization. FAA is responsible for regulation of commercial flight. Although, with NASA apparently forgetting what the first “A” means, the FAA is gradually taking over aviation R&D as well, a more important realm than spaceflight, at least for the foreseeable future.
No shock – one of Rep. Opson’s top contributors is Lockheed Martin.
http://www.opensecrets.org/…
Musk and Spacex gives at least a 2:1 ratio more funds to Dems, so whats your point? Did you find out if LockMart gives to Dems also? Lockheed splits its contributions about 1:1.
I have read the NASA requirements.I understood them differently than this Rep. did.NASA has stated their requirements,if they are not followed they will not be hired.One is that NASA will keep medical.
Such things as medical support have essentially no impact on the vehicle design; the facilities and personnel are already in place at JSC and KSC and the budget is quite small; the launch operators have even said it would be pointless for each of them to duplicate these services.
The purpose of the congressional inquiry was quite different, to sabotage the whole commercial program by claiming that only NASA can “design” a “safe” vehicle. If there is evidence for this claim I have not seen it.
There are problems with the FAA certification process as well, just ask any small manufacturer. But at least it is a known and maybe it could be improved.
So why doesnt “commercial space” just go and build them on their own? Oh thats right, its not really “commercial” space. They want to feed at the taxpayer trough too, but they dont want any baggage associated with it. Guys, we have traded 1 pig feeding at the trough (old space) for another untried one (new space). If commercial space wante to be left alone, all they have to do is stop asking for handouts from taxpayers and build it on their own dime. Then they can just say “we have a ride for you, and it will cost X amount.”
Do commercial aircraft get built this way?How much did Boeing ask for, and get from the taxpayers to build the 787?
So how do people feel about civil disobedience?