How NASA Changed The Cloud
The Secret History of OpenStack, the Free Cloud Software That’s Changing Everything, Wired
“So [Federal CIO Vivek] Kundra summoned Chris Kemp to the White House, and he eventually used NASA Nebula to launch USAspending.gov — a site that shared the government’s spending with the world at large — while drawing up plans to expand the platform to other agencies as well. The problem was that certain U.S. lawmakers and NASA bureaucrats were intent on killing the project. Chief among them was Senator Richard Shelby, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, according to Kemp. Shelby’s office didn’t respond to an inquiry from Wired, but Kemp says that the senator saw Nebula as a jobs-killer. “Whenever I would talk in Washington about this cloud technology enabling data centers to run without people, this was interpreted as jobs going away,” Kemp says. “There was a serious political challenge to the project…and I was called before the NASA administrator — of the whole agency — to explain it.”
So a Republican Senator is trying to kill a project that he thinks would reduce the size of the public service, because it would reduce the size of government?
Yes, the same guy who is trying to kill American commercial crew transportation. Another high-technology venture that would reduce the size of the government with more efficient and competitive private operations.
On SLS vs COTS/CCDev, they pretend they are protecting “experience” gained during the shuttle program, and avoiding the risk of handing the US space program over to “hobby rocket makers” (the line that lobbyists from the primes like to spread), not just protecting jobs.
This project, otoh; protecting jobs is the only reason given. How exactly do they intend to reduce the size of government, if they are unwilling to actually, you know, reduce the size of government?
With this mentality, at the beginning of the 20th century, Congress would have outlawed the automobile to protect the jobs of the members of the Buggy Whip Makers Union.
Uh, the unions for sailing ships burned down Fulton’s first steamship because of its expected competition.
When you think about it, they WERE right.
Shelby is (I think) 78 years old. I’m inclined to suspect that issues like this are not about jobs or size of government, but rather simply about avoiding change. You can teach an old dog new tricks only if he’s willing to make the effort. It’s much easier to just stay in the same old well-worn rut.
Steve
Shelby is a very fearful defender of his status quo – as he defines it. That which challenges it, in any way, is an enemy. Makes friend/foe determination reflex – believes you should never think about such because of the fear of being fooled. Fear is his middle name.
His definition of waste is anything not in his status quo or not part of one of his quid pro quo’s. A rationale (often many when they fail successively) is manufactured to bad mouth them. Many of these “decisions” actually are disfavorable to his constituents / country because they are unexamined.
He is perfectly representative of a common American view – coward.
The degree to which Sen. Shelby is allowed to say such outlandish stupid things is pretty incredible. Suffice to say, most NASA employees in Alabama are indifferent as long as they get a few chunks of change.
of course, the larger chunks get routed to contract owners getting rich.
I suspect Senator Shelby’s concern was more about Nebula being run out of ARC in CA rather than MSFC in AL.