GAO on DOD EELV Acqusition
EELV: DOD Is Addressing Knowledge Gaps in Its New Acquisition Strategy, GAO
“The Department of Defense (DOD) has numerous efforts in progress to address the knowledge gaps and data deficiencies identified in the GAO report. Of the seven recommendations GAO made to the Secretary of Defense, two have been completely addressed. While two of GAO’s recommendations have actions underway that are expected to be completed, two recommendations need more action for completion and one has had no action taken.”
It seems the GAO is aware of leaner business models and the potential for less costly procurements.
I especially like the part on page 16 – “Independent launch verification is only a small percentage of overall launch vehicle mission assurance activities, however, and most mission assurance activities remain undefined and unquantified. DOD officials are working to develop standards for potential new launch providers, but actions are still needed to address defining mission assurance requirements. As we previously reported, defining mission assurance requirements for national security space launches is important as new entrants emerge who will have to meet and account for defined mission assurance requirements to compete with ULA for EELV-class launches.”
Now translating that into English, the government/customer has been happy to pay for something for years, just that they are not sure what it is, but now that some new providers are showing up wanting to get into this business, we better define it especially well for them.
It’s not clear, to read the report, if for ULA we’ll also apply these new measures? Notice the phrasing – “DOD officials are working to develop standards for potential new launch providers”. It would have been easy to say instead “that will apply to all providers”-but it does not, nor does it hint at this direction.
Ahh… Ma’Bell monopolies. Gotta love it. Till the love affair is over that is.
Yeah, should be all. Maybe allow for a grandfather period if someone isn’t compliant. Also, who (DOD officials) is in charge of defining the standards? If there is no intention to actually come through and make these standards/requirements then what? When SpaceX et al are ready, someone says yes or no?
I can’t speak to the specifics in this case but in other cases I have been involved with the goal is to quantify what the current provider is delivering to make sure that the new provider is giving you something that is at least as safe as what you are already getting. Then for follow on procurements you can choose to increase the requirements in order to drive for safer and safer products and yes these new requirement would apply to everyone.
Thanks, that sounds like the way to go about it.
TNEaK:
“…most mission assurance activities remain undefined and unquantified….”
Bean counters covering their butts, managers covering their butts and board members covering theirs with their share holders.
Sounds like a culture of mistrust if you ask me. I think that having the Spacex team roaring after the Dragon capsule capture at ISS shows that culture can be changed in this industry. It might even be a key component of why Spacex has succeeded with the limited resources at their disposal.
tinker
Tinker,
I wonder if we can use one of Marc’s/Keith’s future polls to gather data on how people see what you’ve just described with respect to geographic location, specific industry/subindustry, company size, and/or other relevant demographics. I suspect that the results, if honest and accurate, would provide some surprises.
My gut feel these days is that, more and more, people/companies/governments act less like we would want them to because we collectively seem to keep saying that we expect them to work in ways we don’t want them to.
If you call somebody lazy or a crook long enough, and many people appear to agree with you, and there are no apparent material consequences to the individual, he eventually is going to figure what the hell and actually become lazy or a crook (or more so than previously). May as well be hung for the deed as for the label.
On one hand, reading NASA Watch and other aerospace-related “sources” which include either published commentary or readers comments, or both, I get the impression that people working in D.C., the whole beltway area, and regions hosting NASA, Boeing and LM centers see everybody with the same job title as the same sort of crook or incompetent. The impression is of deliberate and endemic bad practices and mass incompetence for a variety of reasons, which collectively make the whole game seem nefarious and beyond hope of saving. In short, these are the selfish and stupid way these people all act every day and it’s never going to change for the better.
On the other hand, I have worked in cities, and with people from cities, in the US and other countries, who have shown me clearly that everybody in the aerospace industry, and it peripheries, are not selfish incompetents, deliberately compromising programs for their own ends. Of course, I have seen bad behavior elsewhere, but it existed solely at the higher levels and was typically part of in-house personal running feuds rather than obtuse political maneuvering, and it was condemned by fellow workers rather than simply endlessly accepted as the status quo. And all of my comments herein pertaining to the aerospace industy generally apply to the various nations’ military organizations that I’ve dealt with as well.
My experience says that it’s absolutely possible, and even common, for aerospace business to be conducted in a civilized and effective manner (with normal sertbacks and delays), yet this is at odds with much of what I read here, where even people like no one of consequence, whose opinions and experience I have come to respect, appear to accept that self-centered, ineffective, politically-oriented behaviors are not only ubiquitous, but represent a status quo that simply can not be overturned.
So, I’d be in favor of a poll on the matter, in the hope of learning whether I’m simply engaged in wishful thinking, or if perhaps there is hope for the aerospace industry being turned around. And who knows, we might possibly discover that the seemingly predominant viewpoint/behaviors here are not indicative of the situation across the entire country.
These are just my thoughts, but I’d be very interseted in what you, Mr. C., and others think on the matter and the worth of a poll.
Steve
accept that self-centered, ineffective, politically-oriented behaviors are not only ubiquitous, but represent a status quo that simply can not be overturned.
I have been in this a very long time. Also in very different businesses, including DC circles, primes, military, and counterparts in many other countries. All of them are sick of what your sick of as well. It modulates in themes, but its still the same song.
You can tone it down a notch, but you can’t eliminate it, because the issues are in coping with human nature. So I suggest a more helpful approach is that of reduction.
Many form grand approaches as a means of selling something else. Some of the commenters/bloggers are well paid to achieve a goal, and if you think that ATK poll wasn’t in part paid slamming, well, I’d think you to be a kind trusting soul. Wish I could be that sometimes.
What I suggest is what I call “four function calculator tests”. Whereby you poke holes with a back of the envelope calculation – hell, even Google’s search engine has a nice calculator that does units real well.
If everyone forces realism and endorses it, you’d be surprised how far it goes to controlling political behaviours. I heard it described as “scientific dittoheadism” once while at NASA.
Because many then re-radiate these. Ridicule is a powerful weapon. But I’ll admit it isn’t easy to get in this habit. Especially for someone as old as myself.
You build a powerful following too this way,
It is getting overturned, just not as fast as we’d all like. Meanwhile, Senators and Congressmen will continue to fund who cater to them and do nothing. Lifes like that.
Thanks for your thoughts, Mr. C.
I’ve had similar thoughts about “reduction,” and it can sometimes help short term, but then we’re faced with the problem that it very much becomes cyclic, and unless we can enforce an overall trend on the cycles, nothing lasting is attained. And this typically requires too much overly-long-term attention for most people, since every day brings new problems to solve and challenges to deal with just getting on with life.
I don’t worry overmuch about the paid commentators in any method or media because they’ve always been there, one way or another, and no doubt always will. The disappointment there, to me, is that so many readers/listeners can’t seem to see the obvious and filter out the bias and prejudice, and so end up repeating propaganda and gossip to one another as if they were gospel. Maybe everybody should be forced to pass a high school course in evaluating Marshall Mcluhan before being allowed into the real world (and I’m only half kidding).
I recognize the nature of this problem (whatever we might choose to call it), who the major and minor contributors are, and the unlikelihood of “fixing” it, either in my lifetime or through the instigations of a small number of people. So, why do I seem to be so obsessed about it? That’s a question I can answer; it’s because I’m convinced that, as is the case with ecology and economics, this “problem” is ultimately self-correcting; but, again as with ecology and economics, the corrective measures that eventuate will care nothing for the welfare and comforts individual people or families. Systems maintain themselves, not their component pieces. So the components are “maintained” only when some additional factor is in play, and in the case of human systems, like the one we’ve been discussing, the people themselves are the only potential “additional factor.” Until we get into the habit of making our own beds and cleaning our own rooms, our quality of life — institutional and social — is going to continue to be much less than what it could be, and could suddenly become far below what we consider acceptable (we can call this the Mad Max Syndrome, I guess). At this point in human history, we still have choices about what our collective future will be, but those choices are gradually being eroded away, by us.
Steve