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NASA's SLS Roadshow Heads For Indiana. The First of 50 Or Just A Stunt?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 19, 2017
Filed under , ,

Keith’s note: I do not recall the NASA SLS mafia heading out to a specific state to talk to see how local companies are helping out on SLS – at least not recently. Is this just a one-off thing to curry favor in the Vice President’s home state – or are they going to start doing this for every state in the union? And are the going to do this for other NASA programs? If this is a national effort then that would be an interesting way to demonstrate just how wide an industrial base is required to build large space hardware. But if this is just a dog and pony stunt to kiss up to the VP then its value will be minimal. This also smells like the beginning of a slow motion effort to assure the SLS faction that NASA has got their back.
Checking this page at NASA.gov you get this list of companies that support SLS/Orion and GSDO *(Ground Systems Development and Operations) in Indiana. So there is certainly a there – there – as there is across the country.
So NASA, what is the next state that the SLS road show will be visiting?

https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2017/indiana.jpg

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

14 responses to “NASA's SLS Roadshow Heads For Indiana. The First of 50 Or Just A Stunt?”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Its just a reminder to the local Congress Critters who might be interested in pulling the plug on SLS that they would be killing jobs in their Districts. NASA has always been a master at spreading the pork around.

    • Joe Denison says:
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      Important to note here that CCP also points out how many companies are involved with the program. There is nothing wrong with pointing out how NASA funding benefits people on a local level. It connects people to how space exploration can be useful to their own personal lives vs. being a solely esoteric endeavor.

  2. mfwright says:
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    If all I know of Orion/SLS is this image, I cannot see how useful it is for deep space exploration. No lander, no transition/habitat module for long distances, just a basic capsule to serve as highspeed re-entry. This illustrates oxymoron, space is nothing and exploring nothing is for what purpose?

  3. Joe Denison says:
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    NASA SLS has done outreach events in several states before this. (Got a picture and an SLS bookmark from one in Auburn, AL).

    Nothing wrong with them pointing out all the companies in various states that do work on SLS (commercial crew program does it too). I agree though that if they are only doing this in Indiana for VP Pence’s benefit it is a bit silly.

    To conclude I don’t have much of a problem with you calling certain politicians you don’t like the “Alabama mafia” but there is no need to equate everybody who works on SLS to a criminal organization. There are a lot of good people working on this project regardless of whether you think the project is worthwhile or not.

    • unfunded_dreams says:
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      I agree completely. Space is exciting an cool – that’s why you’re so passionate about it. Letting these communities see that they are part of this program – how they are making contributions from Muncie Indiana, that *might* encourage a few more kids to pursue a STEM career, it might cause them to support NASA – or might give them one more reason to be proud of their country.
      That’s not a value judgement for or against the SLS program in particular. I think NASA could do a better job of letting people know how their communities are linked to space programs, so I don’t see the need to criticize when they are working on just that.

      • mfwright says:
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        “NASA could do a better job of letting people know how their communities are linked to space programs”

        Yet there are many including those who are pro-space that want to close NASA centers. Perhaps we should model NASA after a shopping center. These typically have a few big anchor stores with huge inventory of stuff and pay the majority of lease revenue (Orion/SLS/ISS). Then there are several little but interesting stores (aeronautics/planetary science/earth science/[insert one of many depts in NASA] that make the shopping center interesting which attracts shoppers. Yank the big stuff, the little ones don’t have enough to keep the entire complex running. Get rid of the little stuff, people will someplace else that has interesting stuff.

  4. Michael Spencer says:
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    Mr. Musk: build everything in-house in order to control costs and reduce management/logistics.
    Mr. Jobs (quoting Alan Kay): People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

    NASA: Costs? What?

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Yes, if NASA was worried about costs they would do a lot on consolidation. But when President Johnson set it up he knew Pork would be needed to get its budgets approved, so the work was always spread around.

      Let’s be honest, there was nothing built at Johnson Space Center that could have been built easier at Langley, same with Goddard. But Goddard and JSC brought two more states into the pork fold. Same with Huntsville. The US Army A4/V2 researchers could have stayed at WSMR, but Alabama had an empty WW2 plant to fill and a powerful Senator so…

      • fcrary says:
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        One minor correction: The rocket work in Huntsville predates NASA by two or three years. They moved from White Sands to the Red Stone Arsenal in 1956, when the Army Ballistic Missile Agency was formed.

    • IamGrimalkin says:
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      Job’s in-house hardware philosophy didn’t actually reduce costs though, that’s one of the reasons why apple products are so expensive.

  5. Vladislaw says:
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    Love, Brother Love, say Brother Love’s traveling SLS show .. pack up the babies and grab the old ladies cuz everyone knows…..