DC Lobbying Firms Enter The SLS Vs Commercial Space Proxy War
Sources report that K Street lobbying & crisis management firm TDS Public Affairs https://t.co/RgmafBgoms with blatant Republican roots is quietly trying to place favorable op-eds about @NASA_SLS and sow skepticism about commercial space @SpaceX @BoeingSpace #IAC2018 pic.twitter.com/sGCLRHWjHx
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) October 4, 2018
It really sounds like the Old NASA Contractors are getting desperate restoring to such dirty tricks. Sad, just sad.
Ars Technica is on it too
https://arstechnica.com/sci…
Please be careful about that. Ars Technica published a story on the subject, but it’s the one cited here on NASA Watch for the “Big Aerospace Reaches For The Stars While Using Smear Tactics” report. So this isn’t an independent confirmation. I don’t doubt either story, but that’s not the point.
I’m sorry to criticize an honest mistake, but there is too much “fake news” around. Back-and-forth references are one way those reports gain apparent credibility, so I feel like any sort of circular reference needs to be squashed like a bug. (And bonus points to anyone who can remember the document who’s index included, “Circular reference: See Reference, circular” and “Reference, circular: See Circular reference.”)
Business Insider traced the article back to the author, and he says it was given to a Boeing employee and no one else.
https://www.businessinsider…
Well, that’s exactly the sort of independent confirmation and fingerprints I was interested in. Thanks.
It’s going to get worse, too, if SLS gets delayed more while the commercial space capsules start carrying crew flights up.
Old space should consider an old Australian political saying. “He who throws dirt looses ground.”
It will be much worst if the BFS do more than hopping at South Texas before there is a crewed Orion flight.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old Space should burn and rave at the end of their relevance;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise congressmen know New Space is cheaper and right they will take care of the old guard with pork and cost plus bloat.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good PR, the last wave by, smearing the upstarts with op eds
Their frail shilling lies might have danced in a backroom deal
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild CEOs who rest on laurels of past flights,
And learn, too late, while they grieved on throw away vehicles
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave companies, near death, who see with blinding sight of the coming new space revolution
Blind eyes could blaze like a first stage landing on barges or land,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, NASA, there on the sad decline
Curse, bless, the #moon2mars now with your fierce PAO tweets, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The only surprising thing here is how long it took.
At a lower level, it’s been going on for some time. That’s at the level of people in the field lacking faith in SpaceX, because someone they know at ULA or LMA or where ever would roll their eyes and say, “Oh, them. Well, if you want to believe that…” And some of that is people legitimately and honestly having faith in their own organization and suspecting aspirational claims. And some of it is probably making sure the rumor mill is talking down the competition.
The Space X people have a can-do attitude that is based on their having been building and flying space capsules and rockets and more rockets and bigger rockets and having tried new things like landings and having succeeded, on a regular routine basis. By comparison, Lockheed Martin on Orion, after 15 years and fifteen billion $$, has flown a couple parachute tests. Their capsule was largely made in Europe, yet having reused existing components it didn’t get less expensive or make it into operation any faster-remember its about a decade behind schedule now and we haven’t gotten to the first manned orbital flights yet. Boeing has less experience than that. SLS does not yet exist and even on paper looks like a compromised design based on old technology with essentially zero improvements. I get a kick out of NASA, wandering from Mars to asteroids to Gateways; they have no bona-fide requirements to do anything. And yet they promote the people behind their failures into top leadership positions. If you think the rank and file feel there is no leadership, you’d be right! .
SLS definitely exists on more than paper. No matter what I think if it, they are very definitely bending metal.
Bending metal and slipping the EM-1 schedule, again. Now NET June 2020, and hints of 2021. By the time EM-1 flies both New Glenn and BFR will be flying, and making SLS irrelevant to all but the pork farmers.
I will give you that they are building something, but it is not the vehicle they have said for some time that they need and we’ve heard recently that the more advanced and more capable versions are being pushed out by several years, maybe a decade or longer, so what is being built and what will fly is questionable.
That’s pretty much correct. The initial, Block 1 version can’t do what SLS is intended to do. (Whatever that is, and unless it is simply a jobs program.) Block 1B has slipped a few years, and still isn’t everything the claim SLS can be, and Block 2 is far enough off they haven’t even completely settled on the details. It will use “advanced” boosters instead of the five-segment solid rockets, but there are multiple, competing concepts for what those “advanced” boosters will be like. On this schedule, at least engineers who were new hires at the start of the Constellation program will still be below retirement age when Block 2 flies.
One of the problems with NASA’s effectiveness in the last couple decades is they take so long to accomplish anything that by the time they finally get something done know one knows or remembers what it was they were trying to do in the first place. It does not inspire confidence.
As regards reporting here and especially by Eric Berger et al, it should be pointed out that Boeing has been, for years now, receiving signficantly more funding from NASA for, essentially, performing the same (basic strategic) task for the nation; yet, they pretty apparently, are pulling these stunts. The point? They are doing these dirty tricks not with their own money, but with OUR money. They are using government funds for purposes directly contrary to the goals of this government program; and, intentionally hiding who’s doing it. To say that they could not be brought up short on that by those who hold the purse strings, IF there was an honest determination to do so, is simply not realistic.
NASA is NOT helpless here. But it appears to be acting like it is. And the nation is NOT the better off with these antics. This behavior is not victimless; Boeing certainly doesn’t believe it to be.
Remind me again , HOW MANY Falcon Heavy’s can fly how many times for the same $$$ as one throwaway SLS launch ? How many BFR-BFS launch and lands for one $L$ throwaway mission ? And what is that mission , exactly ?
Posting editorials is freedom of speech. That said Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop used be small aviation startup businesses. Now after growing large because of multiple military buildups they are giant government contractors. Companies like SpaceX with continued success will join that club themselves.
Writing and publishing editorials is certainly protected speech. Deliberately concealing authorship, or misleading people about the authors’ conflicts of interest, that’s another matter. I’m not familiar with the case law, but I’d be surprised if the use of pseudonyms or front men were protected in the same way. It would be interesting to see what the courts said, if some jurisdiction passed laws on the subject to combat “fake news.”
With the furor over Russian “interference” came examples of advertisements supposedly placed to sway opinion. I thought that the ads were marvelously innovative.
In comparison, the efforts of K Street seem ham-fisted, and unsophisticated.
I keep thinking about how much we can accomplish if all this lobbying effort was put into building spaceships. It’s as if there are more business and admin people than engineers and technicians.