National Space Council User Advisory Group Is Purging Innovation From Its Ranks
Keith’s note: Newt Gingrich and Pete Worden have been removed from the National Space Council User Advisory Group (UAG) for reasons that sources say have to do with issues that arose while vetting Gingrich and Worden to serve on the UAG. That’s the official excuse. Vetting is good thing to do especially for advisory groups. Oddly this “User” Advisory Group is more like a “Customer” Advisory Group with a majority of its members representing companies who already receive (and seek) huge amounts of money from NASA, DOD, DOC, etc. and have a vested interest in maintaining one or another aspect of the status quo. Actual potential users of space from the perspective of the U.S. government are virtually absent from this panel. This panel is all about serving the interests of Big Aerospace.
Many of the UAG members come from the top of Big Aerospace and serve as CEOs/Chairs/Presidents: Marillyn Hewson (Lockheed Martin), Dennis Muilenburg (Boeing), Wes Bush (Northrop Grumman), Fatih Ozmen (Sierra Nevada), David Thompson (Orbital ATK), Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX), Bob Smith (Blue Origin), and Tory Bruno (ULA). Add in members representing the two major commercial space trade groups for Big Aerospace such as Eric Stallmer (Commercial Spaceflight Federation) and Mary Lynne Dittmar (Coalition for Deep Space Exploration) and you have the majority of Big Aerospace Advising the National Space Council on how America should do things in space. Not exactly a recipe for change and innovation.
To be certain SpaceX and Blue Origin and other new companies seek to upset the status quo – but right now they are, for the most part, still regular government customers just like the older companies. By a strange coincidence, pushing for change and innovation in space are two traits that Gingrich and Worden are best known for. It would seem that these things are of lesser important to the National Space Council these days. Not a good sign.
Look at National Space Council User's Advisory Group membership and the overt Big Aerospace bias. Where are the "users"? Is anyone on UAG under 50? Where is the next generation who will truly inherit space? Scott Pace @JimBridenstine et al seriously need to look into this. #UAG pic.twitter.com/spHnTfcKxc
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 19, 2018
I am confused. What are they vetting for? That they are not CEOs of corporations? Worden was an Air Force general. It can’t be security.
BTW. From what I have read about Worden, he would make a better Deputy Administrator than Janet Kavandi.
I’m not sure, but _undisclosed_ conflicts of interest are a potential problem. Everyone knows Bruno is CEO of ULA. When he offers opinions about issues affecting ULA, people know to take it with a gain of salt. I believe Stallmer and Dittmar would be expected to list the companies which fund their organizations, so people would know when to take their opinions with a gain of salt.
But some conflicts of interest might not be obvious (e.g. close relatives with a large financial interest in a relevant company.) For advisory groups like this, I believe the members are supposed to disclose those sorts of things, and someone is supposed to check and make sure the did so accurately and completely. At least, that’s the sort of thing required for members of the NASA Advisory Council, and I assume similar things would apply here.
This is disturbing.
Keith – Just a typo: I believe the word is “arose” as opposed to “arouse”…! Best, – John
I think they’re kicking the two potentially outspoken members off. Though in the chase of these two I wouldn’t mistake “outspoken” with reformers or people seeking positive change.
“Not a good sign…” is an understatement. Always follow the money and greed and ego are readily uncovered. Nothing will change even given the “new guys” in the game. And the space program will hang on by the same 45 year old thread and not end up going anywhere or really accomplishing anything new. More distractions will follow at every administration change and money will be diffused away as we head toward 10 billion on this ball, with all the associated consequences (and those in charge now have no clue or desire to prepare for that future).
I think that the new focus on space commerce and the Space Force will change things. And NASA’s role will change to being a supporter of commercial ventures instead of doing it by itself.
Indeed, Administrator Bridenstine highlighted that as he noted that instead of NASA building lunar landers and rovers they will just buy rides in the future on commercial ones. Buy rides from six different firms. If 3 make it, its a better scoring average then Hockey as he noted. He hinted that they would even do that for the human landers and facilities on the Moon. Lunar COTS, but hopefully without the micromanagement that has resulted in CCP being dragged out for so long.
Except that Hockey has a proven source of customers, product and revenue as compared to anything or anyplace regarding human space flight. There is a huge chicken-egg dilemma that all the rose-colored glass wearers just seem to dismiss with arguments of technology and “commercial” space companies will “save” us all. I will be surprised if we see humans out of Earth orbit anytime in the next 20 years given current understanding and proven fiscal support.
>Hockey has a proven source of customers
Yep, another silly analogy is people spend more on beer than the NASA budget. However most people spectators so spending money on beer then they are a participant.
>”commercial” space companies will “save” us all.
And yes, commercial companies will do outstanding work, they just need govt money.
The point the Administrator was making is that if you put your eggs in a lot of baskets you could afford to lose a few. And this of course lowers costs.
If you are sending a single 2 billion rover to the Moon you better make sure it arrives safety and works.
If you are sending a couple of dozen cheap $50 million rovers it doesn’t matter if you lose a few, so you are able to take risks in terms of landing sites and the quality of its design.
That depends on the details, the cost as a function of probability of success in particular. We don’t have many examples when it comes to planetary missions, so pinning down the details isn’t easy.
The best I’ve been able to come up with supports your (well, our, since I agree) position. The NAS study on scientific small satellites looked at success rates for various sorts of NASA missions, and found that class C and D mission (try to make it work but no one’s world will end if it doesn’t) have been 80% successful. Class A and B missions (do whatever it takes to make sure it works) have a 90% success rate. Discovery missions (class B) are consistent with that, with one failure and one partial failure out of 11 missions.
Cost is harder it pin down, but with one example (GRACE and GRAIL) and discussing it with people who have worked on various classes of NASA missions, it looks like class B missions cost two to three times as much as an equally capable mission designed for class C reliability.
That means, for the same overall cost, you could fly 20 missions and have 20% fail, or 10 missions and have 10% fail. That’s 16 successes and 4 failures, or 9 successes and 1 failure. 16 is greater than 9, so lower reliability and more attempts seems to be the way to maximize success.