Comments on: Followup on MSL: Griffin’s spin

By: Aviation News

Aviation News — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:33:42 +0000

Excellent post and I would like to add the following. Improper reporting of expenditures is only part of the basic problem at NASA. The problem with NASA is that it has been dragging it's feet for to long. Year after year, and decade after decade, of low earth orbit would make any common American citizen bored of what NASA is doing. If the American citizen gets bored with NASA, then Congress may get bored with NASA. That means less funding. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. The only really exciting science related stuff has come from the unmanned Mars robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which have been enormously successful, and relatively cheap. The problem is only scientists and technical people get excited about Spirit and Opportunity. If NASA wants to gain the backing of the American people, they need to speed up the process of human exploration of space. Back in the Apollo days, we went to the moon within a 9 year period. Today, it can take 9 years just to get a NASA program approved by Congress. At the rate that NASA is going, private enterprise will pass it in terms of getting humans back into space exploration. And if not private enterprise, then China will gladly take the role of a global leader in space exploration. For news about aviation and space visit Aviation News - For the Aviation and Space Enthusiast.

By: KC

KC — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:15:44 +0000

“Make a rule that any mission, no matter how expensive, gets mothballed if it runs over budget by a predetermined amount.”

Problem is as someone, pointed out up above, NASA projects aren’t allowed to submit realistic budgets. In order to get a project approved they have to essentially lie to Congress. Unless Congress and the public is willing to fund science projects at the appropriate level, including contingency funds to cover those unexpected problems, I don’t see how else it can be done. If we followed your advice, the result would be massive waste and a landscape littered with half-finished projects.

By: NASA

NASA — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:16:51 +0000

[...] Posted by 01101001 Same matter: BA Blog: A Stern warning: Related: BA Blog: Followup on MSL: Griffin

By: ccpetersen

ccpetersen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:03:10 +0000

Byron, thanks for saying that. I thought about going there (budget discussions) because I do have some limited experience with these kinds of budget exercises. Explaining them is always tricky… kinda like business calculus, in a way.

By: Quiet Desperation

Quiet Desperation — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:54:40 +0000

Money is the root of all evil.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” — Timothy 6:10

Money itself is a tool to be used for good or bad.

By: timplausible

timplausible — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:35:46 +0000

What I dislike is that most of the time a project over-runing its budget or schedule is viewed as a failure of implementation and/or a failure of management. No one ever points out that it is just as likely that the cost of the mission is what it actually takes to do the job, and that what went horribly wrong was the planning stage of the mission – initial cost estimates were too low. This is important, because NASA is expected to do great things without failures, yet is also squeezed on the budget side. This sends conflicting messages to planners: do great things, but don’t tell us that it will cost a lot of money. Fixing cost overruns is going to require an examination of this side of the equation, not just telling implementation teams and managers to do their jobs better. Just because people want science and exploration in space to cost less doesn’t mean that it can.

By: byron

byron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:21:11 +0000

My guess is none of you ever work on a budget system. Budgets aren’t absolutes, they’re benchmarks. In NASA’s case they propose a benchmark of costs to the Congress and congress says yay or nay.

In corporate America they use Budgets to control expenses so they can manage costs as they relate to company value. So if a budget is reaching its capacity they cut costs, reduce functionality or fire people and cut corners. NASA, that isn’t much of an option.

NASA’s goal isn’t to return an ROI to investors as it relates to profiting from a product line that has controlled/fixed costs – its to get an ROI of knowledge as well as technology that can be passed down to educational, private and commercial sectors. Thats wortha billion times more than what NASA gets today.

Private industry isn’t going to launch, design, build, maintain a project of this scope (har har har). If we think the dollar is worth more than the knowledge & experience gained from this then as a society were screwed.

Money is the root of all evil.