🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <1989Jul10.044722.16489@utzoo.uucp>, by henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):

> NASA rejects the [inevitable] bid protest from Hercules over the award
> of the ASRM contract to Lockheed/Aerojet, clearing the way for contract
> negotiations.


The politics of this award are most interesting. Lockheed is a
recognized and respected prime contractor and system integrator.
Hercules is a recognized and respected sub contractor. Hercules was
going to sub contract out the system integration to a recognized and
respected company that is usually a prime contractor. NASA insisted
that the prime contractor also be the system integrator, hence
Lockheed got the bid.

Another nice example of having to be a member of the club before you
can join the club.

While I'm saying nasty things about NASA let me point you all at an
article entitled "After Thirty-two Months of CYA CHALLENGER- The Truth
Slowly Outs" by Yale Jay Lubkin in the May, 1989, issue of Defense
Science. 

If you believe that Challenger was destroyed by a frozen O ring find a
copy of this article and read it. It quotes from Dr.  Richard
Feynman's book "What Do You Care What Other People Think" and then
backs up Feynman's opinions. 

One great quotation from Dr. George Keyworth, President Reagan's
science advisor, is "Of all the organizations that I have dealt with,
some so wrapped up in their bureaucratic interests that they were
certainly counter to the direction ... the country was going in. Some
of them filled with incompetent people.  Some of them outstanding. I
have only seen one that lied. It was NASA.  From the top to the bottom
they lie.... The reason they lie, of course, is because they are
wrapped up in a higher calling. In their eyes they are white lies.
They tell lies in order to do what has to be done. Because in the end
the result will be for the betterment of the public. So they are not
lying from evil.  But, nvertheless, they are lying."

In my personal opinion those lies, told for what ever "good" reasons,
have destroyed NASA in the minds of the public whose "betterment" was
the reason for the lies. In plain english, you can't do business with
a liar.

			Bob P.

-- 
-              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
- UUCP Address:  decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
-
-             Reality is stranger than most can imagine.