🚀 go-pugleaf

In <JMC.92Dec29222737@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>The reason Shuttle costs are so much more than projected is that the
>Shuttle requires this army to maintain it between flights.  Hydrogen
>isn't much more expensive than expected, and I doubt the solid fuel
>is either.  When the Shuttle was first proposed, the idea of operating
>it like an airline was part of the plan from the beginning.  It
>turned out that the Shuttle operated too close to the limits of the
>materials and structures of which it was made.  That's why it needs
>so much maintenance.

Well, actually, it's even worse than that.  The original design
concept for the Shuttle system was totally different.  It was
projected to initially cost more and have much lower maintenance
costs.  Due to Congressional budget cutting and all the various
political wars, the design eventually decided on was one which was
cheaper to get the vehicles but which was known to have significantly
higher maintenance requirements and operating costs.  Let's put the
blame for this one where it belongs.  One CAN blame NASA management of
the day, but to my mind it makes more sense to blame a micromanaging
congress that forced the choice between building a vehicle that was
initially cheap or not building anything.  

Now, if you were running a space program and had a choice between
using some optimistic numbers and opting for a design you CAN have,
knowing that it will be expensive to run, and using pessimistic
numbers and not getting diddly (and hence essentially killing what was
going to be left of the space program), which would YOU do?

Oh, sure, there is more than enough blame to go around to NASA
management of those days over other decisions, but let's understand
how they are forced to operate by the process.  You want NASA space to
work better?  Change the process (like multi-year appropriations for
entier programs, so that Congress doesn't come back later and
'stretch' them out, nickel and dime them to death, etc.).

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.