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comment by veen
veen  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I do not believe you, NASA

What do you think of the top comment on Hacker News about this?

    Sometime in the past fifty years NASA became paralyzed not by budget cuts, but by political in-fighting, fractured organizational structure and lots and lots of red tape. And then there is all that pork that goes around with the entrenched contractors. The tale of the last Mars program that NASA put together is a great example of this. They got handed a technically sound plan to get there in reasonable time with reasonable resources. Then every org-unit in NASA wanted to add their own part to stay relevant and it got so bloated both technically and financially that it had to be put to rest.

    So unless they convince me that they managed to get their internal structural problems under control, I don't think they get anytime to Mars within this century. And certainly not before the private sector does.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program

    p.s.: There is a free movie on YouTube telling the tale:

I wasn't aware at all of these in-house problems.





am_Unition  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd say that's a little bit blown out of proportion... but only a little bit.

I'm on a project right now, we're in our engineering model build. My organization was brought into the contract to quell political tension between the existing branches, two NASA branches and another organization. Between the four of us, it's pathetic how inefficient things progress. We're far behind schedule, and everyone knows that by the time it's time to build the flight model, we'll need additional funding. The project will be so far mature by that point that we can absolutely count on a budget extension. When someone completes a project on time and on budget, well, that's a miracle.

The red tape? Oh FUCK that shit. They want me to track spare, unused mechanical parts that are built-to-spec Swiss cheese with no potential usability in any future project, yet no one has the money to fund this level of traceability. Am I going to apply power to an instrument? I better check that the continuity and isolation of every single prong matches what's expected. Did I execute a line of code? Better fill a 50 page procedure, burn a CD, and submit to QA for approval.

Also, every single entity involved with NASA is so top-heavy because they can't afford to hire bright new minds, but the culture has a tendency to promote people like clockwork. You've got too many queens, and far too few worker bees.

Know what's pretty tight though? Sounding rockets. No QA, the small budgets can't afford such a luxury, and they have a >80% success rate.

Anyway, I have to work (swamped at the moment), but I'll answer anyone curious about specifics... eventually.

Source: entrenched contractor

Wintermute  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    My organization was brought into the contract to quell political tension between the existing branches, two NASA branches and another organization

When you say "between branches" do you mean between two NASA centers, or between branches inside one center?

I don't suppose you'd care to name and shame the center(s) involved...

am_Unition  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    When you say "between branches" do you mean between two NASA centers, or between branches inside one center?

Yes, "center" is the correct terminology, my bad.

    I don't suppose you'd care to name and shame the center(s) involved...

I've already given away too much information, hahah, sorry!

veen  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wow, that's pretty terrible for an organization that appears quite differently. How feasible do you think this Mars project is?

am_Unition  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not feasible. To quote a post I made previously:

    Everyone is Mars crazy right now. Sending anyone there without some Caterpillar-esque heavy machinery to burrow deep under the surface is a death sentence. Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere, and the atmosphere is ~300 times less dense than Earth's, so it has no mechanism to shield us from galactic cosmic rays or solar radiation. Talk of a Mars mission in the 2030's is still ridiculous to me, unless we're ordaining it the new Australia and upholding capitol punishment. We will have to send HUGE payloads to Mars to conduct some serious terraforming, and the odds are that even if we do all of our homework right, the process will take centuries before it's habitable in any sustainable way.

Right now, to me, Mars looks like a Foxhole with some antennae sticking out of it, lasting one or two human generations. Getting the supplies there to construct any kind of permanent establishment will take a far longer timescale than what anyone's projecting.

veen  ·  3402 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, it's never implied that the first person on Mars needs to survive. This episode of This American Life has an interview with someone who wants to go to Mars (Act 3), and she's totally okay with not surviving there.

Wintermute  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
Larso  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks for chiming in. I have done my time at NASA as an intern and I never want to go back. Private industry is so much better. We still have our procedures and checklists, but we write them with a mind to get things done, not an end unto themselves.

am_Unition  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Word.

Yeah, I read your experiences in a recent thread.

Welcome! :)

mk  ·  3403 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I am inclined to believe it. I've read about their organizational issues, and internal politics. It seems to me that they might benefit from reorganization. I am not familiar with the structure of NASA, but it seems to me that one project director should have ultimate power in seeing a project to completion, and that he/she should alone determine who is going to be assigned to each individual component. Like any massive undertaking, you need someone with executive power over all those that are part of the endeavor.