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View Full Version : NASA screws the pooch...again!



HighRoller
09-08-2004, 03:12 PM
In yet another example of blinding incompetency, NASA's Genesis probe augered into the Utah desert instead of being caught by helicopters like NASA planned. Wonder how many of our tax dollars got crumpled along with the probe? It's hard to imagine how a well thought plan like theirs could have gone wrong. Let's see...they hired hollywood stunt helicopter pilots to try and "snare" the probe as it fell to earth on a parachute. Good plan.
I'm at a loss here. Two space shuttles at 500 million a piece, a 125 million dollar Mars probe, two Mars rovers and a space telescope that cost a billion dollars and didn't work properly until fixed. All of these failures costing human lives and billions of dollars due to incompetency, and I haven't heard of a single person at NASA losing their job. How many more Fukk ups do we let them have until we outsource their work to the private sector?

Racer277
09-08-2004, 03:24 PM
Are you kidding me!!!These guys are sending things into OUTER SPACE! This is rocket science. These things haven't been done before. It's amazing every time something goes right not wrong. Think about all of the systems that have to operate perfectly for these things to work. Any one of MILLIONS of things goes slightly wrong and this thing ends up in another solar system. A chute simply didn't deploy. This happens in drag racing, this happens everywhere.
If you want to know about NASA guys losing their jobs, I can tell you it happens every month! Within the hour of the lunar landers touching the moon, they started handing out pink slips, Every Time! Then they would gradually hire back as they needed over the next year for the next launch. Do you know what NASA guys get paid? Nothing near what private industry pays.
Remember this is all lowest priced bidder on millions of parts and processes. Oversight mandates that, a better way is not as important as a cheaper way. Do you think the engineers want it that way? It's the political oversight commitees and monday quaterbacks that do. These guys are devastated over this, loss of life at there hands is unimaginable agony to them.

HighRoller
09-08-2004, 03:50 PM
Well, that's not exactly the picture of NASA I see. When the first shuttle blew up, it wasn't because of the challenges of "space". It was an overzealous NASA administrator who decided to ignore the dire warning from the manufacturer of the rubber gaskets on the booster and launch anyways.
When the Mars probe crashed, it was because of a simple mathmatical error! What happened to double checking your work? We donated 125 million to the Mars trash can because some guy calculated in metric instead of english units!
When the second shuttle broke up, it was from a problem they KNEW ABOUT and decided to risk it anyways in future flights because in their expert opinion it wasn't that serious. oops.
And finally, they spend 500 million per shuttle flight. After the last Shuttle disaster they opened bidding to private companies. BUT, they wanted a company to provide the same service at 50 million a flight, make 10-12 flights a year and if there were any crashes the contract was voided. Also, they wanted the program fully operational in less than 2 years. By expecting the impossible from the private sector they have justified their existence because nobody could deliver.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for space exploration and understand how difficult it is. But the reality of NASA is this. According to many experts, NASA's problem is that they have chosen to dedicate more and more of their funding to the overgrown salaries of administrators instead of cutting the fat and investing in their programs and new technology. Who knows how far we could have gone by now if the private sector was involved. But that won't happen because NASA fiercely protects their monopoly and can operate on a loss because taxpayers pay the bill regardless of how many times they waste our money.

InKahntrol
09-08-2004, 03:51 PM
:eat:
While NASA's recent record hasn't exactly been stellar, they are finally getting around to doing some pretty incredible stuff that's never been done before, so it takes a while to get things right. During the very early stages of the space race, Apollo 1 burned on the launch pad killing all three astronauts aboard. Why? Because it was filled with pure oxygen, and it never occured to anyone that the velcro on the space suits would cause a spark and ignite the 02. They learned a sad lesson that day. Same goes for the Mars landers... having never done it before, I'm impressed that both rovers made it to the red planet at all. NASA is a bloated beast that prioritizes budgets and beurocracy over doing things quickly, but even so they have a much better record then some of the other countries trying to do this. Back in the day Russia got back quite a few ships filled with dead cosmonauts until they finally got it right, and then there's that whole Russian space shuttle debacle... we won't even to there.
As for privatizing the space industry, you obviously haven't been following the news much. The Ansari X-Prize is offering $10M to the first private company that can send two manned ships into space and back within a given period of time, and there are over a dozen teams going for it. Burt Rutan and his team in Mojave have already sent their Space Ship One into outer space, making their pilot the FIRST CIVILIAN ASTRONAUT in the process. They developed the entire program for less money than it costs to fuel one shuttle mission. There's also a Canadian team that is supposed to launch any day now as well.
Here's a link:
http://www.xprize.org/
-Dan

Racer277
09-08-2004, 03:57 PM
According to many experts, NASA's problem is that they have chosen to dedicate more and more of their funding to the overgrown salaries of administrators instead of cutting the fat and investing in their programs and new technology. Who knows how far we could have gone by now if the private sector was involved. But that won't happen because NASA fiercely protects their monopoly and can operate on a loss because taxpayers pay the bill regardless of how many times they waste our money.
On this point I do agree somewhat. I don't think they are very different from many other organizations out there, especially the ones that could actually take on contracts of this size.
But, I would love to see privatization start at a much more grass roots level...
How about, privatizing cops for instance...
We award a contract per year, if we're unhappy with our service, we don't award that firm the contract next year....
Just a thought.
And yes you had me hot for a second, I thought you were coming down on the typical Nasa engineer (you know the 60+ hour guy that does take this seriously).

KACHINA KEN
09-08-2004, 05:04 PM
American space station, Russsian space station, ALL PARTS MADE IN TAIWAN!!!
This how we fix RUSSIAN SPACE STATION!!! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! :hammerhea :hammerhea :hammerhea

HighRoller
09-08-2004, 05:19 PM
You know what "Mir" means translated into english?
"Abandon ship".
A little humor to break the tension. No, I am not hammering the employees of NASA. It's the leadership that stinks. They have no vision, and priority one for them is obviously dreaming up ridiculous experiments and projects that will eat up the remainder of this year's budget so next year's budget will be the same. They've had 20 years since they shuttle first flew and haven't been able to modernize that idea. Part of the problem with the shuttle program is that they are basically trying to acheive a lot with old technology.
I am totally in favor of privatizing as much as possible. The biggest thing I want to see privatized is social security. Scrap the current triangle scheme we have and send each person's contributions directly to a low or medium risk investment fund that pays 4 or 5 percent. When you retire you get it in payments or a lump sum, and it will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. And with all that money going into the economy the stock market would be stronger than ever.

Tinkerer
09-08-2004, 06:01 PM
Highroller--
I agree that social security needs a lot of help - but privatizing it is NOT the answer.
Yes if YOU had invested the $ that you put into SS in the stock market You would probably have a lot more than what You will ever get from SS.
BUT what happens if 10 years into your working career - YOU get hurt and can no longer work.
SS will pay you a small income for the rest of your life.
YOUR privatized SS would give you almost nothing.

manuel
09-08-2004, 06:19 PM
THUD!
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040909/i/r1710478179.jpg
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040908/capt.utdp10709081724.genesis_capsule_utdp107.jpg

HighRoller
09-08-2004, 07:50 PM
Highroller--
I agree that social security needs a lot of help - but privatizing it is NOT the answer.
Yes if YOU had invested the $ that you put into SS in the stock market You would probably have a lot more than what You will ever get from SS.
BUT what happens if 10 years into your working career - YOU get hurt and can no longer work.
SS will pay you a small income for the rest of your life.
YOUR privatized SS would give you almost nothing.
SMALL income is right. That's what things like disability insuarance are for. Anyone who is ten years into a substantial working career should have life insurance and long term disability. For short term you should have 6 months income cash in the bank. This is called "self reliance", and years ago before people discovered the government tit everyone followed rules like these. You earn about .5 percent on your SS money, which is a waste. If you live within your means and pay cash for stuff you could be retired without SS by age 50.