US Air Force Overstepped In SpaceX Certification 71
Rambo Tribble writes: An internal review commissioned by Air Force Secretary Deborah James has concluded that Air Force personnel tasked with evaluating SpaceX's certification treated it as a design review, going so far as to dictate organizational changes in the company. This was judged contrary to the intention of promoting a competitive environment. The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, concluded, "The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach. Both teams need to adjust."
LOL .... (Score:5, Funny)
Government bureaucracy reviews private corporations, implements government bureaucracy?
LOL .. Congratulations, gentlemen, you're exactly what we've come to expect from years of government training.
Re:LOL .... (Score:5, Funny)
"This isn't right. You only paid $20 for this hammer? Bros, do you even bureaucrat? Here, lemme show you..."
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"This isn't right. You only paid $20 for this hammer? Bros, do you even bureaucrat? Here, lemme show you..."
Ah, but that's just the regular bureaucracy, you can add another order of magnitude if you want a military grade hammer.
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Counting anything costs money. If we're going to make people apply for something, we need to read all the damned applications. And we need to have rules for what is successful and what isn't on the application. And we need to advertise it to everybody who might be eligible. The laws about hiring contractors and putting out bids are stultifying.
But in a democracy, we make rules based on fantasy and belie
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You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?
Re:LOL .... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading that the $20k 'hammer' was actually a set of tools, including a spade & pick, made of a special set of alloys(can't remember what) designed to be non-magnetic, non-sparking, and a few other nons for use in helping to clean up stockpiles of explosives that were destabilizing, getting more sensitive. Given the location and amounts, they couldn't just set them off in location.
The toilet seat was actually a whole toilet system, I can't remember if it was for a plane or submarine. Still not cheap, but something that had to be custom designed and produced for that vehicle, and they were including design costs.
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Its probably a line item off a program accounting invoice, where everything purchased for the program is billed at the same amount - 1/xth of the total program cost. So that toilet seat might have come out at $30k, but so would have the jet engine on the next line.
Re:LOL .... (Score:4, Informative)
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It was for the P2 plane (based on the Lockheed constellation), and the reason why it happened was because the DoD expected that the P3 would be in service by a certain date, and they felt they had enough spare toilet seats in stock for maintenance. The manufacturer of the seats destroyed the moulds and other tools used to create the seats.
When the P3 (based on the Electra) entered service late, the Navy ended up having to contract manufacture of more toilets for the planes, and because the toilets were very
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Re: LOL .... (Score:2)
With the military, is not about being efficient. It's about winning. On battlefield.
And it's chapter than losing.
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When you can see past spellchecker errors and the effects of the miserable Slashdot mobile pages, then you will be able to engage in meaningful dialog. Until then you will be dismissing contrary opinions for no good reason.
Other than that, your island seems nice.
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To think any part of the government is efficient is laughable at best.pTo think that ANY LARGE ORGANIZATION is efficient is laughable at best. FTFY.
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The next closest is Walmart (2 million), and while they are a terrible company with terrible customer service that I will never shop at, I wouldn't call them inefficient. Their supply chain management system was revolutionary.
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"This isn't right. You only raised medical insurance premiums by $X-thousands for a year of lower quality medical insurance? Bros, do you even Obamacare? Here, lemme show you..."
Wow, that works for pretty much anything US Federal Government-controlled/regulated.
Strat
Re:LOL .... (Score:4, Informative)
Now, now. Yes, that's funny - and not a little true - but TFA goes into a bit more detail noting that there is a (rather expected) culture class between SpaceX and the Air Force / YoYoDyne / Lockheed (DBA as the United Launch Alliance).
And nominally intelligent people on both sides of the issue are working in what appears to be good faith to deal with it.
Sounds like a plan.
don't mess with Hugo Drax (Score:4, Funny)
But.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But this is what Boeing and Lockheed wanted. Keeping in mind Boeing/Lockheed have a space launch vehicle non compete consortium in partnership with the U.S. government. The Air Force has done absolutely whatever it could to prevent them from using Space X - and the very cosy relationship with Lockheed and Boeing probably has something to do with this. Just look at who's profits might be threatened and follow the money.
But, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be 3 lines on the proposal:
I need payload weight and size X, in orbit Y.
Can you do it? Y/N.
How much will it cost?
Re:But, but... (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot "how long will it take?", but this is the nature of all proposals.
Judging from my local road construction, I don't think time factors into government calculus.
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I've seem time factor heavily in some road construction: St Louis: I-64 roadwork was going to cause havoc on many people's commutes, as it required closing go the most traveled highway on the city. The contracts took into consideration how long it was going to take, offered bonuses for finishing early and severe escalating penalties for delays. It was finished early.
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Reminds me of Carmageddon, the traffic disaster that finished ahead of schedule and without any disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
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Get better road workers. I recommend putting the engineers in charge.
This is an example of what I get:
http://oregon.apwa.net/PageDet... [apwa.net]
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Then get your local government to change their policies. In my state user costs (how long your commute takes) are as high a priority as project cost. I've seen projects do things that added 30% to the cost (huge time restrictions on lane impacts) to limit the impact to the public's lives. More than half the projects my state issues these days don't even allow lane closures during any hours were it will impact traffic. I'm about to issue a job where the only work hours are between 8pm and 6am M-Sat (they can
Nothing unusual unfortunately. (Score:4, Interesting)
One of our customers for my company is a medical device company regulated by the FDA. The FDA a few years ago came down hard on them with fines and a consent decree whereby they couldn't sell products due to issues in their quality control systems. We are very familiar with this company and while they did have issues, the FDA has essentially forced a complete reorganization on them, some of which will be good but much of which is utterly pointless.
I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of Control Plans, FMEAs and other documents for products we've been making for well over a decade to support this customer. These documents will serve no useful purpose and in all likelihood never get looked at again. I'm also validating test equipment which I assure you at the end of the day will prove nothing. It's necessary to help our customer stay in the good graces of the FDA but really is pretty much a waste of everyone's time since these sort of documents are supposed to be done when the product is being developed, not ten years later without any evidence of an actual problem.
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It's necessary to help our customer stay in the good graces of the FDA but really is pretty much a waste of everyone's time since these sort of documents are supposed to be done when the product is being developed, not ten years later without any evidence of an actual problem.
On the other hand, might it be a good thing to make them go through the costly process so that they lose the competitive advantage over the companies that did it usefully at the beginning of development?
No competitive advantage (Score:2)
On the other hand, might it be a good thing to make them go through the costly process so that they lose the competitive advantage over the companies that did it usefully at the beginning of development?
The documentation I'm referring to has nothing to do with any competitive advantage. If anything, not doing it is a competitive disadvantage in their particular marketplace. The potential liability costs, warranty/service costs, reputation costs, etc easily outweigh the cost of the paperwork and structure. This particular company was badly structured and was actually incurring all sorts of needless costs and problems by not having their house in order. If anything the FDA will make them more competitiv
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...This particular company was badly structured and was actually incurring all sorts of needless costs and problems by not having their house in order. If anything the FDA will make them more competitive in the long run.
Interesting. I hate bureaucracy as much as anyone, but I guess I have a love-hate relationship with it. I can see its advantages even as I curse its practitioners. They'll probably get rid of all the cowboys that solved most of their problems (and caused some). Hopefully the bureaucrats will convert the knowledge to processes before they drive them off.
Just dead wrong (Score:1)
What they mucked up was how spaceX didn't have the systems in place for accountability as mandated by federal law. This is a problem with acquisitions law, not the bureaucracy the law mandates. I know a few of the people on that team. The only way spaceX could have gotten close without those changes would have been to buy even more politicians to get the law changed even more in their favor.
Yes, as usually, big company got a billion dollars and the taxpayers got screwed. Only good marketing makes you think
Fair business practices. (Score:3)
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Nobody was holding a gun to Boeing/Lockheed's heads to force them to do government business. They got paid handsomely for it.
"Fair" has nothing to do with it.
Re:Fair business practices. (Score:4, Interesting)
The "established" guys were compensated for having to follow those rules by being given cost-plus contracts that guaranteed profits and provided incentive to inflate costs whenever it could be justified, and actively punished reductions in costs.
So: they were applying the same restrictions to SpaceX, without giving them the same benefits, since SpaceX operates under fixed-price contracts: they sell a product, get paid, and their ability to make a profit and continue existing is dependent on keeping expenses low. What was that about fairness?
Re:Fair business practices. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, exactly. Also the established players were paid for all of their development effort; therefore, it is likely that the IP is owned by the government. This is in contrast to private development efforts. So essentially it is the difference between developing a custom solution (and paying for all development) or going to the store and buying something off the shelf.
Nope, that's not how it works for the EELV rockets. Boeing and Lockheed Martin owned the IP to the rockets and was free to do what ever they wanted as long as they conformed to ITAR (SpaceX also has to conform to ITAR.) They were free to provide commercial launches with their rockets but they lost the market to Europe and Russia and they made no effort to be competitive in those markets. Most US aerospace companies just gave up entirely and Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed the United Launch Alliance and convinced the US government to give them a billion dollars a year to ensure "US access to space." Not to do research, just to exist and maintain their facilities and production capability. That billion does not include providing any launch vehicles and services, that costs extra. A lot extra.
So I know it's popular to blame the government for everything, but US aerospace choose not to compete because they had a nice big cash cow.
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Wrong. The "rules" are set by the customer in this scenario. If they aren't followed the customer (government) is perfectly able to choose another bid (provided pork seeking senators allow it). Thus, this is not an Uber situation where the customers don't know/care about the rules that competitors are legally forced to play by.
The difference between new and old "space guys" is how they choose to follow rules set by the customer. In one case, decades of lobbying has resulted in unwieldy bureaucracy that only
Actually ULA gets sweetheart contracts too (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
Actually ULA (boeing, lm, etc) gets sweetheart contracts too. For example their launch contracts don't include fixed costs like launch facilities and many other parts of the "infrastructure". ULA gets a separate contract to pay for all the fixed costs. That may be a good idea to make sure this infrastructure is ready and available independently of what the launch schedule may be but the fact remains that SpaceX includes such infrastructure costs into their launch contracts. And SpaceX launch contracts are still far less expensive than ULA.
Re:Fair business practices. (Score:5, Informative)
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
Not true. The "New Space" companies self-fund long term research and experimentation with an eye toward making space flight less expensive. Even if Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, McDonald Douglas, et al, were "forced" to jump through government hoops, they were also exceedingly well payed to jump through those hoops. They could have used that money to fund their own research to stay competitive in the commercial market but they did not. They pocketed the money and completely gave up the commercial market to Russia and Europe.
McDonnell Douglas was working on a VTVL rocket (the DC-X) in 1991. As soon as the DoD and NASA stopped funding that research, they dropped it. SpaceX uses their profits to continue developing reusability, there is no reason that McDonnell Douglas could not have done that. The government did not prevent any of the "Old Space" companies could from developing reusable rockets. Nor did the government prevent them from investing their own money in improving production techniques to lower production costs. They choose not to do that work in any long term sustainable way unless the government directly payed for it.
Well how will ULA survive if they don't? (Score:3)
How will ULA survive if the government doesn't force SpaceX to operate like a traditional defense contractor sucking at the cost plus fixed fee teet. The Airforce has to help them get there because this commercial competition non-sense will mean the loss of plenty of high paying executive jobs and ULA.
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Exactly. Where you you think these Colonels and Generals will be getting cushy jobs at when they retire. SpaceX? Not bloody likely.
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I think ULA knows their days are numbered if they don't cut the pork, SpaceX's prices are so much lower than ULA that they can't talk their way past it. Their recent press release that they're developing a partially reusable launcher seem to indicate that they're afraid of getting booted out of the launch vehicle market. That said I'm sure that they are pulling every string they can trying to get favorable treatment in contract negotiations and hoping every time a Falcon 9 launches that there is some cata
This is Why Government Contracting is Expensive (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes, I think this is also the reason why the government clings to cost-plus contracting: with fixed price, they have to be disciplined about the requirements because once the fixed price contract is in effect, they can't tinker with it any further. Cost-plus, they can keep changing requirements, and the contractor will simply roll it into the bill.
Tell me what you need, not how to make it. (Score:2)
This is the fundamental flaw with bureaucratic thinking. Define metrics, design criteria but let the contractor build it. This is why government projects are so fucking expensive. Rules, Laws, Legislators and stupidity get in the way of innovation.
Militarization of Space (Score:3, Interesting)
If it can't be seized and placed under control of the military during times of war*, its not going into space. Gotta make sure we know the key people and which pieces we'll need to grab should we need to mount weapons on it and send it up.
*That means pretty much any time. As we are always conducting a War Against Something.
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But why should I expect my private business to incurr costs to make some future militarization easier?
What if... (Score:2)
What if Elon gave the AF the bird and started selling the Falcon 9 to the ESA and India? Would the AF back down then?
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SpaceX couldn't get an export license then. Rockets fall under the "International Traffic in Arms Regulations" (ITAR) and need a license to export. We even had to follow those rules for the Space Station modules being built by Boeing. That's despite it being an international station occupied by lots of foreigners, Russians even.