Excellent article, one of your best, but I see your mistake. You talk about rational people. 😉
On the other hand, NASA is totally risk-prone when it comes to program risk…
Told ya’ in the other thread I smelled a story 😉
I don’t think you went quite far enough, and by only using the amount spent so far on the ISS as your argument you are skirting the edge of the sunk cost fallacy.
It isn’t that NASA is risk-averse. They took risks every time they launched people on any launch system so far, particularly when one considers the marginal benefits of launching one more NASA astronaut were not measured in dollars.
They are taking risks, but what kind of risks is NASA taking? Is NASA taking the kind of risks associated with pushing on the bleeding edge of technology development? Or are they taking operational risks?
The people taking the technology development risks are on the outside of NASA looking in. Look at the work Paul Breed did, or the handful of people at Masten or Armadillo – in total a few dozen guys, spending less altogether than NASA spends in one hour developed three independent unmanned lunar landers. That right there is literally the state of the art.
NASA can’t do that. Development of even one lander can’t proceed in an incremental fashion like Unreasonable and Armadillo and Masten did. NASA can’t risk having anything go wrong, and so they would have to design the full-up lander until the stack of paperwork reached halfway to orbit and do lots of animations and powerpoints before bending metal.
But NASA had Altairs! Oh…. I see your point.
I should add that “failure is not an option” makes a great line in a movie, and was a good way to motivate the troops during Apollo 13, but it is a terrible risk assessment strategy when applied outside that specific situation.
There’s got to be a better term. NASA takes risks and avoids risks, but there’s little rationality to the approach.
The ironic thing is you can’t avoid risk. Any choice will have some risk.
…as gently as possible, insane
Exactly. It is an insane policy. If it’s not worth reasonable risks we should not be paying for it and it should be deorbited. Considering it’s return on investment, deorbit seems the most rational approach except we do have international partners (another mistake IMHO.)
There should be international agreement on docking and fuel transfer standards.
Frankly, I’ll be much happier once NASA becomes irrelevant and companies more forward without government involvement.
The government should keep it’s promises including contracts. That should restrict their choices somewhat.
Excellent article, one of your best, but I see your mistake. You talk about rational people. 😉
On the other hand, NASA is totally risk-prone when it comes to program risk…
Told ya’ in the other thread I smelled a story 😉
I don’t think you went quite far enough, and by only using the amount spent so far on the ISS as your argument you are skirting the edge of the sunk cost fallacy.
It isn’t that NASA is risk-averse. They took risks every time they launched people on any launch system so far, particularly when one considers the marginal benefits of launching one more NASA astronaut were not measured in dollars.
They are taking risks, but what kind of risks is NASA taking? Is NASA taking the kind of risks associated with pushing on the bleeding edge of technology development? Or are they taking operational risks?
The people taking the technology development risks are on the outside of NASA looking in. Look at the work Paul Breed did, or the handful of people at Masten or Armadillo – in total a few dozen guys, spending less altogether than NASA spends in one hour developed three independent unmanned lunar landers. That right there is literally the state of the art.
NASA can’t do that. Development of even one lander can’t proceed in an incremental fashion like Unreasonable and Armadillo and Masten did. NASA can’t risk having anything go wrong, and so they would have to design the full-up lander until the stack of paperwork reached halfway to orbit and do lots of animations and powerpoints before bending metal.
But NASA had Altairs! Oh…. I see your point.
I should add that “failure is not an option” makes a great line in a movie, and was a good way to motivate the troops during Apollo 13, but it is a terrible risk assessment strategy when applied outside that specific situation.
There’s got to be a better term. NASA takes risks and avoids risks, but there’s little rationality to the approach.
The ironic thing is you can’t avoid risk. Any choice will have some risk.
…as gently as possible, insane
Exactly. It is an insane policy. If it’s not worth reasonable risks we should not be paying for it and it should be deorbited. Considering it’s return on investment, deorbit seems the most rational approach except we do have international partners (another mistake IMHO.)
There should be international agreement on docking and fuel transfer standards.
Frankly, I’ll be much happier once NASA becomes irrelevant and companies more forward without government involvement.
The government should keep it’s promises including contracts. That should restrict their choices somewhat.