This whole business bodes ill for things to come. So now, even though the DM-2 spacecraft and LV will be ready to go in 10 weeks or so (thus just barely this year) don’t matter because NASA wants to give DM-2 an extended mission, requiring months more crew training. I guess Bridenstein doen’t have the nerve (or perhaps not the permission) to admit DM-2 can’t fly before Starliner CFT, period, end of story, because Boeing and SLS. And besides, who gave that twerp Musk permission to STEAL the word “star” from a Most Favored Contractor? Starship in bloody well deed!
I liked the line about NASA being in full panic mode. Completely understandable as they have only had a decade and a half to solve the transportation issue.
This happens when a federally-funded, congressionally protected jobs program claiming to be a space program runs into a company with an actual space program. Musk has plenty of lee-way to move targeted dates back, because he is probably a decade ahead of the nearest competitor. Nasa’s ‘full panic mode’ is understandable. Their favorite provider of machinery cannot deliver, and its’ hardware cannot accomplish the mission. More and more of the decision-makers and purse-string holders waking up to this new reality is what some might call a disruption.
So NASA is in panic mode because it is caught between a rock and a hard place. As long as they were buying seats on a Russian LV, if anything went wrong resulting in loss of crew, well that would not be NASA’s fault but the Russians. Thus no need to play the blame game, no need for massive investigation, scapegoats, firings, etc. And as long as the Russians were willing to provide rides (at a price) an ideal setup for NASA. The problem is there wasn’t enough pork in that, and of course, the price kept going up, so Congress mandated NASA use American LVs. Now if something goes wrong the ball will once again be firmly in NASA’s court. Nothing makes a bureaucracy more squeamish than responsibility. Oh and a mandate to actually DO something. If NASA can successfully place all blame on its contractors for a mishap, then NASA can remain blame free. This is fine as long as you have a healthy long list of contractors to choose from. But for space, that is certainly not the case either. The truly amusing anachronism will be NASA finally flying their *fully qualified* capsules while SpaceX starts flying crewed Starships in the same time frame. Reminds me of the days when people built canals with horse drawn canal boats to open up the west, then along came the railroads. But canals didn’t suffer from boiler explosions (only sinking boats) and could carry wagon loads of people only as long as they weren’t going much beyond western New York State.
This whole business bodes ill for things to come. So now, even though the DM-2 spacecraft and LV will be ready to go in 10 weeks or so (thus just barely this year) don’t matter because NASA wants to give DM-2 an extended mission, requiring months more crew training. I guess Bridenstein doen’t have the nerve (or perhaps not the permission) to admit DM-2 can’t fly before Starliner CFT, period, end of story, because Boeing and SLS. And besides, who gave that twerp Musk permission to STEAL the word “star” from a Most Favored Contractor? Starship in bloody well deed!
I liked the line about NASA being in full panic mode. Completely understandable as they have only had a decade and a half to solve the transportation issue.
This happens when a federally-funded, congressionally protected jobs program claiming to be a space program runs into a company with an actual space program. Musk has plenty of lee-way to move targeted dates back, because he is probably a decade ahead of the nearest competitor. Nasa’s ‘full panic mode’ is understandable. Their favorite provider of machinery cannot deliver, and its’ hardware cannot accomplish the mission. More and more of the decision-makers and purse-string holders waking up to this new reality is what some might call a disruption.
So NASA is in panic mode because it is caught between a rock and a hard place. As long as they were buying seats on a Russian LV, if anything went wrong resulting in loss of crew, well that would not be NASA’s fault but the Russians. Thus no need to play the blame game, no need for massive investigation, scapegoats, firings, etc. And as long as the Russians were willing to provide rides (at a price) an ideal setup for NASA. The problem is there wasn’t enough pork in that, and of course, the price kept going up, so Congress mandated NASA use American LVs. Now if something goes wrong the ball will once again be firmly in NASA’s court. Nothing makes a bureaucracy more squeamish than responsibility. Oh and a mandate to actually DO something. If NASA can successfully place all blame on its contractors for a mishap, then NASA can remain blame free. This is fine as long as you have a healthy long list of contractors to choose from. But for space, that is certainly not the case either. The truly amusing anachronism will be NASA finally flying their *fully qualified* capsules while SpaceX starts flying crewed Starships in the same time frame. Reminds me of the days when people built canals with horse drawn canal boats to open up the west, then along came the railroads. But canals didn’t suffer from boiler explosions (only sinking boats) and could carry wagon loads of people only as long as they weren’t going much beyond western New York State.