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Research how and where SLS must be designed, manufactured, integrated, and tested. Then research who designated that process and how. Calling Falcon Heavy and

by nrb 4y ago

Research how and where SLS must be designed, manufactured, integrated, and tested. Then research who designated that process and how. Calling Falcon Heavy and SLS equivalently government-led is laughable. The amount of by-design government red tape and congressional district handouts is astounding.

nwah1 4y ago
SLS is a joint project between many large bureaucratic private organizations, and thus design-by-committee is more of a function of the way that those institutions operate, and their need to coordinate with one another. Congress cared that it met payload requirements and mission requirements. That these institutions were unable to deliver within reasonable time and budget limits is a result of their own dysfunction. Since rocket production is extremely capital-intensive, the market is very thin. The number of players capable of even giving it a go is low. And thus, it has all the hallmarks of a typical market failure. Private companies the entire time could've realized the potential profits and competently worked to achieve them, even outside of begging for government contracts. That they didn't do this for many decades is their own fault.
- nrb 4y ago
  > Congress cared that it met payload requirements and mission requirements. This is just not correct if you mean that they only cared about payload and mission requirements. Congress mandated that certain technologies were to be used from non-competitive, single-source suppliers in order to prop up industry in particular congressional districts. Cost overruns are practically by-design because as long as it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows it’s just more money to their local industry and constituents.
  - nwah1 4y ago
    It isn't as if there was this long line of sad rocket companies waiting out in the cold, shut out of their dreams of outer space by the mean old government. There simply weren't any others except for the go-to contractors that NASA always relied on. Now that there is a critical mass of billionaire nerds and venture capitalists who want to build rocket companies, there is now competition in this sector. It is a case of monopoly vs competition. That is the real answer.

by nrb 4y ago

nwah1 4y ago

SLS is a joint project between many large bureaucratic private organizations, and thus design-by-committee is more of a function of the way that those institutions operate, and their need to coordinate with one another. Congress cared that it met payload requirements and mission requirements. That these institutions were unable to deliver within reasonable time and budget limits is a result of their own dysfunction. Since rocket production is extremely capital-intensive, the market is very thin. The number of players capable of even giving it a go is low. And thus, it has all the hallmarks of a typical market failure. Private companies the entire time could've realized the potential profits and competently worked to achieve them, even outside of begging for government contracts. That they didn't do this for many decades is their own fault.

nrb 4y ago
> Congress cared that it met payload requirements and mission requirements. This is just not correct if you mean that they only cared about payload and mission requirements. Congress mandated that certain technologies were to be used from non-competitive, single-source suppliers in order to prop up industry in particular congressional districts. Cost overruns are practically by-design because as long as it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows it’s just more money to their local industry and constituents.
- nwah1 4y ago
  It isn't as if there was this long line of sad rocket companies waiting out in the cold, shut out of their dreams of outer space by the mean old government. There simply weren't any others except for the go-to contractors that NASA always relied on. Now that there is a critical mass of billionaire nerds and venture capitalists who want to build rocket companies, there is now competition in this sector. It is a case of monopoly vs competition. That is the real answer.