Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.
Senator Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.
Essentially Shelby wants to require the commercial companies to follow the older paperwork requirements used by NASA in the past. Presently, the contract arrangements NASA has used for these new companies have been efficient and relatively paperwork free, allowing them to build their cargo freighters (Dragon and Cygnus) and their manned spacecraft (Dragon V2, CST-100, and Dream Chaser) for relatively little.
The older contract rules are what NASA has used for Constellation and SLS as well as all past attempts to replace the shuttle. In every case, the costs were so high the replacement was never finished. In the case of SLS, the costs will be so high it will never accomplish anything.
Why has Shelby (R-Alabama) inserted this language? He wants pork, and SLS is the way to get it. Rather than cut the cost of SLS to make it more competitive (and which will reduce the pork in his state) Shelby instead wants to make the new commercial companies more costly, thus making SLS appear more competitive. It will still cost too much and will not accomplish anything, but this way he will be able to better argue for it in congressional negotiations.
Shelby illustrates clearly that the desire to waste the taxpayers’ money is not confined to the spendthrifts in the Democratic Party. Republicans can do it to!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Senator Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.
Essentially Shelby wants to require the commercial companies to follow the older paperwork requirements used by NASA in the past. Presently, the contract arrangements NASA has used for these new companies have been efficient and relatively paperwork free, allowing them to build their cargo freighters (Dragon and Cygnus) and their manned spacecraft (Dragon V2, CST-100, and Dream Chaser) for relatively little.
The older contract rules are what NASA has used for Constellation and SLS as well as all past attempts to replace the shuttle. In every case, the costs were so high the replacement was never finished. In the case of SLS, the costs will be so high it will never accomplish anything.
Why has Shelby (R-Alabama) inserted this language? He wants pork, and SLS is the way to get it. Rather than cut the cost of SLS to make it more competitive (and which will reduce the pork in his state) Shelby instead wants to make the new commercial companies more costly, thus making SLS appear more competitive. It will still cost too much and will not accomplish anything, but this way he will be able to better argue for it in congressional negotiations.
Shelby illustrates clearly that the desire to waste the taxpayers’ money is not confined to the spendthrifts in the Democratic Party. Republicans can do it to!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
What other purpose does government serve but to inflate all costs and spending, it’s not like we actually want to accomplish something, just create a bloated monster of regulation that stops all real progress!
Make sure it applies to all government contractors for everything.
Then sit back and watch the fun.
The military buys civilian seats on commercial airlines to move solders around the country and or the world. Could you imagine if they had to account for every single drop of fuel and rivet that went into the construction of the plane plus every single cost of administration of the whole airlines?
Or how about applying this to all trucking companies that do work for the government?
Just delivering a 20 dollar box of office paper will end up costing the government an extra 25 dollars in paperwork to account for everything going into its manufacture and movement.
This guys an idiot.
Cancel the SLS and put the cash saved into better ideas for NASA.
As it is, Shelby’s a big frog in a small pond. The faster the Commercial Space Settlement industries develop, the faster he becomes a frog in a small backwater, with a large lake threatening to breach his pond and let the gators come in to find a snack. For many such pols there exists no up side to a growing space industry not dependant on their own good will.
Shelby has outlived his usefulness (if he ever had any, except for himself and his cronies) and is now a White Elephant that is in the process of becoming worm fodder.
Well, actually most voters interested at all in NASA want the pork more then the program.
To be fair, the contract and auditability rules for COTS/CRS were lose enough to be causing problems even for the companies. SpaceX has found since they really don’t do most of the documentation you would for a aerospace project, they are having trouble passing any normal certification audits.
Also to be fair its not expected to be a roadblock to all the COTS CRS folks. Shelby didn’t order all the FAR rules applied, only the auditability and cash flow ones. So though SpaceX might have a nightmare passing them, Boeings unlikely to have any trouble. Not sure about Dream Chaser, but SNC is a older bigger company them SpaceX, so I’d guess their book keeping etc would be more up to standards?
Given there was never any scenario that SLS could be threatened by COTS/CRS, this might if anything be a kill SpaceX rather then kill COTS/CRS move?