From: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space
Subject: SSF Progress 1 of 2 (Was: One small step Space Activist)
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 13 Dec 92  21:26:50

Allen Sherzer writes:
>First, is a Space News story about the progress (or lack thereof)
>in Work Package 02 (the truss structure) of SS Freedom. In Dec.
>1987 NASA awarded a $1.8 billion contract to McDonnell Douglas.
>Nine months later when the final contract was signed, the price had
>gone up to $2.6 billion. Four years later, as a result of cost
>overruns, Work Package 02 now weighs in at $4.9 billion -- A 250%
>increase during a time when funding and design for Freedom was
>relatively stable.
   Hmm.... I'm not going to dispute these numbers, but there's a
distinct difference between "cost overruns" and "customer directed
changes".   If you go back to that Space News Article (Dec 7-13,
1992), it should be noted of that increase, only about $216 M is
actually in dispute between NASA and McDonnell Douglas.  That's only
about 4.5 %.  Furthermore, a large chunk of these overrun costs seem
to be in General & Administrative cost categories (G&A), not in the
technical work performed.
   Now, funding and design for the SSF has not been rock stable
either for the past 4 years.  I seem to remember at least 3 of the 4
budget requests being cut, funding restrictions placed on a couple,
and a major Congressional-directed redesign of the SSF.  As part of
that redesign, the truss structure which MD was re-designing was
totally changed to meet the Congressional redesign.
   I'm not apologising for MD, but I would like to present some data
from the other side of the story.
    What Allen didn't report, and what I see just as significant,
was that SN reported the NASA Inspector General had started a
separate audit to see if the restructuring of the Work Package 2
contract was done properly by NASA JSC.
  
>Worse yet, Work Package 02 is as much as 18 months behind schedule.
>McDonnell Douglas recently informed NASA that it can provide only
>700 of the 2,700 drawings promised before the next design review.
>This action (or lack) will ripple down the PERT charts and could
>add up to billions more in cost overruns as other contractors are
>forced to mark time waiting for Work package 02's outputs.
   Actually, the wording in the SN article is
   "The company informed NASA earlier this year that it could
    provide 700 drawings before a design review begins next year,
    but under NASA pressure agreed to provide 2700, NASA officials
    said.  Only 1100 are needed for the design review, according to
    Parkinson [The MD general manager for space station project
    control], so MD will exceed that target."
  Later on, the SN article sez
    "Aaron [The space station program manager at JSC] said that some
     aspects of the work package are about a month behind, but
     denied there is any lag on the order of 18 months in his
     portion of the program. 'I'm very upbeat", he added. "McDonnell
     Douglas is coming along well."
Within the article, there are two conflicting sets of data reported
-- and I'd like to point out there is another side of this situation
to what Allen reported.
   In my opinion the real make or break for MD will be how MD
conducts itself at the work package 2 Critical Design Review (CDR)
this coming year.  At CDR, they are contractually required to have
for review 90% of all detailed drawings, and this CDR is the primary
go/nogo gate for full gohead on manufacturing of flight articles.
I've organized and run CDRs for NASA contracts, and it's not a
simple task to organize the data and run the design review.  MD also
should have completed all their subcontract CDRs before that date.
From my limited contacts with their subcontractors -- I have seem
subcontract CDRs underway, including one this month.
  
>Congresses' fault? Not this time. Most of the overruns and delays
>have happened at a time when Freedom has seen very stable funding
>and little design interference.
   See my comments above.  A Congressionally-mandated major redesign
and annual funding holds and restrictions don't seem to be "very
stable funding and little design interference."
  
   (Continued in next message)

--- Maximus 2.00
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space