From: dong@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Don M. Gibson)
Subject: Re: One Small Step for a Space Activist... (vo
Reply-To: dong@oakhill.sps.mot.com
Organization: Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:58:33 GMT


a reply by an interested friend:


Dear Allen and Tim:

Kudos to you both for your gutsy article "Freedom Space Station project 
is at it again," which attacked Work Package 2 (WP2), whose prime 
contractor McDonnell Douglas is also the prime for the DCX single stage 
to orbit project, which has received so much positive play in your 
newsletter.  If all the self-proclaimed pundits in the U.S. public 
policy arena could muster the courage to criticize patrons of their pet 
projects the way you guys do, we'd have a much more informed debate 
about the issues facing our country (and probably fewer pundits to 
boot).  Nevertheless, your article was awash in unsupported claims, 
omissions, factual errors, and opinions represented as facts, which I 
would like to point our for the benefit of all concerned.

First, let me point out my biases: I work for NASA, in fact for JSC, the 
WP2 lead center.  However, my only participation in the Station project 
has been for a couple of months as a summer co-op student, and in fact 
all of the other projects on which I have worked have suffered from the 
budgetary pressures induced by Station.  While I think this makes me, if 
anything, biased AGAINST Station, at least with respect to some other 
NASA programs, readers should realize that it is in my interest not to 
see the reputation of NASA or JSC tarnished.  In this letter though, I 
am speaking as a private citizen, and do not purport to represent NASA, 
JSC, or any of its contractors in any way.

That being said, the first, and most egregious misstatement of your
article is that Station's "funding and design" have been "relatively
stable" over the period of the 250% increase reported in Space News,
so that these problems are not "Congresses'[sic] fault."  Only by
liberally stretching the interpretation of the adverb "relatively" can
this statement be construed as correct.  In fact, major redesigns took
place nearly every year since 1988 due to Congressional mandates aimed
at trimming costs and shortening the schedule without sacrificing
capability.  To refute this claim, one need only recall how the
Station has shrunk from a "dual-keel" configuration to a "single-
keel," (and then to a shorter "keel"), and how the truss has gone from
a lightweight, on-orbit-assembled structure, to a heavy-duty, ground-
assembled structure in this time frame.  These grossly obvious design
changes were accompanied by innumerable less obvious, but not less
complex changes, such as those involving thermal control systems,
guidance, navigation, and control systems, computer systems,
electrical power systems, propulsion systems, and many others. (These
design changes are well-documented in the journalistic record; see for
example "Aviation Week" 1/4/88 p.32, 1/25/88 p.29-30, 8/1/88 p.23,
8/14/89 p.32, 10/2/89 p.20-21, 10/22/90 p.25, 12/8/90 p.63, and
12/17/90 p.22.) While I agree that in the past year, funding and
design have been more stable than in the past (despite another
Congressional attempt to kill the project - "Aviation Week" 8/3/92
p.23-24), the cumulative effect of the immense work involved in
performing these nearly annual re-design efforts is one of the major
sources of the large cost increases and schedule setbacks announced in
the Space News on which you focused.

A second problem with your article is its excessive focus on the 
problems of WP2.  You do not report the cost overruns and schedule 
delays of the other work packages, thereby implicitly suggesting that 
they are so minimal compared to WP2 problems as to be not worth 
reporting.  In fact, in the case of the first WP2 cost adjustment from 
$1.8 billion to $2.6 billion, the ENTIRE program increased in cost from 
around $8 billion to around $13 billion in 1984 dollars (see "Aviation 
Week" 1/19/87 p.28-29 and 3/30/87 p.26-27).  In other words, the WP2 
overruns of just under 50% were well in line with the entire project's 
estimated overruns of just over 50%.

I would not object to singling out WP2 as simply one example of 
Station's problems even in light of these omissions however, if not for 
your attacking the creation of the Joint Vehicle Integration Team (JVIT) 
as "turn[ing] integration over to the people responsible for the whole 
mess."  While I agree that any changes in management structure are 
disruptive at this late stage, your claim that JVIT somehow emasculates 
the Reston Program office is not supported by any fact in your article.  
Considering that the lead contractor for JVIT is Grumman, who is the 
prime at Reston, I really don't see how creating JVIT accomplishes 
"moving all other space station efforts to Johnson."  And what is the 
implied answer to the question, "is ... mak[ing] the contractors 
responsible for the overall space station project... [and tying] fees to 
contractor performance...appropriate for THIS project?"  Is it not 
appropriate because of your (unsubstantiated) belief that JVIT will rob 
Reston of its authority?  (I realize that this is a leading question, 
and I apologize to the readers).  Just how effective has Reston been at 
managing the integration of Space Station design efforts anyway?  
Another thing "many space activists have always felt was needed" in NASA 
programs is accountability.  If huge cost overruns and schedule slips 
have occurred during Reston's watch, then doesn't the principle of 
accountability require that fresh faces be brought in?  The Reston 
Program Office was organized in response to the Challenger accident 
investigations of the Rogers' Commission, which came to believe that too 
much autonomy had been granted to NASA's field centers.  If Reston HAD 
been given strong central authority over the field centers, perhaps some 
of Station's problems could have been averted.  However, this was not 
done, and in my opinion, Reston largely functions now as an extra layer 
of bureaucracy between managers (at Headquarters) and engineers (at the 
prime contractors and the field centers).  Finally, for what factual 
reason will JVIT "make it far easier for both NASA and contractors to 
hide overruns and provide the appearance of progress where none exists?"


Unfortunately, I agree with the general direction of your article that 
Station has lots of problems.  Many of my colleagues inside NASA, 
ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED ON STATION, share this conviction.  
While many in NASA lay the blame at Congress' door for supposedly 
micromanaging the effort, I think the contractors must share some of the 
blame.  Back in 1987, they sold NASA and Ronald Reagan on a Space 
Station whose costs and complexities were not adequately understood, 
thus guaranteeing Congressional ire when the bills came due (and for 
going over the heads of powerful Congressional Committees to sell the 
program directly to the President in the first place). (I should point 
out that some contractor employees feel it was they who "rubber-stamped" 
NASA's design, and not vice-versa; see "Aviation Week" 6/1/87 p.27)  
NASA, I think, is guilty of complicity in this hoodwinking, and for not 
setting up a management structure which gives enough power to in-house 
engineers (like me) to influence the design effort.  In the days of 
Shuttle and Apollo (so I am told), the expertise of NASA's "line 
organizations," (the in-house engineers) was much more effectively used.  
Finally, Allen and Tim, while I appreciate your efforts to inform the 
public, I think you two, and others like you, are also guilty of "loving 
to hate" NASA; i.e. guilty of using NASA as a scapegoat on which to pin 
this country's listless space policy.  Remember, NASA is an executive 
branch organization, and as such, is not Constitutionally mandated to 
MAKE policy, but merely to carry out the policies dictated by our 
democratically-elected representatives.  Therefore, I wish that you guys 
would spend more energy on your laudable efforts to lobby the Congress, 
and let up a little on your NASA-bashing.


                         Sincerely,

                         Russell Carpenter



Newsgroups: talk.politics.space