One cheer for the President's space plan

> The main obstacles to shaking money out of the cobwebs are
> political, so the additional funds are helpful since it reduces
> the need for political fights. The main money sink in the short
> term will be development of CEV, which will come entirely from
> OSP, plus the 5%.

You sure speak with the voice of someone who isn't a politician or a
bureaucrat!

You speak with a sense of rational management expectations.

I just had the unpleasant task of cleaving two company founders from
management roles in the company they founded. This had to be done
for rational reasons in order to preserve the company (and I could
go on . . .) but the same environmental constraints seem not to
apply to NASA. Government programs are run by different metrics than
what most people are familiar with.

"Johnson Space Center director Jefferson D. Howell Jr. told several
hundred employees Friday that their role, and the center's, will
still be important as NASA retools to fulfill President Bush's newly
announced goal of exploring Mars and beyond."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/space/2358275

The order of the day will be to maintain the army of employees at
the NASA centers. My unsupported opinion is that jobs will be
developed that make use of existing skill sets rather than looking
for people with needed skill sets. This type of approach will steer
the programs at NASA towards inefficiency. Yes, I know it's hard to
believe that I used inefficiency and NASA in the same sentence :)

"Possible targets for cuts, expected to produce $11 billion during
the next five years, include the orbital space plane and long-term
shuttle improvement programs, Howell said."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/space/2358275

Hmm, the cut's seem to be from programs that aren't funded and don't
have existing constitutencies. There's not much pain there.

"Florida politicians and the director of the Kennedy Space Center
are reassuring local workers that President Bush's new space policy
will create more opportunities, not eliminate jobs."
http://www.baynews9.com/site/NewsStory.cfm?storyid=31689

That's a nice spin.

"Instead, they say the void left by the shuttle, could be filled by
processing and perhaps manufacturing of new vehicles needed to
travel to the moon and beyond."
http://www.baynews9.com/site/NewsStory.cfm?storyid=31689

So that army of KSC workers needed for the shuttle will be needed
for the new program. Yeah, design a program to use all the workers
rather than designing a program to meet other objectives and then
determining how many workers you'll need to operate the program.

"Bridges did not provide many details of how the plan would affect
Langley's $723 million-a-year budget and 3,800-person work force."
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%
2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid31773152352&path=!
news&s45855934842

The interesting battles to observe will be between the different
NASA centers as they poach from each other in order to maintain
workforce and status.

"A proposed new spaceship might not fly with astronauts until 2014,
potentially creating a four-year gap in human space flights from
Florida."
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/011704moonplan.h
tm

What will all those workers do in this interrum? Be laid off? I'd be
surprised.

"Moreover, there is no firm guarantee the new Crew Exploration
Vehicle -- which will ferry astronauts to the station and the moon --
will launch from KSC or Cape Canaveral Air Force Station."
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/011704moonplan.h
tm

You want to wager on that?

"But neither the president nor NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe
identified a single job, program or facility that might be affected."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/7716847.htm

How can the budget specifics be worked out if the intermediate steps
leading to the result haven't yet been conceptualized?

They probably have but the politics has yet to play itself out with
respect to which centers will take which job and mission cuts. The
broad strokes have been painted without looking at the specific
missions to be cut.

"Restructuring NASA, traditionally a major source of political
patronage, could trigger a fight in Congress. Bush's plan was
attacked Wednesday by Democrats, environmentalists and arms control
groups, who asserted it would militarize space."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/7716847.htm

Here we go.

"Any number of programs that previously were considered politically
untouchable could be threatened. McCurdy said such NASA facilities
as the Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., the Glenn Research
Center in Cleveland, the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and
even the Langley Research Center in Norfolk, Va., could be
vulnerable to cutbacks or outright closure. Details of the Bush plan
will be unveiled next month as part of the 2005 budget."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/7716847.htm

""It's not a serious proposal," he said, noting that the
administration plans to pump only $200 million a year extra into the
agency over five years, or less than half the amount that is spent
each time the space shuttle is a launched. "Bush wants to be seen as
the guy who came up with the idea, and let someone else worry about
it."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/7716847.htm

Yeah, I think Bush is looking for a legacy like that which we
attribute to JFK.

"Just days after taking office in 2002, O'Keefe riled NASA
supporters by saying that no program or center was immune from cuts
or closures. With a reputation as a longtime Republican budget-
cutter, O'Keefe was one of the harshest critics of the agency before
he was tapped for its top post."
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/7716847.htm

The question is whether O'Keefe has been captured by the
bureaucracy? Does he have the fight within him to do battle against
the entrenched interests, be they politicians, contractors, center
administrators, or even organized employees. The easiest thing to do
is to go with the flow, especially if you've learned anything at all
from the politicians, so that you have an easy ride today and put
the problems off to a future administrator (of in Bush's case, a
future President and Congress who have to fund the Bush Vision.)

TangoMan