NASA's $1 Billion Mobile Launcher Leans a Little

www.popularmechanics.com ^ | Feb 21, 2018 | By Avery Thompson

[dfwgator]

I just remember in the months leading up to it, it was all anybody was talking about.

[KC Burke]

I am not saying that specifically. I am saying that the designer, and then the contractor, are stuck with time, location, and cost considerations that the Owners is able to give them for his own reasons.

See my reply to another at #59.

We often need a lot of forensic investigations and sometimes even courts to settle issues like this as far as “responsibility.”

When the tower in Pisa began to lean, I am sure that it was said, well this will soon be on the ground and forgotten. Sometimes first impressions are wrong.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Give me a plumb, Bob.

[tomkat]

I remember people, not normally prone to such, being misty-eyed at the absolute wonder of it all.

[TalonDJ]

Huh?

When NASA paid Boeing North American, and Douglas to build the Saturn V they weren’t obsolete. When they paid Rockwell International to build the space shuttle. When they paid SpaceX to launch a bunch of rockets to the Space Station they weren’t obsolete.

So what changed? NASA pays people to build rockets, same as always. Just because some billionaires are kicking in some of their own funds does not radically change things. The idea that rockets ‘before’ were all NASA and now SpaceX are ‘private’ is seriously misrepresenting things. That isn’t how funding works

[minnesota_bound]

You think they could jack the thing in the right direction.

[PIF]

The Leaning Tower of Canaveral will likely rust away to dust before the SLS is actually ready to be launched.

[PIF]

SpaceX could have built that in half the time for a quarter of the money.

AND IT WOULD BE STRAIGHT.................

—

So would have 1960s engineers with slide rulers ...

[Mastador1]

Yeah, yeah, I remember when the Hubble Telescope was going to be a total right off, never gonna work.

Nope we got nothing, zip, zilch, from that screw up.

[treetopsandroofs]

Thanks again.

[robroys woman]

You are right. I’m speaking from a position of ignorance. I’m basing my whole perspective on my personal belief (this part IS based on experience) that when the government gets involved in things like this they tend to significantly over complicate the whole process and end result.

Case in point is from a few decades ago, when the Isreali’s came up with a remote controlled aerial camera platform that was based, basically, on a remote controlled airplane. It was cheap and effective. The US Government decided to do the same thing. Their specs became a cash cow for the vendors that produced it. It was a flying wing that cost hundreds of thousands per copy and was unwieldy to operate.

Private enterprise, with the profit motive, is lean and mean.

[SunkenCiv]

The first launch of NASA’s SLS rocket delayed again
Behind the Black ^ | February 21, 2018 | Robert Zimmerman
Posted on 02/22/2018 5:15:23 AM PST by Voption
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3634199/posts