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To: PIF

And this is after NASA wasted billions on SLS, Constellation and Artemis?


3 posted on 07/03/2025 6:18:10 AM PDT by TomT in NJ
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To: TomT in NJ; PIF
And this is after NASA wasted billions . . .

NASA became a bloated, self-referencing bureaucracy about the time Apollo ended. While they do get contractors (e.g. Boeing) to do some of their work, they still maintain the bureaucratic overhead and final decision authority, which slows everything down and leads to bad decisions. Nothing is 'all on Boeing' when NASA is jiggling their elbows all the time.

They did indeed waste billions on SLS, etc., but much of that 'waste' was not in any sense fraud or corruption. It was pure bureaucracy requiring endless trade studies rather than just building something and see if it works (e.g. SpaceX). If you just build something you're paying contractors. If you are "performing" trade studies you are paying bureaucrats either to conduct the study or to evaluate it.

I would believe in NASA again (and they did good work in the days up to Apollo) if there were accountability. Where are the "systems engineers" at NASA who were laid off after SLS was such a failure, or after James Webb overran by 300% of the original budget? With no accountability for bad decisions you get lots and lots of bad decisions.

I am a big believer in a sound space program, but the best way to get the US back into space in a productive, value-added way is to get rid of NASA as a whole (perhaps retaining divisions that actually perform, like JPL, but without the over-arching bureaucracy) and let US industry meet a true national need.
46 posted on 07/03/2025 7:59:08 AM PDT by Phlyer
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