If the government actually wanted companies on the line for mistakes...they would issue contracts that actually do that.
I am of the feeling that as long as the money is going where Congress wants it to go, they don't care where the blame is...which is why no one is responsible. This goes for LOTS of government programs. (SLS, F-35, etc...).If the government actually wanted companies on the line for mistakes...they would issue contracts that actually do that.
Quote from: ulm_atms on 07/02/2018 08:54 pmIf the government actually wanted companies on the line for mistakes...they would issue contracts that actually do that.There's a limit to which the government can do that before the contractor backs out of negotiations, leaving the government with no one.
It used to be that aerospace corporations were limited by statute in the amount of profit they can make. The amount of something like 7% comes to mind.
The bulk of the financial dollars comes from awards that are built into Cost Plus contracts. This can be sizeable.
Another reason the government may keep paying a contractor money is the cancellation fees may off set any savings.
Insofar as lack of responsibility, I don't think any NASA employees lost their jobs over Challenger or Columbia. I think some may have been promoted.
So what is the solution? Good program oversight by management, and members of Congress that are willing to every once in a while cancel a program when it gets too far out of budget. Because without consequences, no one will ever take responsibility.
But this is why you need well trained NASA program managers, and executives running NASA that understand how to manage large, complex programs. For instance, the designers of the JWST will always be biased towards spending money on optimal solutions, because it's not their money. And Northrop Grumman knows from decades of government contracting experience that it's more profitable if they take on more expensive work since they get a percentage of that work as profit.
But this is why you need well trained NASA program managers, and executives running NASA that understand how to manage large, complex programs
You underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.
Quote from: Semmel on 07/03/2018 08:27 amYou underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.You do realize that your argument is exactly what was used to justify the cost of Hubble?And guess what: Hubble observations led to more new questions than that it answered existing and old ones.IMO JWST will do the same: When JWST is said-and-done there will be more new questions about the universe than that it will have answered old ones.But that aside I stick to the opinion that cancelling JWST in 2011 would have been the right thing to do. Because it would have led IMO to a more practical and affordable way of doing an in-space telescope of that size. JWST as it exists today is IMO overly complex and relies too much on new/unproven technology resulting in massive cost-overruns above-and-beyond the cost-overruns caused by the initial under-funding and poor management.
Quote from: woods170 on 07/03/2018 11:22 amQuote from: Semmel on 07/03/2018 08:27 amYou underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.You do realize that your argument is exactly what was used to justify the cost of Hubble?And guess what: Hubble observations led to more new questions than that it answered existing and old ones.IMO JWST will do the same: When JWST is said-and-done there will be more new questions about the universe than that it will have answered old ones.But that aside I stick to the opinion that cancelling JWST in 2011 would have been the right thing to do. Because it would have led IMO to a more practical and affordable way of doing an in-space telescope of that size. JWST as it exists today is IMO overly complex and relies too much on new/unproven technology resulting in massive cost-overruns above-and-beyond the cost-overruns caused by the initial under-funding and poor management.JWST was done the way it was because it had to be. It wasn’t wilfully designed that way for the sake of it.With your overly-conservative approach we would never make any progress in delivering capabilities.It seems as if when private industry breaks new ground for progress it’s applauded but when NASA tries a similar approach it gets condemned. We often hear people complaining NASA is too conservative. So it seems to be case of them being dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t.
Quote from: Star One on 07/03/2018 11:42 amQuote from: woods170 on 07/03/2018 11:22 amQuote from: Semmel on 07/03/2018 08:27 amYou underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.You do realize that your argument is exactly what was used to justify the cost of Hubble?And guess what: Hubble observations led to more new questions than that it answered existing and old ones.IMO JWST will do the same: When JWST is said-and-done there will be more new questions about the universe than that it will have answered old ones.But that aside I stick to the opinion that cancelling JWST in 2011 would have been the right thing to do. Because it would have led IMO to a more practical and affordable way of doing an in-space telescope of that size. JWST as it exists today is IMO overly complex and relies too much on new/unproven technology resulting in massive cost-overruns above-and-beyond the cost-overruns caused by the initial under-funding and poor management.JWST was done the way it was because it had to be. It wasn’t wilfully designed that way for the sake of it.With your overly-conservative approach we would never make any progress in delivering capabilities.It seems as if when private industry breaks new ground for progress it’s applauded but when NASA tries a similar approach it gets condemned. We often hear people complaining NASA is too conservative. So it seems to be case of them being dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t.Industry and NASA can break new ground perfectly fine while still adhering to the KISS principle. Unfortunately, neither NASA, nor industry did so in the case of JWST.JWST is overly complex, with too many mission-critical deployment steps. If just a single one of those steps goes awry it is mission-over for JWST.
That is the scary part for me in all of this. Since it has to be deployed at L1, there is no way to fix it (unlike Hubble) if there are any issues with any the moving parts during deploy. Shoot, Hubble was a colossal screw up at first but at least it was built to be fixed to a point and we could actually get there to fix it.So this telescope, with all it's complexity, and no way to fix any issues after deploy, makes hearing of all of these issues from NG scary to read/hear. KISS should be adhered to especially if there is no way to fix it post launch.
But now we are on the edge of a world where reusable rockets and commercial crew vehicles are part of our reality, and I would advocate that somewhere in NASA they should be considering what the next generation of standards should be for Earth-local remote systems.For instance, and this gets to the national "leadership" issue, NASA could decide that all future Earth-local major science platforms be equipped for not only capture (like Hubble), but movement from their location of science to a location of service. Then all that would be needed are space tugs and commercial habitats to set up a service location. No doubt this would cost a good chunk of money to set up, but the long term benefits should pay for itself. Plus this would help create new industries, which is always a good side effect of government spending. Just trying to think of ways to eliminate situations like this...
Snip*Of course it's not the contractors fault that the JWST was not designed to be serviceable, it's NASA's. And to be fair, when NASA was designing the JWST way back in 1996 the idea of servicing a science platform at L1 - with humans - was a bit of a stretch.
I know that's not the contractor's issue...you just don't want to see any sloppiness/carelessness on something that can't be fixed. That the contractor can avoid.
But as far as JWST's design back then. After the Hubble issues...you would of thought they would design in some ways to fix some things if something went wrong/wasn't right.
One thing I always wondered is why they couldn't of launched it to LEO, deploy everything, checked everything, and then had something like a small ion drive with enough fuel to slowly get it out to L1 for service and if possible, have enough to get it back to LEO if something needed to be fixed and then go back out to L1....like your tug.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 07/03/2018 02:38 pmBut now we are on the edge of a world where reusable rockets and commercial crew vehicles are part of our reality, and I would advocate that somewhere in NASA they should be considering what the next generation of standards should be for Earth-local remote systems.For instance, and this gets to the national "leadership" issue, NASA could decide that all future Earth-local major science platforms be equipped for not only capture (like Hubble), but movement from their location of science to a location of service. Then all that would be needed are space tugs and commercial habitats to set up a service location. No doubt this would cost a good chunk of money to set up, but the long term benefits should pay for itself. Plus this would help create new industries, which is always a good side effect of government spending. Just trying to think of ways to eliminate situations like this...regardless, JWST type telescope is not a viable platform for servicing.
But this is why you need well trained NASA program managers, and executives running NASA that understand how to manage large, complex programs.
Quote from: Semmel on 07/03/2018 08:27 amYou underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.You do realize that your argument is exactly what was used to justify the cost of Hubble?
And guess what: Hubble observations led to more new questions than that it answered existing and old ones.IMO JWST will do the same: When JWST is said-and-done there will be more new questions about the universe than that it will have answered old ones.
But that aside I stick to the opinion that cancelling JWST in 2011 would have been the right thing to do. Because it would have led IMO to a more practical and affordable way of doing an in-space telescope of that size. JWST as it exists today is IMO overly complex and relies too much on new/unproven technology resulting in massive cost-overruns above-and-beyond the cost-overruns caused by the initial under-funding and poor management.
Quote from: Jim on 07/03/2018 03:51 pmQuote from: Coastal Ron on 07/03/2018 02:38 pmBut now we are on the edge of a world where reusable rockets and commercial crew vehicles are part of our reality, and I would advocate that somewhere in NASA they should be considering what the next generation of standards should be for Earth-local remote systems.For instance, and this gets to the national "leadership" issue, NASA could decide that all future Earth-local major science platforms be equipped for not only capture (like Hubble), but movement from their location of science to a location of service. Then all that would be needed are space tugs and commercial habitats to set up a service location. No doubt this would cost a good chunk of money to set up, but the long term benefits should pay for itself. Plus this would help create new industries, which is always a good side effect of government spending. Just trying to think of ways to eliminate situations like this...regardless, JWST type telescope is not a viable platform for servicing. Correct. When one decides to do a telescope that is non-servicable, due to both location and architecture, one should be well advised to keep it cheap. So that in case the telescope experiences an anomaly, that renders it useless, replacement(s) can be sent up on the cheap.However, JWST is neither servicable, nor cheap. If any of the deployments goes awry NASA will have a $9.6B failure on their hands. The resulting (political) storm and fall-out will dwarf what NASA experienced when Hubble was first deployed with its flawed mirror.So, here's hoping that JWST deployment goes perfectly.
But is there any point in dragging up the fact that it could of been cancelled in 2011?After all it’s easy to parade your view on this topic with seven years of hindsight.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 07/02/2018 10:10 pmBut this is why you need well trained NASA program managers, and executives running NASA that understand how to manage large, complex programs.Completely agree with this statement, but even more important are well-trained contractor program managers and executives. Very often companies will not assign their "A team" to a NASA project because they have a much more profitable DoD project they want to put their best people on. If you get a contractor manager who performs well, very often either his company will promote him to a higher-paying position with a DoD project, or he/she will get a good job offer from another company. Then you're left training a new contractor manager.
Quote from: woods170 on 07/03/2018 12:57 pmQuote from: Star One on 07/03/2018 11:42 amQuote from: woods170 on 07/03/2018 11:22 amQuote from: Semmel on 07/03/2018 08:27 amYou underestimate the need for a telescope like JWST in astronomy. Almost any astronomer wants that telescope. It is the most promising way to answer the remaining open questions in astronomy. If JWST gets canceled, the push of scientists will be to a new telescope just like JWST. There are many more telescopes needed for answering current open questions, but JWST or equivalent would give data for the largest chunk of it.You do realize that your argument is exactly what was used to justify the cost of Hubble?And guess what: Hubble observations led to more new questions than that it answered existing and old ones.IMO JWST will do the same: When JWST is said-and-done there will be more new questions about the universe than that it will have answered old ones.But that aside I stick to the opinion that cancelling JWST in 2011 would have been the right thing to do. Because it would have led IMO to a more practical and affordable way of doing an in-space telescope of that size. JWST as it exists today is IMO overly complex and relies too much on new/unproven technology resulting in massive cost-overruns above-and-beyond the cost-overruns caused by the initial under-funding and poor management.JWST was done the way it was because it had to be. It wasn’t wilfully designed that way for the sake of it.With your overly-conservative approach we would never make any progress in delivering capabilities.It seems as if when private industry breaks new ground for progress it’s applauded but when NASA tries a similar approach it gets condemned. We often hear people complaining NASA is too conservative. So it seems to be case of them being dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t.Industry and NASA can break new ground perfectly fine while still adhering to the KISS principle. Unfortunately, neither NASA, nor industry did so in the case of JWST.JWST is overly complex, with too many mission-critical deployment steps. If just a single one of those steps goes awry it is mission-over for JWST.That is the scary part for me in all of this. Since it has to be deployed at L1, there is no way to fix it (unlike Hubble) if there are any issues with any the moving parts during deploy. Shoot, Hubble was a colossal screw up at first but at least it was built to be fixed to a point and we could actually get there to fix it.So this telescope, with all it's complexity, and no way to fix any issues after deploy, makes hearing of all of these issues from NG scary to read/hear. KISS should be adhered to especially if there is no way to fix it post launch.
regardless, JWST type telescope is not a viable platform for servicing.
In some cases contractors are responsible. SpaceX gets paid only for completing milestones, however that comes at a cost of less government oversight, and it is hard to sell anyone in power on the idea that giving up some power might be a good thing. Once a contractor has been chosen the government cannot change its mind without essentially giving the contractor a blank check. In the case of Webb the government made multiple changes over the course of the program that increased requirements rather than sticking to the original plan.Contractors that are publicly held have no choice but to maximize profits. Their boards are often controlled by large stockholders who have the primary objective of maximizing their short term wealth, not maximizing our knowledge of the universe. A CEO who tried to take a longer view would lose his job. That is perhaps why Musk does not want SpaceX to go public.With Hubble launching a new spacecraft periodically might have been cheaper than the servicing flights. That may be why the concept of servicintg was dropped. Yet with Webb there seems to be no plan to replace the spacecraft if it fails. That may be a mistake.
At the risk of drifting off topic, was Hubble designed to be serviceable to give the shuttle something to do?(I was _seriously_ impressed by those missions - you might suggest launching multiple Hubble's each with upgrades over the last might have been cheaper but you would have lost that spacewalk experience).
In answer to the thread title's question: that's the $64 billion dollar question (literally), isn't it...
This is the real issue. Not a serviceable design.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 07/03/2018 02:38 pmJust trying to think of ways to eliminate situations like this...regardless, JWST type telescope is not a viable platform for servicing.
Just trying to think of ways to eliminate situations like this...
Quote from: FinalFrontier on 07/05/2018 05:23 amThis is the real issue. Not a serviceable design. It is not the design, it is the type of telescope. IR cooled with sunshield. Neither like thruster plumes
Second, to me this is another good example of a contractor issue with no accountability. I find it hard to believe there was not some alternative to this particular design element even in spite of the mass restrictions. If there truly wasn't then it's an example instead of a contractor being hurt by poor NASA mission planning and poor LV selection. Of course to be fair when JWST was first conceived we did not have/see more powerful wider fairing LV's coming any time soon.
First of all how well is that sun-shield going to do with MMOD I wonder. Especially since in ground testing so far the thing apparently ripped just trying to deploy it.
I find it hard to believe there was not some alternative to this particular design element even in spite of the mass restrictions. If there truly wasn't then it's an example instead of a contractor being hurt by poor NASA mission planning and poor LV selection. Of course to be fair when JWST was first conceived we did not have/see more powerful wider fairing LV's coming any time soon.