SpaceX has hired former NASA official William Gerstenmaier

[Rocket Science]

Gerst will speak truth to power, I hope Elon listens...

[Johnnyhinbos]

I know a Gerst is intimately familiar with the SpaceX culture of innovate hard, build fast, fail big, learn copiously, repeat. But it’s another thing to be IN that culture. I hope there’s a strong synergy developed and Gerst’s brake pumping will integrate well with Elon’s lead foot...

[rcoppola]

I think they want Gerst to be Gerst. He'll bring an exceptional expertise and rigor in transitioning Dragon out of development, through certification and into an operational HSF platform for NASA and others. He could also be hugely consequential wrt the upcoming Lunar Lander program.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/davemosher/status/1227376195672707072

A tremendous addition to the SpaceX team while keeping Bill in the greater Human Spaceflight Family.  He will help make an already excellent team even better.  Congrats to you Bill and to SpaceX!!!  - Charlie B.

[punder]

He could also be hugely consequential wrt the upcoming Lunar Lander program.

I think you've hit on the key, there.

[Hog]

Let's not for get his decades of experience with the worlds first operational reusable orbiter vehicle.




Gerstenmaier (left) working on a space shuttle wind tunnel test at the Glenn Research Center in 1978.

Over 40 years of civil service, time to get PAID. Good for him.

[TorenAltair]

Just spit my water onto the tablet as I read johnnyhinbos‘ news...

I would have expected Gerstenmaier to end in an old aerospace company.

PS: would you mind calling him Gerstenmaier and not Gerst? Gerst is our German astronaut (from my hometown )

[woods170]

I know a Gerst is intimately familiar with the SpaceX culture of innovate hard, build fast, fail big, learn copiously, repeat. But it’s another thing to be IN that culture. I hope there’s a strong synergy developed and Gerst’s brake pumping will integrate well with Elon’s lead foot...

He won't be on that level IMO. Gerst is reporting to Hans. So they are hiring him to strengthen mission reliability. Of which a strong safety culture is only a part, as is politics.

IMO the main reason SpaceX is hiring Gerst is because of his huge network both inside NASA and inside Washington. If SpaceX wants their long-term project to be successful it will need the goodwill and blessing of both NASA and the folks on the Hill. With Gerst SpaceX just hired a MAJOR source of leverage to assure SpaceX gets that goodwill and blessing.

[JamesH65]

So, has NASA verified that this meets government regulations?

Further limitations upon the post-government employment activities of certain officials exist
under so-called “procurement integrity” provisions of federal law for those former federal
officials who had acted as contracting officers or who had other specified contracting or
procurement functions for an agency. These additional restrictions go beyond the prohibitions on
merely “representational,” lobbying, or advocacy activities on behalf of private entities before the
government, and extend also to any compensated activity for or on behalf of certain private
contractors for a period of time after a former procurement official had worked on certain
contracts for the government.

The current post-employment restrictions within the procurement integrity provisions of federal
law are codified at 41 U.S.C. Sections 2103 and 2104. Under such provisions, former federal
officials who were involved in certain contracting and procurement duties for the government
concerning contracts in excess of $10 million may generally not receive any compensation from
the private contractor involved, as an employee, officer, consultant, or director of that contractor,
for one year after performing those procurement duties for the government.27
The types of contracting duties and decisions for the government which would trigger coverage
under these provisions include acting as the “procuring contracting officer, the source selection
authority, a member of the source selection evaluation board, or the chief of a financial or
technical evaluation team in a procurement” in excess of $10 million; serving as the program
manager, deputy program manager, or administrative contracting officer for covered contracts; or
being an officer who personally made decisions awarding a contract, subcontract, modification of
a contract, or task order or delivery order in excess of $10 million, establishing overhead or other
rates valued in excess of $10 million, or approving payments or settlement of claims for a
contract in excess of the covered amount.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42728.pdf

I'm frankly surprised they didn't wait a year since Wiliam Gerstenmaier was removed as head of HEOMD to give him a job since he could be considered a program manager for SpaceX's commercial crew and cargo contracts.

Maybe that's why his title contractor for now... this great for SpaceX and NASA.

Well, the CRS-2, CRS and commercial crew contracts may not be covered contracts because decisions on those weren't made in the last year (again,NASA has the information on this internally). So, even though he was a program manager (or rather the program manager's manager), those don't count as covered contracts. If NASA's, SpaceX's and Gerstenmaier's lawyers all looked at this thoroughly and it went through, it is at least an interesting anecdote about what is and is not legal.

I suppose this means he couldn't go to Boeing because of the extra money they got not too long ago, no?

Why would he go to Boeing (eventually)? Only reason I can think of is a huge paypacket. SpaceX is where all the excitement is.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1227580840038805504

The candid, off-the-record reaction I've gotten from flight directors and astronauts in Houston to Bill Gerstenmaier's move to SpaceX has been very positive. It's seen as good for both NASA and the company.

[Proponent]

Why would he go to Boeing (eventually)? Only reason I can think of is a huge paypacket....

Yes, and that might be a very good reason, especially for someone who's spent a career on a civil-service pay-scale.  And given Boeing's deep problems with Starliner, amplified by all its other quagmires, it would likely pay very handsomely now for Gerstenmeier's credibility now.

All of this is further amplified by the fact that Boeing's problems are a threat SpaceX.  Urged on by the likes of former astronaut Stafford, Congress, particularly the House (see H.R. 5666) tends to view Starliner's travails not as a sign that Boeing is a bad contractor but that anything other than traditional, NASA-owned and managed systems are dangerous.

[ncb1397]

All of this is further amplified by the fact that Boeing's problems are a threat SpaceX.  Urged on by the likes of former astronaut Stafford, Congress, particularly the House (see H.R. 5666) tends to view Starliner's travails not as a sign that Boeing is a bad contractor but that anything other than traditional, NASA-owned and managed systems are dangerous.

They kind of have a point. Dragon has a 5% cargo loss rate, over 3x higher than Shuttle that it replaced. Cygnus is even worse at 9% or 6x higher than the Shuttle that they replaced. Both providers on the crew side had serious anomalies with their uncrewed demonstration vehicles mere months before they were supposed to fly crewed that included the risk of LOV and LOV. While the space shuttle had the risk of LOV on its first mission, it wasn't until much farther in that any shuttle was lost in a mishap.

[Tommyboy]

All of this is further amplified by the fact that Boeing's problems are a threat SpaceX.  Urged on by the likes of former astronaut Stafford, Congress, particularly the House (see H.R. 5666) tends to view Starliner's travails not as a sign that Boeing is a bad contractor but that anything other than traditional, NASA-owned and managed systems are dangerous.

They kind of have a point. Dragon has a 5% cargo loss rate, over 3x higher than Shuttle that it replaced. Cygnus is even worse at 9% or 6x higher than the Shuttle that they replaced. Both providers on the crew side had serious anomalies with their uncrewed demonstration vehicles mere months before they were supposed to fly crewed that included the risk of LOV and LOV. While the space shuttle had the risk of LOV on its first mission, it wasn't until much farther in that any shuttle was lost in a mishap.

Apples and oranges. Shuttle was a crew vehicle as well, and as such had to abide by much more stringent engineering rules. By your same logic, we can consider both Dragon 1 and Cygnus as much safer crew transport vehicles because they have killed zero crews, while shuttle has killed two. Or calculate the loss of payload of Shuttle and Falcon 9 over their last 25 missions. Now which one is the safer vehicle?
How many near-misses has Shuttle had? I wasn't following spaceflight during the Shuttle era, but I know of at least two shuttle missions that almost failed (heat shield damage with only an antenna mount saving the orbiter, and one with one of the plugs in the engine bell cooling channels coming loose mid-ascent).

[meekGee]

All of this is further amplified by the fact that Boeing's problems are a threat SpaceX.  Urged on by the likes of former astronaut Stafford, Congress, particularly the House (see H.R. 5666) tends to view Starliner's travails not as a sign that Boeing is a bad contractor but that anything other than traditional, NASA-owned and managed systems are dangerous.

They kind of have a point. Dragon has a 5% cargo loss rate, over 3x higher than Shuttle that it replaced. Cygnus is even worse at 9% or 6x higher than the Shuttle that they replaced. Both providers on the crew side had serious anomalies with their uncrewed demonstration vehicles mere months before they were supposed to fly crewed that included the risk of LOV and LOV. While the space shuttle had the risk of LOV on its first mission, it wasn't until much farther in that any shuttle was lost in a mishap.

SMDH

Take with grain of salt, it's a troll comment.

It's always possible to mess with statistics to arrive at statements that are mathematically correct but fully misleading.

You can always extrapolate early failures into the steady state, and thus predict a horrible track records.

You can ignore things like escape systems on capsules that would have made cargo incidents survivable.  (Or for that matter, just contingency parachute opening code)

Shrug.

[ncb1397]

You can always extrapolate early failures into the steady state, and thus predict a horrible track records.
 

The statistics back it up however you look at it. Up to this point in Dragon and Cygnus' mission count, space shuttle had zero loss of cargo or crew. And it is fully backed up by theory. With programs like shuttle, you had two intimately involved organizations with differing priorities(one public, one private) responsible and looking after crew safety and reliability. This protects from organizational errors as each organization in turn has to falter (for instance, with the launch of challenger when there wasn't data on the SRB behavior in those precise conditions where both the contractor and the public agency approved the launch and the risk it represented). With the current hands off approach, any organizational defects or oversights in the engineering rests nearly entirely on the contractor with the public agency not providing full oversight. NASA likely didn't know or have the man power to go over every software test's data and show the starliner service module code wasn't fully functional. They also didn't have the manpower or resources to make sure one way valves weren't liable to leak, something that escaped attention from the contractor but could have been caught by NASA's inspectors. 

[DistantTemple]

All of this is further amplified by the fact that Boeing's problems are a threat SpaceX.  Urged on by the likes of former astronaut Stafford, Congress, particularly the House (see H.R. 5666) tends to view Starliner's travails not as a sign that Boeing is a bad contractor but that anything other than traditional, NASA-owned and managed systems are dangerous.

They kind of have a point. Dragon has a 5% cargo loss rate, over 3x higher than Shuttle that it replaced. Cygnus is even worse at 9% or 6x higher than the Shuttle that they replaced. Both providers on the crew side had serious anomalies with their uncrewed demonstration vehicles mere months before they were supposed to fly crewed that included the risk of LOV and LOV. While the space shuttle had the risk of LOV on its first mission, it wasn't until much farther in that any shuttle was lost in a mishap.

SMDH

Yes seriously the proponents above have an excellent point. In the spirit of true balance, and backed up just like the logic in the argument above with precise mathematics, the shuttle became operational in 1981, and flew until 2011. The shuttles flew 132 missions. In that time it lost exactly 0% of its cargo only missions, giving a perfect 100% safety record. This leaves Dragon 2 in the dust. When combined with to 30 years of STS missions that is an amazing record. Compared with this Dragon has only flown 19 times in 7 years, and had one total loss, and recently a second total loss of D2. This means that Dragon averages a total loss every 3.5 years. BMDHAtW.

[meekGee]

You can always extrapolate early failures into the steady state, and thus predict a horrible track records.
 

The statistics back it up however you look at it. Up to this point in Dragon and Cygnus' mission count, space shuttle had zero loss of cargo or crew. And it is fully backed up by theory. With programs like shuttle, you had two intimately involved organizations with differing priorities(one public, one private) responsible and looking after crew safety and reliability. This protects from organizational errors as each organization in turn has to falter (for instance, with the launch of challenger when there wasn't data on the SRB behavior in those precise conditions where both the contractor and the public agency approved the launch and the risk it represented). With the current hands off approach, any organizational defects or oversights in the engineering rests nearly entirely on the contractor with the public agency not providing full oversight. NASA likely didn't know or have the man power to go over every software test's data and show the starliner service module code wasn't fully functional. They also didn't have the manpower or resources to make sure one way valves weren't liable to leak, something that escaped attention from the contractor but could have been caught by NASA's inspectors.

A) With a manned program, you wouldn't fly on a modified rocket until proven with cargo first.

B) A manned capsule has an escape system.

So...  You're just mixing numbers.

[dglow]

You can always extrapolate early failures into the steady state, and thus predict a horrible track records.
 

The statistics back it up however you look at it. Up to this point in Dragon and Cygnus' mission count, space shuttle had zero loss of cargo or crew. And it is fully backed up by theory. With programs like shuttle, you had two intimately involved organizations with differing priorities(one public, one private) responsible and looking after crew safety and reliability. This protects from organizational errors as each organization in turn has to falter (for instance, with the launch of challenger when there wasn't data on the SRB behavior in those precise conditions where both the contractor and the public agency approved the launch and the risk it represented). With the current hands off approach, any organizational defects or oversights in the engineering rests nearly entirely on the contractor with the public agency not providing full oversight. NASA likely didn't know or have the man power to go over every software test's data and show the starliner service module code wasn't fully functional. They also didn't have the manpower or resources to make sure one way valves weren't liable to leak, something that escaped attention from the contractor but could have been caught by NASA's inspectors.

A) With a manned program, you wouldn't fly on a modified rocket until proven with cargo first.

Why test with cargo when you can do it with astronauts?

STS: no reason to robot when you have seats upfront. Whoowhee!

[Chris Bergin]

Back on topic from this point forward please.

[Lemurion]

I would definitely describe this as everyone but Boeing wins. Gerstenmaier’s street credibility will do wonders for SpaceX both in the industry and when it comes to dealing with foreign partners. He has probably already doubled the Russians’ level of acceptance of Crew Dragon.