Comments on: Just when you thought it was safe for milspace procurement http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/10/02/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Bob Bokros http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/10/02/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement/#comment-46212 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:06:10 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/10/02/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement/#comment-46212 With increasing labor costs, here is a product that can reduce your maintenance costs and offer a safe alternative to out sourced scaffolding.
it is used by EADS and NASA for satellite production.

]]> By: Ray http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/10/02/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement/#comment-23429 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:52:01 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/10/02/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-for-milspace-procurement/#comment-23429 I probably shouldn’t bring NASA into this thread, but the first thing that strikes me is that there are a whole lot of things they could be doing, or doing more of, than they are to make it easier to get things like SBIRS done right, on time, and on budget. Unfortunately building Ares I/V and Orion don’t strike me as being useful in that regard – and they take up the funds that could be helping. It would be nice if that ESAS stuff could be delayed until Shuttle retirement. They could go ahead after Shuttle retirement, restricting themselves to Shuttle retirement funds, and pick a Shuttle-derived architecture do go to the Moon – or whatever. For the Moon, they might have to make some decisions they’re so against now – 2 crew instead of 4, commercial components in the architecture, international components in the architecture (mercy! none of those!) … but I think they’d get it done anyway. In fact I think they’d have a better chance that way. If not … well, I’d place my priorities on helping DOD, NOAA, etc ahead of the Moon program anyway.

In the meantime, they could be investing seriously in flying small suborbital missions with existing launchers, and giving incentives for new, cheap (and lower altitude) launchers to be offered. This would give lots (I mean LOTS) of chances to fly small missions, which would give university students and new aerospace employees experience with the full mission cycle. That’s key to developing the engineering, systems engineering, and procurement expertise that allows bigger missions like SBIRS to succeed.

They could also be doing much more COTS to make sure cheaper launchers are developed that DOD could also benefit from. In the meantime they could be using EELVs for satellites and probes – again helping DOD (and NOAA, even non-satellite agencies that need commercial satellite technology like FEMA, etc).

They could also be launching more satellites with payloads with communication and remote sensing instruments of the sort other agencies use – sharing costs with, or improving, the same satellite technologies that the DOD (and NOAA, etc) need. If they emphasized smaller missions, they could give those industry systems engineers and procurement people another step in the ladder (after suborbital) to being able to handle the big “life or death of the country” missions like SBIRS.

I don’t see much need at these other agencies with critical missions for Ares V … DOD even got rid of Titan. I don’t see much need there for Orion either.

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