Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!milano!uudell!loft386!wes From: wes@loft386.uucp (Wes Peters) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Not solving any problems (was Re: Solving The Shuttles Problems?) Summary: Yet another common fallacy (long) Message-ID: <1990Oct8.031849.27121@loft386.uucp> Date: 8 Oct 90 03:18:49 GMT References: <1990Oct1.160100.389@vaxa.strath.ac.uk> <5689@mace.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: Lofty Pursuits Public Access Unix for Rapid City, SD USA Lines: 110 In article <1990Oct1.160100.389@vaxa.strath.ac.uk>, cadp13@vaxa.strath.ac.uk writes: % IF, instead of contracting, % NASA were to employ people, whose SOLE concern was to get the crew up and down % again safely, rather than the ever present bottom line, it would lead to a % safer, more efficient launch system (and we might finally get this space % station off the ground :)) In article <5689@mace.cc.purdue.edu>, dil@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Perry G Ramsey) writes: > Essentially, I agree. It makes sense to buy things already made from > contractors if they are things that the contractor already makes: Unfortunately, this just doesn't work for any program that has a low production volume, such as the space shuttle. Anything that you only build on or two a year of is going to be essentially hand-crafted every time. This applies to expensive car toys (Ferrari F-40), expensive yacht toys (J-44), and expensive space toys (Shuttle). > It doesn't make sense to buy custom made and designed things from outside > vendors when the outside vendors have no real expertise at making > these things, except the expertise that they gained from the last > contracting job. The whole job of making specialized things could > be moved in-house, and you could leave out a whole lot of bureaucratic > tangle of people looking over the shoulders of people looking over > other people's shoulders. No, you would have one entire organization of bureaucrats looking over the shoulders of the producing organization of bureaucrats, and yet another organization of bureaucrats to settle jurisdictional disputes between the producers and the overseers. Thinking that having the government do something in-house would be more efficient than having it contracted out is ludicrous. > In most cases, the contractors in the > US don't even own their own plant or furniture. It's all paid for > by the government anyway. The contractor is essentially bringing > nothing to the deal, except that they know how to deal with > government paperwork. There is, in fact, an entire class of > company, disparagingly known as the "Beltway Bandit" (in reference > to the fact that many are located on the highway which surrounds > Washington, DC, the "Capitol Beltway") which essentially does nothing > but hire people who work under the direction of the Government. Actually, they bring two things into the deal: 1) knowing how to deal with the government paperwork, which quite often even the contracting government agency doesn't really know, and 2) people with the expertise to actually CREATE something; you just don't find those kind of people in the civil service. > There's one real problem. It is virtually impossible to hire > competent technical personnel at the salaries the Government > offers. The contractor salaries typically run 20-30% higher > that their NASA counterparts. At the top of the organization > it's much worse. The current contractor arrangement exists > to skirt around Civil Service regulations. Without a major > overhaul of Government hiring (and firing) policy, there's > no real hope of your suggestion being implemented. > > I think it's the right approach, though. I think you're entirely wrong. What we really need to do is reduce the granularity on government contracting jobs, in the space program, the defense industry, and elsewhere, and make it MORE competitive. The main problem with the current state of government acquisitions is that there is too much of a "whole ball of wax" concept. The government should run procurement in many steps, starting with a concept definition, to a requirements definition, to a preliminary design, then a pre-production model, and then multiple-source production contracts. Each step should be seperately competed, and not until the prior step is completed and results published. The "defintion" contracts and preliminary design should be level-of-effort or time-and-materials contracts until completion, with quarterly progress reviews. The pre- production model contract, uncluding tooling and production layout, should be cost-plus, and the production contracts should be firm fixed contracts with early completion bonuses. Every effort should be made along the way to use commercial-quality documentation and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or non-developed item (NDI) production. The main expenditure in modern federal acqusitions is not the design or production of the systems, but the cost of documenting the system in the level of detail and REPETITIVENESS required by the Federal Acquisition Regulations. % PS > this might sound a little old fashioned, even socialist, but I'm afraid % that when it comes to space exploration, politics is just not of any concern. > I am a redneck right winger of strong credentials. My objection to the > current situation is that it corrupts capitalism. It's not free > enterprise when the government pays for everything and absorbs all the > risk, and the contractor makes a profit from it. It's all the > problems of socialism (sloth, inefficiency) with all the problems > of capitalism (rich people get richer for doing nothing.) If the rich people are getting richer for doing nothing, why did I spend a lot of last year working 60 - 70 hour weeks for no pay raise? I think you have been watching 60 Minutes or other TV news programs too much, and need a drastic reality check. For all the heat government contractors in general, and defense contractors in particular, have taken in the media over the past five years, keep in mind what these contractors have accomplished over the years - putting a man on the Moon, putting a lander on Mars, building entire floating cities that can circle the globe numerous times without refueling, and building a radar system that can track small objects as far away as the asteroid belt. -- Wes Peters wes@loft386 {bigtex, uunet}!loft386!wes Sail South Dakota... they'll never believe you on the coast!