When I told my wife there was a rocket launch and we could go watch it she immediately said "oh God you're going to xxxxxx your pants when we see that" lol. She knows me so well.

clw04 said:

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lb3 said:

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clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

Every agency is being instructed to fire probationary employees. If they're deemed worthy, they'll be asked back.

---

If they are deemed worthy why "fire' them in the first place. We will see if they are able to protect mission critical positions, but any type of RIF through Human Spaceflight Missions put SpaceX in an even better position than they are already in.

---

Because we don't know what is and what isn't, and when we're up to our eyeballs in debt, the agencies have lost the benefit of the doubt.

We spent billions for SLS to make one unmanned fly by of the moon and everyone kept throwing taxpayer money at it. That massive jobs program is the reason we now have to scratch and claw for every penny.

---

Those aren't the people that are getting fired- SLS costs from NASA employees is super small as all the money goes to Boeing. If DOGE driven items do stupid stuff by firing the wrong people (not the "wastes of money" that are mandated by Congress) then you are putting active missions at risk.

---

I've argued for years that the only way for NASA to fulfill its mission is to either triple the budget or cut it by 75%.

I'll share one of my stories now. I was just starting as a flight controller and working in the back room when the crew called down annoyed at a pop-up message on their laptop that kept interfering with their work.

We couldn't remote into PCs back then so we had the crew take a picture of the pop-up for us. Turns out it was a Norton Anti-Virus nagware message saying that the license had not yet been activated. I was pretty annoyed that the engineering office hadn't activated the software before burning the disk image. I searched for the activation code in my console's documentation and even in engineering's cert package but found nothing.

Undeterred I wrote a quick procedure to have the crew call down the product ID number and being an exuberant new flight controller I grabbed my personal credit card and called Symantec to obtain the activation code. A few minutes and $29.99 later I had the activation code.

At that moment my front room controller got cold feed and asked Engineering to verify the activation code was correct.

Eleven and a half months later Engineering finally approved of us activating the Norton Anti-Virus software. In that meeting I notified them that I had already tested the activation code on the computer mirror we had in the mission support room and that after activating the software it immediately started generating pop-up messages indicating that the definition files were out of date. To resolve that I contacted the OCA officer (the guy responsible for file transfers on ISS) and gave him the path to the definition file upload directory and had that path added to the batch file used for weekly Norton Anti-Virus updates on all the other laptops.

At this moment the system manager lost his **** and exclaimed that antivirus definition files contained .dll files which were executable files and that they would put the computer out of its certified configuration and that he didn't have the budget to recertify the software every week.

I laughed and exclaimed that by that logic, the first time a computer is powered on it writes log files which means the hard disk image no longer matches what they certified and that we should. E prohibited from ever turning the computer on. I then asked how the Crew Systems office in the same Engineering Directorate was able to update their virus definition files every week.

I got some song and dance about how the Crew Systems office who were using the exact same laptop model were configured to different requirements.

We ended up decommissioning that computer before we ever got permission to load new virus definition files.

The moral of this story is that NASA's siloed organizational structures can create a Byzantine labyrinth of duplicative working groups, panels, and boards all requiring approval which results in even simple non-critical changes taking months to gain approval.

Then you add in that various directorates often have different priorities and budgets and you can quickly see how these train wrecks happen.

In the situations like I outlined above we have an engineering organization that exhausted their sustaining budget for the year refusing to dedicate any resources to non-critical issues like Norton Anti-Virus pop-ups and an ops organization that has young energetic flight controllers working in shifts 24/7 trying to hammer flat every nail that slows down completing the ops mission.

All of the above shows what can go wrong when smart well meaning people are operating off different sheets of music. Imagine what can happen when egos and turf wars get involved. This was the toxic brew that led to what I call the MER Wars during the 2006-2009 timeframe which saw increasingly antagonistic and occasionally, outright hostility between the divisions.

It got so bad at one point that NASA had to bring in outside consultants to run workshops to help restore the frayed relationships between divisions.

Our org structure worked in the 60s when NASA had basically unlimited budgets, a disciplined military descended culture, and strong leaders. I'll let y'all decide how many of those still exist today.

---

I've seen all those things, but a lot of this you likely don't get a lot of traction now without removing the technical authorities as the directorates heavily link themselves to them for R&Rs. I don't know how you cut any of the workforce I've seen for human spaceflight programs without issues as the everyone that I work with are all over-worked and putting in extra hours.

---

Were all over-worked because we're running around writing power point presentations and pitching our requests for the labyrinth of gate keepers.

I've spent a lot of time in Hawthorn and they empower their employees. But it's structural as much as it is culture. Everyone there is matrixed into multiple teams. This way they have the cross discipline expertise at the working level to make decisions and mature designs quickly.

A simple example from the last few weeks. ECLSS engineering wants to evaluate the usefulness of an oxygen breathing mask in a depress. They work the issue within their ECLSS teams and have one of their analysts build some depress models for various sized leaks.

They then bring their story to an integration panel which has about 65 people dialed in from every directorate and I take an action to help them determine how long they have to put the mask on before they succumb to hypoxia and after putting the mask on, how long it is useful. Others take an action to determine how long should it take a disoriented crew to don the mask if awakened by a depress alarm in the middle of the night.

I have no idea how many meetings ECLSS Engineering had prior to the integration panel or how many more times it will come back as they update their analysis but they will spend far more time sharing their story than they will spend getting to the answer.

If the ECLSS team had a physiologist matrixed in from HH&P, an emergency operations trainer from FOD, and a safety engineer from S&MA, they could get straight to the answer without working a little, reporting a little, gathering feedback, working a little more, reporting updates, etc…

Of course this would require our physiologist and trainers to also be able to use MatLab, LabView, CAD Systems, or other design, analysis, and test tools to be able to be productive when matrixed out to design organizations.

Currently most of the NASA workforce doesn't have these cross discipline skills to implement this type of matrixed organizational structure. SpaceX on the other hand is quite good at this.

If we hire the people that do have these skills, and empower them to make decisions, we could do without at least half of NASA's workforce.

bthotugigem05 said:

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A buddy runs Starfleet Tours as well, they do charter boats for some of the bigger launches that get you as close as civilian boats are allowed.

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I did this for a falcon heavy launch. Was amazing and the dual boosters landed at KSC. Basically came down right over us and saw everything up close with a pair of binoculars. Well worth the price for the trip!

How much we talking?

Damn if only you had some kind of experience taking ships to sea

Right! "Hey man, we got a debris field over here, I'm gonna have to deviate from shipping path just a touch"

lb3 said:

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clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

Every agency is being instructed to fire probationary employees. If they're deemed worthy, they'll be asked back.

---

If they are deemed worthy why "fire' them in the first place. We will see if they are able to protect mission critical positions, but any type of RIF through Human Spaceflight Missions put SpaceX in an even better position than they are already in.

---

Because we don't know what is and what isn't, and when we're up to our eyeballs in debt, the agencies have lost the benefit of the doubt.

We spent billions for SLS to make one unmanned fly by of the moon and everyone kept throwing taxpayer money at it. That massive jobs program is the reason we now have to scratch and claw for every penny.

---

Those aren't the people that are getting fired- SLS costs from NASA employees is super small as all the money goes to Boeing. If DOGE driven items do stupid stuff by firing the wrong people (not the "wastes of money" that are mandated by Congress) then you are putting active missions at risk.

---

I've argued for years that the only way for NASA to fulfill its mission is to either triple the budget or cut it by 75% to destroy the bureaucracy.

I'll share one of my stories now. I was just starting as a flight controller and working in the back room when the crew called down annoyed at a pop-up message on their laptop that kept interfering with their work.

We couldn't remote into PCs back then so we had the crew take a picture of the pop-up for us. Turns out it was a Norton Anti-Virus nagware message saying that the license had not yet been activated. I was pretty annoyed that the engineering office hadn't activated the software before burning the disk image. I searched for the activation code in my console's documentation and even in engineering's cert package but found nothing.

Undeterred I wrote a quick procedure to have the crew call down the product ID number and being an exuberant new flight controller I grabbed my personal credit card and called Symantec to obtain the activation code. A few minutes and $29.99 later I had the activation code.

At that moment my front room controller got cold feed and asked Engineering to verify the activation code was correct.

Eleven and a half months later [insert Sponge Bob Meme] Engineering finally approved of us activating the Norton Anti-Virus software. In that meeting I notified them that I had already tested the activation code on the computer mirror we had in the mission support room and that after activating the software it immediately started generating pop-up messages indicating that the definition files were out of date. To resolve that I contacted the OCA officer (the guy responsible for file transfers on ISS) and gave him the path to the definition file upload directory and had that path added to the batch file used for weekly Norton Anti-Virus updates on all the other laptops.

At this moment the system manager lost his **** and exclaimed that antivirus definition files contained .dll files which were executable files and that they would put the computer out of its certified configuration and that he didn't have the budget to recertify the software every week.

I laughed and exclaimed that by that logic, the first time a computer is powered on it writes log files which means the hard disk image no longer matches what they certified and that we should be prohibited from ever turning the computer on. I then asked how the Crew Systems office in the same Engineering Directorate was able to update their virus definition files every week.

I got some song and dance about how the Crew Systems office who were using the exact same laptop model were configured to different requirements.

We ended up decommissioning that computer 8 or 9 months later without ever getting permission to load new virus definition files.

The moral of this story is that NASA's siloed organizational structures can create a Byzantine labyrinth of duplicative working groups, panels, and boards all requiring approval which results in even simple non-critical changes taking months to gain approval.

Then you add in that various directorates often have different priorities and budgets and you can quickly see how these train wrecks happen.

In the situations like I outlined above we have an engineering organization that exhausted their sustaining budget for the year refusing to dedicate any resources to non-critical issues like Norton Anti-Virus pop-ups and an ops organization that has young energetic flight controllers working in shifts 24/7 trying to hammer flat every nail that slows down completing the ops mission.

All of the above shows what can go wrong when smart well meaning people are operating off different sheets of music. Imagine what can happen when egos and turf wars get involved. This was the toxic brew that led to what I call the MER Wars during the 2006-2009 timeframe which saw increasingly antagonistic and occasionally, outright hostility between the divisions.

It got so bad at one point that NASA had to bring in outside consultants to run workshops to help restore the frayed relationships between divisions.

Our org structure worked in the 60s when NASA had basically unlimited budgets, a disciplined military descended culture, and strong leaders. I'll let y'all decide how many of those still exist today.

---

I was a contractor for a small company and we were trying to use a comm-port board in Linux and were having a lot of trouble getting it working. We had some sort of demo in front of investors the next week and nothing was working. I suggested a Digi-board because I had used them myself before. My superiors said that wouldn't work because it cost too much in volume that we needed to get the cheap POS board to work. Well on Saturday I said F-it and I called up Digiboard and told them the situation. They overnighted me a board, which I installed and it worked like a champ. Monday morning, I told my superiors what I did and was half expecting to be in trouble. Instead, they gave me high fives for taking initiative and the demo went well.

I'm 100% certain, that if I had tried anything like that on a government contract I would have been accused murder.

Sea Speed said:

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Decay said:

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Damn if only you had some kind of experience taking ships to sea

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I really only work in the Gulf of America these days.

---

(Gulf of) America! Funk yeah!!!! Comin' to save the Mother F*<#%+ day yeah!

I feel like I'm on two different threads at once.

I'm still trying to figure out the true need for Anti-Virus on a laptop on the ISS that, as the it's only interaction with the world would be (ast lb3 described) was an uploads computer/server with pre-prepared file sets.

It just seems to me that if there were ever a computer at zero risk of getting a virus it would be these. As evident by the fact that the unit in question never had functioning anti-virus software installed.

Ag87H2O said:

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I feel like I'm on two different threads at once.

---

If you want your brain bent, head over to the Baseball board. There's a thread about our former coach losing his first game that turned left (not politically) and ended up a productive comparison of cold in Coastal Texas vs North Dakota.

And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

nortex97 said:

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And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

---

I guess the bidding on that contract is over?

From 2007? You'd think. I don't have the bandwidth to dig into all the contracts/amendments since, but let's just say it's been a mess that is pretty well documented on Flight Global/AWST etc. Nextgen really will also make travel not just safer, but faster, if we ever get a sane implementation of it.

But yes, imagine spec'ing out a complex computing/communication system in 2007-2010 and trying to then implement it around today-2030. Anyone who digs into it will just shake their head imho and wonder how more planes aren't crashing.

nortex97 said:

---

And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

---

I am thankful for Musk's willingness to tackle all these huge issues, but a person only has so much bandwidth. I hope in dedicating so much time to helping the country that he doesn't spread his personal and corporate resources so thin that they start making mistakes, particularly at SpaceX.

TexAgs91 said:

---

nortex97 said:

---

And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

---

I guess the bidding on that contract is over?

---

Did you want us to give Boeing a shot at it first like we did with Starliner?

Kenneth_2003 said:

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I'm still trying to figure out the true need for Anti-Virus on a laptop on the ISS that, as the it's only interaction with the world would be (ast lb3 described) was an uploads computer/server with pre-prepared file sets.

It just seems to me that if there were ever a computer at zero risk of getting a virus it would be these. As evident by the fact that the unit in question never had functioning anti-virus software installed.

---

No doubt. Scan that crap on Earth and then send it up.

It's funny that somehow non working anti-virus software was preferable to a lilcensed one or no anti-virus software at all. That's like the worst of all worlds.

Kenneth_2003 said:

---

I'm still trying to figure out the true need for Anti-Virus on a laptop on the ISS that, as the it's only interaction with the world would be (ast lb3 described) was an uploads computer/server with pre-prepared file sets.

It just seems to me that if there were ever a computer at zero risk of getting a virus it would be these. As evident by the fact that the unit in question never had functioning anti-virus software installed.

---

It's really not, but it's likely part of a standard image added to every laptop that comes through the door. In my experience, organizations get computers en masse and then image them with a standard image that has all of their typical software and policies pre-installed and set up so they don't have to set up each one individually. Whatever group started all the setup might not have even known this particular laptop was going to the ISS and did it just like every other laptop in the batch. Even if they did, they may have left the antivirus as part of the image to protect it while it was on the ground and being used for setup or testing. Once it got out of date and couldn't update, the annoying pop ups started.

lb3 said:

---

clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

clw04 said:

---

Decay said:

---

Every agency is being instructed to fire probationary employees. If they're deemed worthy, they'll be asked back.

---

If they are deemed worthy why "fire' them in the first place. We will see if they are able to protect mission critical positions, but any type of RIF through Human Spaceflight Missions put SpaceX in an even better position than they are already in.

---

Because we don't know what is and what isn't, and when we're up to our eyeballs in debt, the agencies have lost the benefit of the doubt.

We spent billions for SLS to make one unmanned fly by of the moon and everyone kept throwing taxpayer money at it. That massive jobs program is the reason we now have to scratch and claw for every penny.

---

Those aren't the people that are getting fired- SLS costs from NASA employees is super small as all the money goes to Boeing. If DOGE driven items do stupid stuff by firing the wrong people (not the "wastes of money" that are mandated by Congress) then you are putting active missions at risk.

---

Our org structure worked in the 60s when NASA had basically unlimited budgets, a disciplined military descended culture, and strong leaders. I'll let y'all decide how many of those still exist today.

---

The NASA bureaucracy wasn't that much better in the 60s. When NASA was gearing up to go to the moon in the early 60s, they decided that somebody needed to teach the astronauts about geology so they would know what they were looking at. The folks at headquarters immediately started talking to the USGS and started assembling a group of experts from within the survey. Meanwhile, the head of the newly formed JSC in Houston went out and hired a crew of field geology focused instructors (including my dad as the lead), neatly duplicating what had been done at headquarters. The head guy for USGS reportedly really got his nose out of joint that they would not be leading the field instruction, but the two crews eventually got together and worked out a way to work together to accomplish the mission. It did lead to some funny stories though...like the time they were in the Grand Canyon and decided that whoever got to the top first would get to lead the press conference. My dad sat back with a few of the astronauts and the non-camera hounds taking a leisurely pace out and then got to laugh at the "winners" trying to answer questions non-stop while they were completely gassed.

txags92 said:

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TexAgs91 said:

---

nortex97 said:

---

And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

---

I guess the bidding on that contract is over?

---

Did you want us to give Boeing a shot at it first like we did with Starliner?

---

So you're saying the only possible options are to let SpaceX do it or let Boeing do it?

If those two choices are my ONLY choices (and you are apparently confirming that to be true and that a request for proposals is not necessary), then yes, give it to SpaceX.

Cool!

Did you see the episode in From the Earth to the Moon where Apollo 15 astronauts did some crash courses in lunar geology? It seemed to be a pretty accurate episode but I'm just going off of appearances.

TexAgs91 said:

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txags92 said:

---

TexAgs91 said:

---

nortex97 said:

---

And…why can't they just get a Mac? Or for that matter, an Ipad for these computing functions? In a couple years it will be fascinating what computing hardware the SpaceX team starts hurling toward Mars.

Somewhat tangential to the thread but the FAA has been embroiled for decades in a massive set of multi-billion dollar NextGen ATC updates to an antiquated system. Geekier discussion from over 10 years ago at Leeham. It's a necessarily complex problem to solve, setting aside my anti-government animus/bias.

SpaceX is going to assist:

The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter. SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

---

I guess the bidding on that contract is over?

---

Did you want us to give Boeing a shot at it first like we did with Starliner?

---

So you're saying the only possible options are to let SpaceX do it or let Boeing do it?

If those two choices are my ONLY choices (and you are apparently confirming that to be true and that a request for proposals is not necessary), then yes, give it to SpaceX.

---

In this case, Boeing is a catch all for all of the typical big government contractors that are bloated and inefficient for the most part, mostly due to the requirements of typical government contracts. They cost a lot and generally don't accomplish the mission they were paid for very well, usually far behind schedule. We have tried multiple contracts to modernize the FAA's ATC and most of them have studied the problem, and made recommendations after years of study, winding up with technology that is on its way to being obsolete before it ever has a chance to be implemented.

Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

TexAgs91 said:

---

Cool!

Did you see the episode in From the Earth to the Moon where Apollo 15 astronauts did some crash courses in lunar geology? It seemed to be a pretty accurate episode but I'm just going off of appearances.

---

I think so, but I have seen so many of those that I can't remember that specific episode. They did a lot of trips all over the world looking at various volcanic terrains (Iceland, Hawaii, Idaho, Cascades, etc). But the idea of getting the astronauts in suits and training them to communicate directly with the science team about what they were seeing came about quite late in the program. The moon walks in the early missions were very programmed down to the minute and the guys got very little chance to actually do any real looking around at the geology. There was no way for the astronauts to communicate directly to the science team, so they started out training them to try to be autonomous field geologists.

The scientific teams fought for a long time to get a seat at the table in mission control (in a side room, but on the radio circuit with the capcom) so they could communicate more directly with the astronauts about what they were seeing. The training for the later missions focused more on teaching the astronauts to describe what they were seeing in geologic terms so that people on the other end of the radio could help them decipher it and collect good samples. The later missions also had the lunar rover available to cover more ground and landed in more interesting locations from a geologic perspective.

TexAgs91 said:

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Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

---

You are assuming we are even paying Elon to do it. I am not sure that has even been established yet.

txags92 said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

---

You are assuming we are even paying Elon to do it. I am not sure that has even been established yet.

---

With a fixed-price contract the contractor responsible for any cost overruns, which incentivizes efficiency and innovation. That's what we want no matter who is selected.

TexAgs91 said:

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txags92 said:

---

TexAgs91 said:

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Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

---

You are assuming we are even paying Elon to do it. I am not sure that has even been established yet.

---

With a fixed-price contract the contractor responsible for any cost overruns, which incentivizes efficiency and innovation. That's what we want no matter who is selected.

---

I am well aware of what fixed price "performance based" contracts are, given that I manage 3 of them right now. Again, I have not seen anything saying Elon is actually charging the government for having his engineers look at the systems.

Sea Speed said:

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How much we talking?

---

My trip was $115pp but I want to say that is variable depending on which boats are available.

TexAgs91 said:

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Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

---

Everyone loves a fixed price contract until their first change order.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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Well for one thing, let's start with making it a fixed-price contract.

---

Everyone loves a fixed price contract until their first change order.

---

Yeah, when you start factoring in "potential" risks that may never happen and change orders due to deficiencies in GFI or material changes in conditions, fixed price isn't always cheaper than cost-plus.

The problem with fixed cost bids or low bid is that there are some jobs where there is only a single bidder.

Take for example the waste remediation at the Hanford Site. There are basically 2 US construction companies equipped to do that job: Bechtel and Fluor. And Fluor walked away. So a 1 bid job for low bid doesn't work. Cost plus is better. The problem is government change orders and over site making sure that Bechtel doesn't put everything imaginable into cost.

Mathguy64 said:

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The problem with fixed cost bids or low bid is that there are some jobs where there is only a single bidder.

Take for example the waste remediation at the Hanford Site. There are basically 2 US construction companies equipped to do that job: Bechtel and Fluor. And Fluor walked away. So a 1 bid job for low bid doesn't work. Cost plus is better. The problem is government change orders and over site making sure that Bechtel doesn't put everything imaginable into cost.

---

A few of the problems we run into with fixed price environmental remediation jobs are 1) the government withholds information you need to gauge the level of risk either through laziness, not wanting to delay the procurement long enough to gather the info, or a misguided sense of "not wanting to limit" bidders; 2) they refuse to give any information about what they or the regulators might have already discussed about what a remedy might require or what might have already been ruled out; or 3) they accept your proposal including the detailed writeup about how you plan to do it, then immediately start trying to add more requirements that were not in the performance work statement. Any or all three of those unnecessarily add risk that has to be factored into the cost estimate. People don't bid fixed price jobs to lose money, so the money to account for the risk is almost always going to significantly exceed what it will actually cost to do the work and account for actual risks. So the government doesn't have to deal with as many change orders, but in the end they usually pay more for risks that were priced into the payment milestones, but didn't happen.

I think NASA can and should use cost-plus contracts thoughtfully to encourage new market participants for certain initiatives while other projects should have fixed-price contracts.

SpaceX and, to a certain extent, Blue Origin are in a very unique position to take on fixed price or performance-based contracts since their funding isn't necessarily tied to commercial success. I can't imagine being a VC-supported company like Venus Aerospace, an Aggie-run aerospace startup for example, going up against the likes of SpaceX. Such a different financial model in an industry that burns through cash like rocket exhaust.

Odds of “city-killer” asteroid YR4 impacting Earth now increased to 2.6%, per NASA

Just about equal odds of betting on a single number straight on one spin of American (double zero) roulette

— Space Weather Watch (@spacewxwatch) February 18, 2025