My Defense of Constellation

I posted this on http://www.nasawatch.com/, a website, while indicating that it is a website for "our space program," sometimes seems to be committed to the demise of NASA.  I thought the post would be appropriate here:

For most of you who frequent this website and believe you are doing something grand and bold by bringing down the evil NASA empire, I have to say that you just don't have a clue what you are supporting.

First of all let me be clear, I agree that NASA has some deficiencies and that as an engineering entity they have their faults. But, I am baffled that there are so many that frequent this site that have somehow been slighted by NASA that they feel that they need to bring it to its knees with evil thoughtless statements. Certainly everyone loves to bring up the famed Augustine commission and prove to themselves that Constellation was a useless endeavor.

But, I have this to say. Behind every NASA employee on the Constellation program there are 10 contractor employees that have given their lives to this endeavor. They uphold the concept that, the customer is always right, and have done everything withing their power to support their customer's needs regardless of the value. They have worked within limited budgets because the "customer" truly believed that it would be more beneficial to stay within budget then to hold timelines. they have answered requirements driven by the Columbia and Challenger accident investigation boards because no "real" engineer in the industry believes that any astronaut should die in the exploration of space. In order to do this they rely on historical lessons learned and put forth designs that are guaranteed to succeed the first time with full emphasis on mission success. And they would have succeeded regardless of how much emphasis you put on the Augustine commission.

So, while I don't stand too much in defense of NASA, I stand strongly on the contractors who have worked hard to make a program succeed. And, as an engineer in the business for 23 years I can tell you that most of you who stand in opposition to Constellation truly don't have a clue what you are talking about. And for those who believe the myth that a Space program can be run like an airline, you truly do not understand what is required to succeed in this industry.

So, on behalf of the contractor community I take strong offense to those of you continually bash the Constellation program as a useless NASA endeavor. Also remember that NASA employees are civil servants. While they may lose their dream and be transferred to another contract, they will still have a government job. But for each one of those employees, there are 10 contractor jobs behind them that beleived that pleasing their customer was the correct thing to do and they believed in a dream of taking humans to space and going to the moon again. Those contractor jobs will be gone and all they can hope is that NASA can issue RFPs fast enough to recover maybe 30% of the jobs that existed with Constellation.

While I don't believe in keeping a program going just to save jobs, I will say that regardless of what you say about the architecture, Constellation was going to succeed and it would have gotten us to the moon. And if my tax dollars are going to go to anything I would rather it go to those contractor employees that believed in a dream and put their lives into that dream.

And while I might express fault with small commercial companies I do find some pride in their desire to succeed. What I don't want to do, however, is put my tax dollars towards re-learning lessons of the past with these upstart companies.

So for you folks who think Constellation was outdated technology and some sort of bastard Apollo Redux, you are wrong and I take strong offense. I want my tax dollars to go to those contractors who believed in a dream and did everything in their power to make it come true. When you talk about politics and what state is trying to save their constituents remember this:

"The Lockheed Martin Orion Project office is based in Houston, Texas, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The team includes major subcontractors Aerojet, Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell, Orbital Sciences Corporation and United Space Alliance; and a network of 60 minor subcontractors and small businesses in 22 states across the country."

From the SpaceX website "by keeping the vast majority of manufacturing in house"...

I would rather support the dreamers who exist in all of those 22 states and support what Constellation does and what we need it to do to provide assured US crew access to space. If SpaceX succeeds, I will be the first one cheering, but you have to understand that NASA represents more than just a lesson in how to succeed in the commercial space industry. If we have to spend a few more dollors to go to space in the right way and with pride not only in the acheivement but in our governement and ourselves, I go with Constellation.

And for those who continue to bash the Constellation program, you truly don't understand what it was like to watch a man walk on the Moon and to know that it was an American and have profound pride in your country.