Viceroy Hanley and his Italian Waiter in waiting Steve Cook decided it was time to help sell more newspapers yesterday. Along with Doug "the puppet" Cooke and flyboy gone Kool-Aid drinker Jett, they all sat in front of the klieg lights once again to tell their fanciful tales. The only thing missing was BroomHilda and her caldron for seasonal color.
"We have kicked off an acceleration study," said the Viceroy.
Whoa! Time to play that sound of a needle sliding across the record. Did he really say "an acceleration study?"
That announcement should serve as a stop sign for anyone still supportive of Hanley and his tribe. If the Constellation, Orion, and Ares program managers do not have as job one, that is to say if they are not focused with every waking moment of every hour of every day on how to get that vehicle to the pad as safely and quickly as possible then just what in the heck are they doing? To say they need yet another special study to do what rightly should be their highest priority regular jobs is nothing but an admission of failure.
"I think you have to stick to the facts of engineering and project management," said the tubby one.
And we finally have something to agree upon.
11 comments:
After Frankenstein runs amok across the countryside long enough, sooner or later the villagers get together in the square with their torches and pitchforks to discuss what to do about the monster.
Even well managed projects work toward a certain schedule. Acceleration of any project schedule can be accomplished through extra money or less task, but you should not be managing a project on a daily basis to get done "sooner". You should be managing to get done on time and on schedule.
That certain schedule should have been defined to close the gap as quickly as possible to begin with.
If they are spending the taxpayers (my!) money, then they damn well better be getting it done as cheaply (i.e., as quickly) as they can.
Cheaply and quickly are NOT the same thing.
As my own personal hero Wile E. Coyote knows it is very important to have a certain velocity when approaching a cliff edge shrouded in clouds. Otherwise gravity takes hold more quickly. Highly recommended for those who only plan to be there at the beginning- not so much at the end.
This was a briefing for the drive-by media, the one that has no background, that doesn't follow this day-in-day out.
The headline on Drudge was "NASA could accelerate moon ship" or something like that. It sounds like everything is hunky dory and we've got margin.
Then, the only way to accelerate it is to pass the hat. CxP and APO are thinking that the new Pharaoh might toss them more coins than Shrub has. Tasty, tasty koolaid.
The funding issue now has a solution that is being applied to an increasing number of situations with the passing of time! What is it? Eliminate the planned developmental testing!
That's right, kids! Management is now more than willing to eliminate developmental testing, bet the farm and the schedule on passing qualification testing first time, every time.
A long time ago, we experienced the odd miracle now and again. Then we came to count on miracles to get us through. Tomorrow - we will schedule miracles!
Not tomorrow, not until November 5th. Only then will we be able to schedule miracles.
Accelerate?
That's funny.
We were told this week that Orion overspent their budget so Constellation grabbed all of the money they could to cover it. As a result, all of our Ares work is dead in the water until sometime in the spring. We can't spend a dime on anything except salaries until March.
Accelerate?
Interesting comment from 'anonymous' dated 8:24PM on 31 October.
If this is true, then I have a suggested scenario to explain it. There is no problem with the budget at all. Instead, the smart money is now on the cancellation of Ares-I and the middle-rankers have decided to go to a 'countdown hold' on the basis a fabricated problem rather than waste billions of dollars and who knows how many man-hours on a rocket that will be cancelled anyway.
Not an informed opinion, just a scenario that might explain that previous comment.
"Orion overspent their budget..."
You've got to be f'ing kidding me? Is that what they are telling you down on the farm in Huntsville?
Maybe KT is right about the zombies.
We took a multi hundred million dollar cut this year just like everyone else...Please don't mistake hideous Cx program management skills with Orion overspending.
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