Sunday, September 27, 2009

Something Else to Fail At

Give the indefatigable minions in Shelbyville credit. They never fail to take on a new project to fail at. NLS, SLI, OSP, X-33, X-34, Fastrac engine, Ares. Even now they are jumping in with both feet on territory normally reserved for the Schwarzeneggerians and Mikulsians.

"We are designing a flight mission to go to the lunar surface. We are looking at different scenarios that would develop a lander to be small but would have a large power need because of a variety of instruments it would contain," said the robotic lunar lander project manager.

Small with large power needs. Yep, sounds like they are off to a good start already!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Private companies can compete to do this job.

Does anyone mind spending tax money to put small operations like Armadillo out of business?

Redundancy in most of the world gets you laid off, but at NASA it gets you work.

Antares said...

You aren't anybody at NASA until Marshall has tried to replicate your organization.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the funniest thing to ever appear on the NASA intranet (on the Ask the Emperor blog):

From: Anonymous (Dryden Flight Research Center)
Date: 06-Apr-2007
Question(s): Has the Agency given any serious consideration to divesting itself of the Marshall Space Flight Center to allow it to concentrate NASA facilities and human capital resources exclusively on worthwhile tasks?

Response: No

Anonymous said...

At least Shelbyvillains used to be able to fail gracefully - until the former emperor stormed into town.

Anonymous said...

InIn 1992 MSFC tried to take Shuttle Mission Control away from JSC.

In 1993 a decision was made at HQ to close MSFC. But the closeout, transfer and related costs of moving projects to other Centers made it to expensive

Yeah, if NASA could close MSFC it would.

Anonymous said...

How about this one?

You aren't anybody at NASA until (insert other field center name here) has tried to replicate your design.

Anonymous said...

HQ picked MSFC for a lunar lander mission. Then tried to cancel it, but the Emporer (may he rest in H'Ville in peace) ran into Mr. Shelbyville himself and lost.

If you read the fine print, I think APL might be in on the lander as well.

Odd stars aligning for this one indeed.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @7:05pm: civil servants shouldn't be doing design. A Fail on both your Centers.

Anonymous said...

What is bad is when they ask you to provide a design and then they grab it and run home and then try to convince their boss' that they can do the design cheaper than you can!

Yep! I've had that happen right here at good ole MSFC.

Crooked as a bar room cue stick!