Alabama Senator shits all over competing space programs

[General Zod]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/06/ ... ft-makers/

Back when it was still flying its own vehicles, NASA primarily relied on contractors to maintain and operate them. The agency's current plan takes this approach a bit further, paying private companies a fee for service to take materials and, eventually, people into low-Earth orbit. SpaceX and Orbital Science are already taking cargo to the International Space Station, and three companies—Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada—are currently receiving money to develop crewed vehicles.

But this plan doesn't have uniform support from Congress, and the Houston Chronicle's Eric Burger has found that one of the Congressional detractors has slipped wording into a NASA funding bill that could potentially derail the whole process. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has added a small clause that would require all the competing companies to engage in a specific form of cost tracking. Doing so is far more easily dictated than done, based on this description of the accounting methods.

Boeing, as a regular government contractor, already has a system in place for tracking costs in a compatible manner. The other two companies, however, do not and would have to face the costs of adding it. Berger also suggests that the new requirement might force the entire contracting process to be repeated.

When asked about the requirement, Shelby argued that it was necessary for transparency. But the whole idea behind adopting a fee-for-service approach to orbit is that it doesn't matter so much what the contractors are paying for their parts—if they offer the cheapest safe ride to orbit, that should be all that matters. Requiring contract pricing-type accounting, as proposed here, could be viewed as an action that unfairly grants advantage to Boeing.

It is worth noting that Shelby represents the state of Alabama, which is home to a large Boeing Defense, Space & Security facility in Huntsville with about 3,000 employees. In addition to bidding on commercial space contracts, Boeing is also the prime contractor for "the design, development, test, and production of the launch vehicle cryogenic stages, as well as development of the avionics suite" for NASA's proposed Space Launch System heavy lift vehicle, which is being designed primarily at NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

The proposed measure would still have to survive reconciliation with the House version of the funding bill and be accepted by the president before going into effect.

But maybe this is really for the sake of accountability and not, oh, I dunno, getting Boeing to heavily donate to his re-election warchest or offer him a cushy position once he leaves office.

[Simon_Jester]

Personally I'd like the US to retain spacecraft design capability through NASA, rather than (or in addition to) the "we'll pay you X bucks to put a man on the space station" model.

But this doesn't really change that, it just gives Boeing an advantage over smaller firms dedicated specifically to spacecraft production rather than having a huge chunk of the entire military-industrial aerospace complex.

[Mr. Coffee]

But maybe this is really for the sake of accountability and not, oh, I dunno, getting Boeing to heavily donate to his re-election warchest or offer him a cushy position once he leaves office.

Shelby's been one of Alabama's senators since 1986, and he's so heavilly entrenched here he honestly doesn't need Boeing's support for reelection. He also has a looooooooooooooooong history of pulling shit like this with defense related anything (He was pulling this kind of shit on Reagan, for fuck's sake), so I guess it must be a slow news day in DC or someshit.

But yeah, him and Jeff Sessons can both go disappear right up their Dixicrat assholes.

[Zixinus]

Aren't Republicans usually in favour of less regulation and corporate oversight? Is this guy being a hypocrite to that usual position or is there an ideological exception in the party's ideology on this?

[General Zod]

Aren't Republicans usually in favour of less regulation and corporate oversight? Is this guy being a hypocrite to that usual position or is there an ideological exception in the party's ideology on this?

The ideological exception is that Boeing owns his ass. Even though it's supposedly in the name of transparency.

[Mr. Coffee]

The ideological exception is that Boeing owns his ass. Even though it's supposedly in the name of transparency.

If the article was about Sen Jeff Sessions you'd have a point, seeing as Sessions was the one that brought a lot of Boeing's stuff to this state (especially here in Huntsville/Madison Co). Shelby's gimmick is fucking with defense spending bills like this as a means of getting the White House to listen to him or fucking Alabama specific defense issues as a means of getting Sessions to follow his lead. Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was another case of Shelby doing the later.

[General Zod]

The ideological exception is that Boeing owns his ass. Even though it's supposedly in the name of transparency.

If the article was about Sen Jeff Sessions you'd have a point, seeing as Sessions was the one that brought a lot of Boeing's stuff to this state (especially here in Huntsville/Madison Co). Shelby's gimmick is fucking with defense spending bills like this as a means of getting the White House to listen to him or fucking Alabama specific defense issues as a means of getting Sessions to follow his lead. Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was another case of Shelby doing the later.

I guess that could explain it too.

[Thanas]

Alabama's high-tech industry is heavily based on European companies, most notably Airbus (which has a new center in Mobile). So I don't think this is Boeing lobbying.

[General Zod]

Alabama's high-tech industry is heavily based on European companies, most notably Airbus (which has a new center in Mobile). So I don't think this is Boeing lobbying.

Isn't Airbus a major competitor for Boeing? Do they have cost-tracking systems in place already?

[Mr. Coffee]

Alabama's high-tech industry is heavily based on European companies, most notably Airbus (which has a new center in Mobile). So I don't think this is Boeing lobbying.

Damn, I forgot about Airbus and the herd of Euro defense/aerospace companies around here. Sessions did a lot of the work on convincing Airbus to come to the state, and last time Shelby did his defense cockblock shenanigans was over that USAF tank contract BS a few years back.

[Thanas]

I don't see Airbus being so interested in working with Nasa when they mainly work with the European Space Agency. Airbus Space and Defence is currently working on the Ariane 6, I don't see them beating out Boeing for NASA or spent serious resources on the US business.

[Lord Anubis]

How does one 'slip' anything into a legal document? Shouldn't every single word have to be double checked to insure that it doesn't conflict with preexisting laws and legislation to avoid creating loopholes or a mess that will require more legislation to clean up later? And if he is 'slipping' it in without anyone noticing how is that not a crime?

[Zixinus]

I think a more metaphorical slip is meant, not a literal one. If law-makers really considered every single sentence that goes into legal documents they'd never get anything done due to endlessly getting into semantics and possible implications. Plus law-makers are only human and will not remember everything written in it. I have heard of many such "sneaking in" things by adding sentences that do not seem out of place in the whole thing until one looks at carefully.

[Welf]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/06/ ... ft-makers/

The proposed measure would still have to survive reconciliation with the House version of the funding bill and be accepted by the president before going into effect.

But maybe this is really for the sake of accountability and not, oh, I dunno, getting Boeing to heavily donate to his re-election warchest or offer him a cushy position once he leaves office.

The article is an example of good storytelling and bad fact finding. The article includes another link that "explains" that this is bad on account that it's bad.

What language has been added exactly to the bill, what article, paragraph, sentence? Why is it unreasonable for companies to provide these informations? Why do they not collect these information themselves? Are they guessing their own costs or profits? It is a reasonable policy to check your vendors production. Every major corporation does the same. Or at least the successful ones. With easily replaceable products like paper or ink it would be a waste of time, but with complex products like a spacecraft you can't simply change the vendor if one delivers crap or gets broke.

Personally I'd like the US to retain spacecraft design capability through NASA, rather than (or in addition to) the "we'll pay you X bucks to put a man on the space station" model.

But this doesn't really change that, it just gives Boeing an advantage over smaller firms dedicated specifically to spacecraft production rather than having a huge chunk of the entire military-industrial aerospace complex.

I took the time to read the bill. I didn't quite understand it because (a) I'm not used to American legalese and (b) I'm suffering from sleep exhaustion, but the second paragraph is interesting: (bolding by me)

15.401 Definitions.

As used in this subpart—

“Price” means cost plus any fee or profit applicable to the contract type.

“Subcontract” (except as used in 15.407-2) also includes a transfer of commercial items between divisions, subsidiaries, or affiliates of a contractor or a subcontractor (10 U.S.C. 2306a(h)(2) and 41 U.S.C. 3501(a)(3)).

This sounds like the fee isn't for the whole contract, but a fixed amount added to the cost of the project. The difference to normal contracts is that normal contracts have a guaranteed profit that scales while fees are calculated in advance. Again, I'm not too familiar with US contracting terms and legalese, but I think if it is an fixed amount it would be called "fixed price". But the article might be imprecise with the term, too. But if that is correct, the NASA could easily be screwed by the bidder reaping additional profits with subcontracting. And once you have choose a vendor it's not easy to change it.

To sum up: This might be an reasonable addition.

[Irbis]

When asked about the requirement, Shelby argued that it was necessary for transparency. But the whole idea behind adopting a fee-for-service approach to orbit is that it doesn't matter so much what the contractors are paying for their parts—if they offer the cheapest safe ride to orbit, that should be all that matters. Requiring contract pricing-type accounting, as proposed here, could be viewed as an action that unfairly grants advantage to Boeing.

You know, here, in Poland, quite a lot of public offers recently were chosen based on price alone, as politicians were scared of press wrath. This had side effect of choosing the worst offers with non-existent guarantees - so the same press started to swing in the other direction, "Why you buy this worthless crap?".

But that is not the worst part. The worst part was, the companies chosen often specifically underbid to consume whole sum they asked then said "Sorry, for reasons X, Y, and Z we need 15% more money, sure, go ahead and sue us, the project will be only delayed 4 more years and the process and delays will cost 5 times of what we ask, har har. What's that? It will make other bids cheaper? He, he, shoulda have picked them, losers!". That's why public offers are now on much higher scrutiny and cost tracking.

And we're talking about stupid roads and buildings, what if the company has leverage of half finished orbital base or astronauts that desperately need to be supplied next month? You can find road builders everywhere, where you will find another rocket builder after one company outbids others causing them to scale down or go bankrupt? In Russia?

[General Zod]

I actually agree with cost tracking government projects, but I think pulling it out in the middle of an existing contract without an allowance for the dollars to implement it is kind of a shit move.