Outlaw NASA engineers propose alternative launch system

A bunch of NASA engineers have been working on their own time to propose an alternative to the NASA launch system that is supposed to replace the space shuttle. This is not a skunkworks, NASA is not funding it, these engineers are working in secret, since they may loose their jobs if they question upper management, a situation every engineer is familiar with. What these folks are proposing is using more of the existing shuttle hardware. They propose two vehicles, the base one is a shuttle liquid tank with the same two solid boosters the shuttle uses. The second vehicle has a second stage on the same base vehicle. The liquid rocket motor is taken from the shuttle and moved under the main tank. This seems like a nice evolutionary move. NASA is proposing making an all-new liquid tank that is 30 meters across rather than the shuttle tank, which is 23 meters. Of course, when NASA increases the diameter of the main tank, they obsolete all the ground equipment, towers, and transportation systems. This is why the renegade proposal saves so much money and time.

You can also bet that the renegade proposal will save lives, since the more existing hardware you use the more understood will be the development. In order to get even more lifting capacity than the NASA proposal, the renegade proposal suggests a follow-on vehicle the just slaps a second stage on the base vehicle. This should be quicker and cheaper than redesigning everything from scratch. Now the economist in me understands how government operations work. NASA’s first objective is not to achieve the mission or save lives, it is to increase the bureaucracy and hand out money to the contractors. This is true whether it is a welfare agency or the EPA or any government operation. Since there is no profit motive and no bankruptcy, the organization sets out to insure that there will be a lot of middle managers and a lot of money tossed around. I would dismiss the renegade effort except it comes with a 121 page proposals (pdf). NASA just dismisses it—“Oh that just won’t work” Which is an indictment of the NASA culture that killed the previous astronauts and that Feynman so justifiable criticized. If a bunch of engineers all run off and propose something based on their honest estimation that it is better, any healthy organization embraces the effort and will have a response as least as detailed, that gives simple factual reasons why the low-level peons are so wrong,. Since NASA cannot come out and say “Doing it our way transfers more money from the taxpayers to the military contractors”, well maybe that is why they just dismissed this work with a sneer and a sentence.