NASA's
Achilles Heel
2/7/2003
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The
Shocking Truth About NASA, and Other Large Organizations
I was associated with two
$1,000,000,000+ programs that were cancelled. One was Aquila, one of the U. S.
military's attempts to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles (the kind that are now
getting a lot of press).
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
History
Remotely controlled aerial vehicles have been around for
decades. Conventional fighter planes were equipped for remote operation and used
during the Viet Nam War. The Israelis have fielded the "Pioneer" since
the 1973 Yom Kipper War, and has offered them for (restricted) sale since that
time.
Aquila
The United states decided that it wanted its own UAV, and
gave Lockheed a contract to develop it under contract to the U. S. Army. In
order to establish a clientele for the Aquila, the Army "staffed it"
throughout the rest of the Army and the other U. S. services. It became a horse
designed by a committee. Each organization prepared its wish list of
requirements. (One or more organizations sought to use it to justify the
inclusion of a Humvee (super-jeep) for the outfit that would use Aquila. Bear in
mind that Aquila had only to carry a TV camera over enemy lines and transmit its
pictures back to the ground. Even then, that could have been accomplished with a
very small model aircraft. Some engineers at the U. S. Army Missile Command (and
no doubt at other Army engineering centers) built radio-controlled model
airplanes after work and demonstrated the feasibility of the technology. But in
the meantime, Aquila had become an object lesson in what can happen when
bureaucracy gets its hands on a lucrative opportunity. The Aquila management
tried to please everybody who had sent in their requirements. After, all, the
challenge wasn't technical but political: getting other men to use
something they didn't invent. Aquila grew and grew, until finally, it required
73 men to operate it. There was a logistics supply chain that had to be
established, adding parts to the inventory, together with all the usual details
about where spare parts will be stocked, how much labor will be required to keep
them in stock, and so forth. In the meantime, adding manpower has a cumulative
effect. The cost of an individual Aquila became so high that the armed services
couldn't afford more than a few of them, both in terms of dollars and manpower.
Finally, in the late 80's, after investing more than a billion dollars in Aquila,
the Army cancelled the program.
Pointer
In the meantime, the U. S. Marine Corps, watching the
"requirements creep" that was strangling Aquila, developed a little
backpack-able oversized model airplane called Pointer. Pointer has a range of
only three-miles, and an endurance of only one hour, but it works, and is still
in use.
Hunter
While the U. S. was fumbling the ball, other nations
developed and deployed their own UAV's. Britain developed its "Hunter"
UAV with no obvious problems.
The UAV Joint Program Office
After the cancellation of Aquila, a Joint Services Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle Program Office was established in Washington, D. C. (actually in
Crystal City) in 1988 to develop specifications for off-the-shelf UAVs that
would be designed and built by industry. These have evidently now evolved into
the UAVs that the U. S. is fielding. (See Predator or
Prey? "Noah Shachtman dispels the hype surrounding unmanned aerial
vehicles, arguing that the current generation is 'so slow, dumb, noisy, and
near-sighted that almost anything stronger than a peashooter could take them
down.'" See also, The war after next)
Well! It doesn't sound as though things have changed much
yet, does it?
Sergeant York
The other $1,000,000,000+ program on which I worked was
Sergeant York. Sergeant York was a huge anti-aircraft tank. But like Aquila, it
became a victim of requirements creep. In the meantime, industry had had
developed their own anti-aircraft tanks, probably for sale to foreign
governments. General Electric had created a system called, "Blazer",
and Martin-Marietta had produced ADATS ("Anti-Aircraft Defense Against Tank
Systems"). During the summer of 1985, I and several other representatives
of the U. S. Army Missile Command were tasked with monitoring tests of these
three anti-aircraft systems at Redstone Arsenal. No, they didn't prove their
prowess by actually shooting down aircraft They bagged their prey with
video cameras. When the tests were over, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger
cancelled the Sergeant York program, and the Army moved to buy Martin-Marietta's
ADATS.
I realize that these programs only cost a billion+
dollars apiece, but as the late, great Senator Everett Dirkson said,
"A billion here, a billion there, and the first thing
you know, you're talking about real money!"
Why are major programs cancelled?
So why does this happen? How come we waste such astronomical
amounts of money?
One observation that jumped out at me has to do with the
rapid rotation of assignments of military officers. The military officers whom I
observed at the helms of joint services project offices were usually colonels on
the last two-or-three-year assignments of their careers. They knew from the time
they arrived that in two or three years, they would have to go into the outside
world for the first time, and find employment to support themselves and their
families. This imperative was clearly and understandably on their minds.
Every two or three years, the military management would be
completely replaced. The civilians and the contractors provided whatever
continuity there was, but they weren't in charge of these projects, and these
projects were, after all, aimed at supporting the military requirements of their
armed forces customers.
NASA's Problems
One of NASA's major problems is that the actual work is
conducted by a prime contractor. During the early days of the space program, the
development of the launch vehicles, satellites, and all other aspects of the
space program were carried out in-house by the German-American team at the Army
Ballistic Missile Agency (later the Marshall Space Flight Center). Consequently,
the government owned the technical expertise that made it possible. Also, the
Peenemünde team was dedicated to making space flight a reality, rather to
sculpting their own careers. Later, though, industry was able to lobby, through
campaign contributions and political connections at the highest levels of
government, to insure that U. S. industry was able to snare the technical and
manufacturing work, and remove it from government laboratories. (There may have
been additional reasons for favoring this approach, since it meant that the U.
S. would grow rocket expertise among younger and native-born citizens. Also,
manufacturing was the proper province of industry, once rockets had been brought
to the production phase.
When I joined Georgia Tech, which supported the U. S. Army
Missile Command (MICOM), I was surprised at the high caliber and the extensive
in-house technical work that took place at MICOM, compared with NASA.
In a different vein...
Anti-Cancer "Nutriceutical" Articles
On another note, two current articles deal with the
cancer-fighting properties of green tea: Anti-Cancer
Combo? - ABC,
and TEA:
for the health of It - ABC.
The "Anti-Cancer Combo" article is particularly
interesting, discussing as it does the synergistic effects of soy protein and
green tea in inhibiting prostate
cancer. Of particular interest to me is the fact that they seem to block
angiogenesis. This would seem to me to suggest that their effects might not be
limited to hormonally-dependent prostate tumors.
Chemical, Biological, and
Radioactive Attacks Upon the United States
A handkerchief could make an impromptu mask. A wet
handkerchief would work even better.
The effectiveness of outdoor attacks will depend upon the way
the wind is blowing. If the air isn't stirring, then dissemination will take
place by diffusion, and will occur somewhat slower.
Part of the detection process could involve recognizing what
was happening to other people, and then running away from it and them.
Chemical Attacks
A chemical attack would blow over relatively
quickly. One might hole up in a bedroom in one's house (preferably on the second
story), covering the door cracks and window frames with plastic, or even with
wet towels. My only concern about that would be the fact that barometric
pressure fluctuates by 1% or 2 %, corresponding to changes in pressure of the
order of 50 pounds per square foot. Clearly, houses "breathe", but at
least the air that seeps in or out is filtered. (Filtration wouldn't help in the
event of a chemical attack.) However, chemicals in the atmosphere would probably
dissipate rapidly.
Biological Attacks
A biological attack might lead to everyone "going to
ground" in their houses. It might take a while for the attack to run its
course. If the agent were highly infectious, like smallpox, then one would have
to remain in quarantine until new cases were no longer occurring. For smallpox,
it might be feasible to go to the local health department for a vaccination even
though it meant running the risk of exposure to the disease. Smallpox
vaccinations are still effective given one or two days after exposure to the
virus. If the agent were environmental, like anthrax, then the key point would
be to avoid breathing unfiltered air, and to wash often with soap and
disinfectant (where available).
Bacteriological attacks would leave an area contaminated for
some time. The best defense might be to drive away from the area, but one would
have to beware of "choke points"... bridges or tunnels that would
cause traffic jams. Driving in a direction where there are no bottlenecks on
minor roads would be a wise strategy. One would have to beware of gridlock.
Radiological Attacks
A radiological attack would indicate blocking radioactive
dust. If there were a sufficiently high level of radioactive dust in the area,
then it might coat the roofs of houses and irradiate their occupants.
There is quite a bit to be said for escaping from an area
that has been attacked, although the principal danger in such a scenario is that
of being trapped on the way out of town in a traffic jam. Back roads and a head
start might reduce the likelihood of that happening (but one would have to think
about the problem of crossing main traffic arteries jammed bumper-to-bumper with
desperate motorists. (It would pay to have local maps in your car(s) that list
all the local byroads and country lanes, and to have a prior knowledge of what
they are and where they go.)
Disaster Plan
Are You Prepared?
