NASA reform

Hey man, check this out. From http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=7579, it looks like NASA has changed their ways of doing business while we weren't paying attention. This could lead to good things, including cheaper science, and further development of propulsion technology (since they'll have a customer to pay for development and a reason to try to operate efficiently).

Excerpt:

This is just the first step, but it's a big one. I have been asked by a colleague why this is different. NASA paid for this, didn't it?

Yes, but not in the old NASA way, with cost-plus contracts and with NASA trying to run things as they did with Space Station. Dragon wasn't designed at Marshall or in Houston, and NASA inspectors weren't wandering around the factory floor and insisting in "testing" components (as Marshall did with the tanks for DC/X, which they managed to break and had to weld back together – it was the failure of the weld that caused DC/X to burn up, thus ending the DC/X threat to NASA's plans). Just as NASA doesn't operate the trucks that deliver the chow to Fort Hood mess halls, it's not NASA's job to build and fly the Falcon and Dragon. They just collect the cargo. And that cargo was delivered.

-Max

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.