Do You Feel Secure That Lockheed-Martin Just Won The New Contract For NASA?

Question

Lockheed-Martin just beat out space pioneers Northrup-Grumman and Boeing for all the new NASA aerospace launches. Lockheed-Martin builds military bombs, including all the upscale plus-million-dollar bombs, some of which aren't exactly dead-on accurate.

Do you feel comfortable in sending people up into space at the hands of jerks who are best known for making things that almost always blow up?

Answer 1

Let me see: Lockheed's contributions to space include the Hubble Space Telescope, with its costly mirror problem. Is it any surprise that the proposal was cheaper when the competitor's bid included the cost of TESTING THE MIRROR before the thing was mounted and launched?

Then there was space shuttle maintenance, which they got away from Rockwell. Did the space shuttle launch on time during the next ten years?

Pardon my delay in continuing. I was laughing too much to type.

Lockheed built the Mars Climate Orbiter, and used pounds as a measure of thrust, when any freshman engineering student knows you build to metric or SI units. Result: one lost space probe costing over $125 million dollars. Did Lockheed have to return the public's money?

Oh, no. My sides hurt, I am laughing so hard.

The news articles says Boeing is the largest aerospace contractor because of airplanes. Excuse me? Boeing was part of the four corporations that built the space station. Boeing also bought out Rockwell International that built the space shuttle. Rockwell was formerly North American Aviation, which built the X-15 space plane and the Apollo command module. Boeing is about getting people into the air and space.

What has Lockheed built in space that actually worked?

I'm so annoyed about this.

Boeing for manned flight. TRW for unmanned flight.

Spacecraft that work. What a concept.

Answer 2

Why not, I say. They may as well go with the low bidder, because the overall plan for manned space exploration is a low-rent vision for what we can achieve in space.

I agree with with Rick Tumlinson (head of the Space Frontier Foundation) that the "Vision for Space Exploration" is "Apollo on steroids - old, fat and ugly."

"Do you feel comfortable in sending people up into space at the hands of jerks..." etc. Please take the red pill my freind.

We haven't sent people up into space as part of a coherent space strategy since Apollo 17, and it is precisely when strategy is not articulated by a unified political will that it is hijacked by the Big Money and the Big Electoral Machines.

Example: have you had a look at the booster for the "Ares" launch system NASA's been touting?

If there is one Frankenstein I could slay, just one, at NASA, it would be this. Oh lordy, its those damn "solid rocket boosters" from the Shuttle.

Those same boosters which are supposedly "reusable" - though it is past impossible to get data on when they've been reused.

Those same boosters that are *cut up into segments* because that's the only way to ship them from the Thiokol plant in Utah.

Whose state senator was so important to NASA in the 1970s. When the Shuttle was being designed and built.

That's right. Wasn't a lot of discussion about that after the Challenger blew up because of that damn o-ring, was there?
Why the hell would a *solid rocket booster* be cut up into segments in the first place?

But there they are again. The Shuttle was a low-bid effort too, you know. That's why the SRB's were used - we didn't have to spend the bucks to push our space launch technology far enough for cheap access to orbit.

So don't blame Lockheed. (Well, much.) We like to send up these "disintegrating totem poles" (another term for multi-staged rockets) from time to time to reassure ourselves that we're a space-age power, but we're not actually doing anything worthwhile up there.

Answer 3

I don't know who the big ordnance suppliers are to the military. LM makes Hellfire laser guided missles, but smart bombs come from Boeing, and Tomahawks from Raytheon.

Tycha, I urge you to actually *read* independent review panel findings on mission failures before leveling your gun. You embarass yourself when you don't even understand how work on a program was allocated. To wit regarding Hubble:

LM was only the system integrator, not the prime contractor of Hubble. The role of prime was played by NASA itself. The telescope part of Hubble (as opposed to the bus, the ground station and the launch system) were provided to LM as customer furnished equipment by NASA and was acquired under a completely separate contract between NASA and Kodak then handed to LM with the instructions to fly it. Placing the responsibility of the Hubble primary's spherical abberation on LM is like blaming a soldier when his ammunition fails. I could talk about the other failures you cite too, but in the interest of addressing the question, lets look at LM's successes.

LM space systems company has flown 875 satellites in commerical space (mostly com sats) over the past 50 years. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?org.apache.struts.taglib.html.TOKEN=917b53b2238900e661b6cb13062c1f0b&dsp=fec&prfr=false&ci=16394&sc=400&ti=&mm=&dd=&yy=&cpi=&bs=&es=&fti=&rsbci=16394&rsbi=

In civilian space (NASA, NOAA), have you ever heard of Spirit and Opportunity? LM Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, Spitzer Space Telescope, Stardust, Gravity Probe B, Lunar Prospector. These are the recent ones, I am sure there are more. In Military space, how about Milstar, Defense Satellite Communications System or the Defense Meteorlogical Satellite program?

What have we heard from Boeing in recent years? I recall a contract 6 years old and $10 billion dollars in that was terminated. That had to have been very painful for the people in charge of that contract in the government, so Boeing must have been blowing it badly (http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/fia.htm).

I also recall a NASTY scandal involving Darleen Druyan, and a ban to compete for government launch contracts for 18 months or so after an industrial espionage incident. Didn't Boeing just agree to a $615M fine about all that just a few months ago?

Lockheed Martin is the best in re-entry shielding systems, and the Orion has a huge one, that needs to be replaceable from flight to flight to boot. I think LM is a fair choice. It is not as simple as who makes the cheapest offer. It is more about who has a credible plan.

The bottom line is what is in the proposals, and without seeing that we can't know how the decision was made. NG is fine company, however the blanket dismissal of LM is bizarre.

Answer 4

NASA officials have declined to elaborate on the factors behind their decision to choose Lockheed, though industry officials said Lockheed apparently was chosen because the agency had greater confidence in the company's procedural controls and capacity to meet budget as well as schedule requirements.

Answer 5

They've built other successful machines for NASA. It's fine with me. At least now they will have NASA scientists to collaborate with so hopefully that will reduce the risk. Also there is more pressure here because of the failures of the Space Shuttle, it's just more in the public eye.

Answer 6

Secure that my tax money will be spent for projects that I had no say in. Anyone here remember voting for anyone or anything at NASA?

To Common Sense: Your children and grandchildren will be paying the bills for all that military hardware that is giving you the feeling of security today.

Answer 7

Sure, why not ?
You obviously know nothing about Lockheed Martin...
Who do you think built the SR-71 Blackbird ?
Who do you think built the F-117 Stealth fighters ?
Who do you think builds the F-16 fighters ( worlds most popular fighter )
Who do you think is building the new F22A Raptor fighter ?
In fact, do you think at all before you ask questions ?

Answer 8

Martin formerly known as Martin Marietta, built the Titan II booster that put the Gemini missions up and the Titan III and Titan IV boosters that put up countless satellites. I am quite comfortable with them winning the contract.

What have you done for space exploration?

The tone of your quesiton suggests that you really aren't looking for a real answer, just a medium to vent or otherwise instigate discord. You're a liberal aren't you? Whine whine whine without any constructive input.

Answer 9

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the bombs and things "blowing up" to make an informed opinion, BUT, if what you say is true, I wouldn't be so fast to sign up for being an astronaut! I bet they could get it accurate if they were sending our President up there!Yee-ha!

Answer 10

Even if you make it we will be secured. Only thing is we will be blowing dollars.