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throwing it over the wall
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Posted by Zoe de Ficelle () at 23:54 GMT on 27 Apr 2001
In its 15 year life, Mir hosted ~100 non-Russian guest cosmonauts with limited training. We are now being told that that ISS is not suitable for that sort of thing, for all sorts of very good reasons. Remember that this is occurring less than one month after ISS's only competition was killed, largely due to the efforts of ISS's chief salesman. This is supposed to be a step forward. I'm skeptical.
It is possible that liability issues are a large part of the story, and not just a fig leaf. In that case, the problem may be even more serious, because then maybe a key to success in developing commercial human spaceflight is not allowing Americans to be involved-except as paying customers. Note that space tourism may be one of the few space businesses where an American doesn't need an export license, and hence one of the few that will not be regulated to death by the US.
NASA's recent "concerns" on Tito's behalf are really helping make a good and very public case for taking ISS management ENTIRELY out of NASA's hands. If the "new and improved" space station is so much less hospitable than the old one, and requires the agreement of over a dozen countries for each guest, then perhaps NASA has not developed the right formula for running it.
There is an often-criticized and now largely obsolete method of organizing a manufacturing enterprise, in which the designers finish a design and "throw it over the wall" to manufacturing, which figures out how to make it and then throws the product over the wall to the sales force. In the case of ISS, such a scheme may actually be a step forward, because new management, with agendas totally decoupled from those of the developers of ISS, may be the only thing that gets the public closer to personal access to space.
But I have one cautionary note. The little experience that friends of mine and I have of port authorities suggests the following tendencies:
1. Unbiased information is often hard to find.
2. Prices are often higher than they need to be.
3. And the food is usually lousy.
I hope an ISS authority can do better than this.
Re: throwing it over the wall Edward Wright (01 May 2001 03:13 GMT)
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