typical nasa efficiency

[totient]

NASA isn't interested in building big rockets, but Congress is interested in them spending a lot of money in Utah, so they're developing some Shuttle-derived solid rocket boosters there. The boosters behave differently at different temperatures, so they test them once at 40 degrees and once at 90 degrees. It was 90 degrees out for today's cold-temperature-limit test, requiring lots of expensive airconditioning to get the motor down to temp. And it was 40 degrees out for the hot-temperature-limit test in early March of 2015, likewise requiring lots of expensive heating equipment. I'd say this is why private space can operate so much more efficiently than NASA, except actually NASA is being super efficient at its mandated task: spending as much money as possible. Maybe the equipment can even be put to some useful purpose now that this test is over.

Comments

[42itous]

Ugh.
Well, better this than war. Right? Oh wait, this is directly applicable to war.

[totient]

Sure is. Though it's not all about the nukes. I'd like to think DoD is clever enough to have a copy of GPS sitting on top of solid boosters in silos, for when China splashes what's up there now. Because otherwise that is not going to be pretty.

[rmd]

Unrelated to this post, but I saw this and thought "Totient to the white courtesy phone..."