Presentation: A0_Spencer_S.pdf
Presentation: A0_Spencer_S.ps
The key problem of spaceflight is that it is far too expensive. The launches cost too much, the spacecraft cost too much, the payloads cost too much, and the operations cost too much. And in all cases, it's not just a matter of the digits being wrong, but of there being too many of them. This cannot be fixed with pious good wishes plus Business As Usual. Actual changes are necessary -- massive, unpleasant, wrenching changes -- in goals and organizations and ways of thinking as well as methods.
What sort of changes? Stick to goals we already know how to achieve, separating technology development from applications. Streamline ruthlessly, eliminating people, paper, and procedures. Remember the past but don't be shackled by it. Train and nurture and keep good people rather than trying (futilely) to eliminate the need for them. Build things rather than studying them. Leave room for some inefficiency and mistakes. Reward results rather than promises or effort.
"Faster, better, cheaper, pick any two"? That's the Old Guard talking. Do things right and you get all three automatically. In particular, if you pick reachable goals and do things quickly, you get results -- much better than viewgraphs! -- and there's no time to spend lots of money. These patterns reinforce each other too: a quick project is done before there's time for the objectives to change or the budget to be dialed up and down.
Can we get there from here? That's not easy. All too many "faster, better, cheaper" projects really boil down to "we'll give you half the time and half the budget but insist on doing things the same old way". Commanding existing organizations to change just does not work. You have to grow new ones instead... which means planting the right seeds in a sunny spot, watering them well, resisting the temptation to keep pulling them up to see how the roots are developing, planting extras because some won't make it, and thinning them out occasionally.
There's no inherent reason why spaceflight has to cost so much. The only reason it does, is that we've been awfully stupid. It's time to smarten up.
Henry Spencer got his BSc at the University of Saskatchewan and his MSc at the University of Toronto. He worked as a UNIX systems programmer at the University of Toronto for a number of years before becoming an independent consultant and author.
Henry is a founding member and past board member of the Canadian Space Society, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, and an occasional consultant to the Canadian Space Agency. He was head of mission planning for the now-dormant Canadian Solar Sail Project. He is now Software Architect for MOST, a small Canadian science satellite.
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