The central development in which I am interested is the latest round of SLI (Space Launch Initiative) contracts to be handed out by NASA. While most of the usual suspects were present at the government trough, it was refreshing to see that NASA may finally be giving up its choke hold on the innovators of the launch industry. In the past, the space agency has been notorious for making ridiculous demands that would never be made in the private sector—a prime example being the case of a potential lunar hopper on which one engine ballooned to five once NASA got hold of it and started making redundancy demands that complicated the requirements of thrust symmetry—and so aborting many promising projects before the countdown even begins. Of course, we expect a certain degree of this silliness in aerospace; the Department of Defense always comes out with a laundry list of absurd demands for a new fighter and unless you tell them you can deliver what they want you stand no chance of getting the contract. No need to worry, of course; by the time the plane flies you’ll have managed to overcome the DoD folks who made those lists (they’re all former test pilots who’ve pulled too many gees, anyway; they’re happy as long as the plane is fast) and engineering will have won the day. Not so with NASA.
With the space program (and I have no idea why this is the case except maybe to blame the reliable chimera of big government) we run into this ossified perspective on rocketry that says, “Giant boom stick make fire and smoke and noise! Tarzan like!” because too many of the people making the decisions have forgotten that the giant boom stick is attempting to marshal the finicky forces of nature and actually accomplish something. This undertaking is not on a par with skinning a cat, thank you very much. If we absolutely must retain the analogy, we might say rocketry is like skinning a live puma. Regardless of how we describe it, however, we are not talking about something that you take lightly or just screw around with any way you please. There are very specific requirements to be met, and artificially complicating matters is the last thing anyone needs to be doing. It is also the favorite pastime of the bean counters at NASA.
