back to article Hold the Moon – NASA's buildings are crumbling amid 200-year upgrade cycles

While NASA prepares to journey through the unforgiving vacuum of space to the Moon and Mars, it faces a terrestrial threat in the meantime. A vacuum of funding that has left its own buildings crumbling around it.  Decades of under-investment are causing serious issues, said NASA Facilities and Real Estate Division Director …

  1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

    The problem with bureaucrats

    "What that means is, on average, we're renewing our infrastructure around every 200 years," Weiser said. "A better number would be 60 to 80 years, and to do that we simply need more funding."

    NASA was established in 1958. NASA is responsible for it's budgets, so if it decided not to invest in it's infrastructure and maintenance, that's NASA's own problem. Which being simple physical infrastructure, means if it's not maintained well, it fails faster and more expensively. But it's the stock demand from Federal/government departments. We've pished money up the wall on non-core business, incompetently managed core business assets, and now we need more cash.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

      Of course, every agency is responsible for its budget.

      But that doesn't mean that it decides the amount of budget it receives.

      It's budget requires X billions to function properly. That is a known quantity. Congress allocates Y = X - too much.

      You're saying that's NASA's fault ?

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

        You're saying that's NASA's fault ?

        Yep. Specifically it's currently Bill Nelson's fault as he's the person in charge of NASA at the moment. He's been a lawyer and career politician pretty much all his life, and as an ES2 is on the second highest Federal executive pay grade. As a former congressman, senator and shuttle passenger, he's familiar with both sides of the operation, and accountable for one.

        NASA's budget is currently $25.384bn, and Nelson is responsible for spending it. Ok, he's only been in post since Biden hand-picked him in 2021, but it's his budget. Unless parts of that budget are ring-fenced for specific projects and specific items, the adiminstrators are responsible for allocating that budget. If they haven't been spending enough to maintain buildings and facilities, who's fault is that that they're now presiding over crumbling infrastructure?

        Perhaps NASA should be allowed to hire CEO's that know how to run businesses rather than political campaigns.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

          It's also congresses fault.

          Nasa has facilities in every state where a politician has ever been in a position to veto a budget, and it has to keep all those facilities so long as funding committees exist.

          It has a launch site in Florida which it arguably no longer needs once SLS is abandoned.

          It has a manned space flight control center in Texas which is there because the flights had to be from Florida but somebody's vote was needed.

          Does it need this to rebroadcast a countdown from SpaceX's control center ?

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

            "It has a launch site in Florida which it arguably no longer needs once SLS is abandoned."

            The Cape is a good site for rocket launches and since it's in place and interfering development near it isn't allowed, there's no benefit to closing it down. Vandenberg is useful for polar orbits. Wallops is handy for some launches. Having the combination is good so we don't have the same situation that exists in China where spent stages are raining down on the peasants. I argue that closing down the launch sites in Florida would be a bad move.

            1. vtcodger Silver badge

              Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

              The NASA launch sites in Florida are relatively low latitude. Useful if you want to end up in an equatorial or near equatorial orbit. And you pick up significant free velocity from the Earth's rotation when you launch Eastward from a low latitude location. There is an extensive downrange tracking network in place for Florida launches, so you know if the launch vehicle malfunctioned slightly -- which you don't always for launches from Vandenburg where the new satellite's orbital status can be something of a mystery until it turns up over a tracking station (or doesn't) several hours later. And your classified payloads are less likely end up in a lab in Russia or China in the event of a launch malfunction when you don't launch them in trajectories passing over, for example, Cuba or Venezuela. The three letter folk probably sleep better at night if you refrain from doing that.

            2. trindflo Silver badge

              Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

              "The Cape is a good site"

              I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you. I think you were responding to hyperbole.

        2. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

          Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

          What did Bridenstine do to fix the problem while he was head of NASA?

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

            What did Bridenstine do to fix the problem while he was head of NASA?

            What about him? Sure, as Administrator, he's also partly to blame. But-

            Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, also of Florida and a former Payload Specialist for NASA who flew on STS-61-C, said "The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician.

            That would be the Bill Nelson, career politician and space tourist. Now of course NASA's Administrator. Why not make NASA's head a competent Administrator instead? At least Bridenstine had an MBA rather than a law degree.

            But what about Charles Bolden, Obama's pick? He was at least career military, and got to spend more time at NASA managing their budgets and business. And one of his greatest achievements was-

            On August 28, 2012, he was the first human being to have his voice broadcast on the surface of Mars. Although the rover has no speakers, it received the transmission of his voice and then beamed it back to Earth

            In space, no-one can hear you meme. No speakers, no voice 'broadcast' on Mars, no real point to this 'experiment' other than it would have cost something to do. But Obama's era also resulted in a bunch of other strange decisions, eg deciding NASA should do climate change. Ok, it had already been doing that, and was prominently featured in Seinfeld. But is that something NASA should be doing from above Tom's Diner on Broadway? And isn't the weather NOAA's job anyway?

            Meanwhile-

            According to Weiser, the majority of NASA's 5,300 facilities are beyond their designed lifespan and while maintenance costs are climbing, budgets aren't.

            Again this seems to be NASA's problem. And as the article points out, NASA perhaps doesn't need 5,300 facilities, could close some, consolidate, and flog off the land to raise costs & reduce cash. But Weiser's making much the same point. The NASA Administrator isn't allocating enough budget to his division to do FM fundamentals. Perhaps NASA doesn't actually need more money, it just needs to spend it's money more wisely?

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

              "But what about Charles Bolden,"

              I got to meet Director Bolden and found him a likable guy with a true enthusiasm for NASA and space in general. It always has to be kept in mind that NASA directors aren't their own bosses. Too often they are handed agendas by drink addled lawyers (aka: politicians) and have to make the best of what they are given. I'd have no problem with only allowing Congress to have a limited amount of oversight of NASA, hand the agency a big stack of money and let them work out what missions to fly and projects to pursue. It's a giant collection of the best nerds on the planet. While they might make more in private industry, the toys they'd get to play with on the outside aren't as grand. If you go to the open houses at JPL and other facilities and get the chance to talk with the people there, you'll find out very quickly that the sorts of things they'd like to do are the things they should be doing. It's the politics and political fighting for money to go to specific states and contractors that is the issue.

              1. SundogUK Silver badge

                Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

                "It's a giant collection of the best nerds on the planet."

                No it isn't. They all work for SpaceX. NASA is just bureaucrats doing bureaucratic bullshit.

            2. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

              "And as the article points out, NASA perhaps doesn't need 5,300 facilities"

              Conceded. Do you believe that the director has the power to close any of them? I don't. The reason is entirely a political one. He might technically be able to shut something down but then he runs smack into the concrete wall of consequences. A herd of Representatives from that state along with the two Senators will hold up the next budget and vote against any increase. That pack of crows may have been supporters of NASA in the past so losing their votes would be troublesome. One or two of them may be on committees that impact NASA in some way. There will be punishments.

          2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

            Re: What did Bridenstine do

            Bridenstine was surprisingly competent considering who appointed him. He successfully defended much of the commercial crew program budget and avoided down selection to a single supplier (Boeing). I am not sure how to split the credit for Artemis between Bridenstine and Pence. Both of them together formed a bipartisan coalition to fund a return to the Moon - instead of the previous flip/flop between the Moon and Mars that generated profitable cost plus change requests. That focus on a single goal created progress that survived a change in government.

            Bridenstine had Shelby on the defensive, by proposing massively cheaper alternative providers for SLS missions. SLS was slated to be a re-run of Constellation: a pork project that did nothing but waste money until cancellation and replacement by pretty much the same thing made by the same people with a new name and a new cost plus budget. Instead SLS is a pork project desperate to soak up as much funding as possible before it becomes so blatantly obsolete that it cannot be replaced by a variation of the same thing.

            If a NASA administrator wants to do something other than defend pork barrel politics then he is limited by what politicians will allow him to do. For politicians, blame the voters. Space exploration is a very low priority among the vast majority of voters. Few care enough to understand how their tax dollars are spent so the lion's share of the budget goes on vote winning fake jobs programs.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: What did Bridenstine do

              Does anyone know exactly how much control the Administrator has over the budget? How much is ring fenced for specific programmes and projects and does any of that programme or project money include the buildings they are hosted in? Or is "facilities and maintenance" a completely separate budget?

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: What did Bridenstine do

                "Or is "facilities and maintenance" a completely separate budget?"

                There's no political value or ribbon cutting ceremony when a roof is replaced on a building. A new building, OTOH is a location for much pomp and circumstance. Those new-construction jobs are seemingly, mo' betta than the jobs that went to the people who removed an old roof and installed a new one.

        3. martinusher Silver badge

          Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

          >Perhaps NASA should be allowed to hire CEO's that know how to run businesses rather than political campaigns.

          A common fallacy. Business people's primary role is to make money, to maximize RoI. They on the whole don't plan for the long term and there are countless stories, including many on this site, that underscore this.

          The problem with NASA is that back when it first got its funding it was a National Security priority. Anything in this category -- "defense" -- gets money chucked at it right, left and center, be it rockets to the Moon or an Interstate highway system. As soon as priorities change then that funding evaporates and things start to crumble. It takes time and in the interim there are endless administrators that will shuffle the available funding to make it look as if they're achieving long term goals (even as these goals, and their associated costs, may be stretched) but eventually entropy wins out.

          Anyway, "put a businessman in charge" is a common political line. When it happens we invariably regret it.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

            A common fallacy. Business people's primary role is to make money, to maximize RoI. They on the whole don't plan for the long term and there are countless stories, including many on this site, that underscore this.

            You are talking about Entrepreneurs, but the suggestion was about somebody who can organise and plan. Either way, a politician seem an even worse fit for the role, as they are people who will simply present what they think people want to hear.

          2. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

            "Anyway, "put a businessman in charge" is a common political line. When it happens we invariably regret it."

            I don't have a reference on tap, but I don't see how installing an attorney with no business experience or credentials in other subjects is a better option.

            1. martinusher Silver badge

              Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

              "Business Credentials" invariably means a MBA which, in turn, means fealty to a particular style and type of management. This may work for business but its not a panacea.

              An attorney might be OK for running a large organization since they're used to marshaling numerous arguments and other points of view, making some sense of this, forming a plan of action and then getting a bunch of people to go along with the plan. But by the cats/fur effect -- "All cats have fur but not everything with fur is a cat" -- you have to evaluate a person's effectiveness by their track record, not by their job title.

        4. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

          "Ok, he's only been in post since Biden hand-picked him in 2021, but it's his budget."

          Not really. NASA didn't want SLS or as it's sometimes called "Senate Launch System". Many facilities are in places with long entrenched politicians that sit on committees that control the fate of NASA. This means that any NASA facilities in those states have to receive a continuous supply of tasks so the politician can show they are doing something whether the project is best suited to the facility or not. NASA can't decide that an old location is no longer needed and consolidate its work with another. There is then the stupid. Some grandstander who had no idea who Hugh Dryden was decides that the NASA Dryden center needs to change its name to honor Neil Armstrong. Nice gesture, but the renaming cost millions of dollars of NASA budget and money is still being spent to root out all the traces of the Dryden name and transition mail codes, URL's, biz cards, signage, forms, accounting codes, yadda yadda.

        5. veti Silver badge

          Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets

          Nearly all of NASA's budget is "ring-fenced for specific projects and specific items".

          NASA is a high-profile agency, which politicians love to use for grandstanding, headline-grabbing projects. Trump, for instance, raided its budget twice - with his "pledge" to put Americans back on the Moon, and his announcement of a new "Space Force", both of which spelled significant holes in NASA's budget.

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

      NASA asks for an amount of money to achieve congress mandated goals. Congress always allocates a smaller amount. That smaller amount comes with legal requirements on how it is spent like, for example (one of many to choose from) space shuttle solid rocket boosters:

      NASA wanted locally sourced short fat boosters. Congress required they buy from a specific manufacturer half way across the country. The preferred diameter was too big to fit under bridges so NASA had to switch to long thin boosters. The new boosters were too long to be transported around corners so NASA had to buy boosters in segments and join them together. Those joins increased costs and caused deaths.

      If you want a single person to blame, I would go with (retired) senator Richard Shelby who was chair of the senate appropriations committee but the situation was more complicated. Shelby was a master of negotiation and brought in votes from senators of both parties by sharing the pork. His state (Alabama) got a generous share of that pork. SLS was his project and he defended it vigorously against competing concepts. Long before SpaceX existed Shelby threatened to defund NASA if anyone from NASA said "depot". (Orbital refueling gets the same performance as a single large rocket using multiple medium sized rockets. This adds economies of scale to the medium size rocket to pay off its R&D that a single purpose large rocket like SLS can never achieve.)

      NASA does deserve a share of the blame. Many of the staff recommend projects because are likely to get funded rather than because they are part of a sustainable plan to explore space. In part, NASA needs such people because of the funding they bring. Hiring and promotion/sidelining is decided by the NASA administrator who is always a political appointee. It is currently Bill Nelson, former senator for Boeing Florida.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

        NASA wanted locally sourced short fat boosters. Congress required they buy from a specific manufacturer half way across the country. The preferred diameter was too big to fit under bridges so NASA had to switch to long thin boosters. The new boosters were too long to be transported around corners so NASA had to buy boosters in segments and join them together. Those joins increased costs and caused deaths.

        Yep, this is a common problem with pork barrel politics, and idiots making the decisions. Much the same thing is happening with pig-chasers in the 'renewables' scam. States bidding to 'create jobs' building windmills. But windmills require massive blades and tower sections. Those kinda struggle to get around corners if the factories are only accessable buy road, or for installing on-shore. At least with off-shore, a coastal factory can load onto barges for transportation. I heard of an interesting conversation once where it was suggested that because blades are relatively light, they could be moved by heavy lift helicopter. Like transporting a massive wing dangling under a rotary wing aircaft is anything other than very risky.

        It's bizarre the way these kinds of decisions are made sometimes, and nobody stops to think that you can't get there from here. So NASA should be allowed to specifiy the optimum design, then it should be obvious that there are logistics challenges that follow, and require construction to be localised.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

          > I heard of an interesting conversation once where it was suggested that because blades are relatively light, they could be moved by heavy lift helicopter.

          It's a standard claim in every Zeppelin startup PowerPoint - that you could carry entire wind turbines to some remote mountainous windy site.

          Quite how you land the windturbine on top of a windy mountain site tends to get skipped over

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

            "Quite how you land the windturbine on top of a windy mountain site tends to get skipped over"

            I'm trying to envision how one would get the bolts lined up accurately to fix the turbine in place with a zeppelin bouncing around all over the place. I've flown in an airship before and they tend to be lively.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

          "At least with off-shore, a coastal factory can load onto barges for transportation."

          So you just discount all of the disadvantages of placing wind farms off-shore?

          Tower sections are easier handle in shorter lengths. It takes a crane that doesn't need as much lift capacity, the sections are easier to fabricate and handle at the manufacturers and they are usually moved by train rather than roads for long distances. Some pieces can span two flat bed rail cars if the route can accommodate that.

          The location of factories all over the US is a throw-back to WWII and military thinking. Rockets mainly began as weapons projects funded by the military. Add in the oinkish behavior of politicians all trying to get as much PR as possible so they can get re-elected and you get the mess that is now. I believe that Florida should be the prime location for civilian space enterprises with some capability in California near Vandenberg SFB for things being launched from that location. Look at how convoluted a map that Elon has drawn. He builds engines in California, ships them to Texas for testing, ships them back to California, out to Texas or off to Florida. Back and forth, back and forth. Blue Origin is doing the same thing with their plant in Washington state, a test facility in BF Texas and, again, projects that will need to launch in Florida. Not only are huge structures being shipped thousands of miles on regular basis, personnel have to travel to supervise things and be on-site to solve problems. Even if they were 200 miles away from The Cape at a facility in Florida, that's only a few hours of driving.

          1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

            Appropriate sites for manufacturing

            There was Biden in Colorado to announce the start of construction of what is said to be the 'largest facility in the world to build wind turbine towers'.

            Errr.... but isn't the big thrust at the moment towards offshore wind in the USA? Given that CO is smack bang in the middle of the continent, it does not seem to be ideally suited for building off-shore towers now does it?

            What congress critter lobbied for CO as the prime location for this project? Follow the money people. It might be ok for onshore wind but even some of those towers are getting too big in diameter to transport by road or rail.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

            "Look at how convoluted a map that Elon has drawn. He builds engines in California, ships them to Texas for testing, ships them back to California, out to Texas or off to Florida. Back and forth, back and forth."

            It's interesting that Elon, someone who is often held up as the gold standard for the superiority of private enterprise over government run projects, ended up with a complex distributed supply chain as well.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: NASA responsible for its budgets

        "NASA does deserve a share of the blame. Many of the staff recommend projects because are likely to get funded rather than because they are part of a sustainable plan to explore space."

        Plenty of NASA scientists wind up being shunted from one cancelled project to another. After that happens a few times, they get a bit gun-shy and want to see something they've poured years of their life into actually get built and launched/flown (let's not forget that NASA still does aircraft research).

    3. Adair Silver badge

      Re: The problem with bureaucrats

      It's a general fact that plenty of organizations typically fail to put adequate funds aside for proper maintenance and future redevelopment - it doesn't sit well with shareholders' dividends, nor with politicians aiming to demonstrate they are 'doing something'.

      It's called 'short termism' and we all get to pay for it in the end, one way or another.

      Welcome to the world of 'Greed' and 'I want it all and I want it now' - otherwise known as 'Human Nature'.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: The problem with bureaucrats

        Photos of politicians not cutting the ribbon on a new bridge, because they invested in adequate maintenance of the old one, tend not to gather much press attention

    4. localzuk

      Re: The problem with bureaucrats

      You're just showing your lack of understanding of how NASA is funded with that misguided comment.

      NASA doesn't just get given a giant pot of money by Congress and get told "here you go, spend as you want".

      The budget is prepared and presented to Congress, and they adjust and send back what they will actually fund. So, you know when NASA asks for money to sort out buildings, and money to fly to the moon, and Congress is looking to make cuts but not reduce the PR opportunities? The buildings get cut, the moon doesn't.

    5. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: The problem with bureaucrats

      LOL wut?

      Congress funds NASA, If there is not enough money, there is not enough money.

      NASA's budget for financial year (FY) 2020 is $22.6 billion. It represents 0.48% of the $4.7 trillion the United States plans to spend in the fiscal year.

      But I'm sure the problem is too many avacdos toasts and Starbucks and iPhones, right? /s

  2. Howard Sway Silver badge

    to do that we simply need more funding

    That's not a moan - it's a space station!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: to do that we simply need more funding

      You own me one ---------->

  3. theOtherJT Silver badge

    It is a tragedy...

    ...that we stopped caring enough, as a species, about pure science. NASA went to the fucking moon but today while we all talk up how cool that is, we don't seem prepared to pay to keep doing it, or fund science enough to do the next big thing.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: It is a tragedy...

      Considering the daily bullshit I see around here about vaccines, creationism, intelligent design, magnets that help fuel economy, copper bracelets that fight cancer, and other stuff too depressing to list, nobody here even knows what science IS.

      One of my favorite sayings is "we put a man on the Moon, but we can't... oh wait, we can't put a man on the Moon, either"

      1. theOtherJT Silver badge

        Re: It is a tragedy...

        Just so. But maybe part of the cause of that is that we don't value science the way we used to in our society as a whole? I'm too young to have seen the first moon landing, but I know several people who are only a decade older than me who did see it as children and it made a real mark on them. Science used to be inspiring. People wanted to be part of it when they grew up. Even in my lifetime I remember being stunned by the Deep Field Image when I was in high school, and it was pointed out to me by a rather proud teacher of physics that this right here was the sort of thing I could be part of when I graduated if I studied hard enough.

        If science doesn't inspire people they stop paying attention to it, and that leads to all the shit you very correctly called out right there. I like to imagine if we actually spent money on doing a bunch of really cool shit and promoting that, then we'd get more kids graduating school with a genuine desire to go into scientific fields, and fewer intellectually bankrupt idiots who only care about celebrities and social media.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: It is a tragedy...

          Because science is a climate-change claiming waste of tax-payer money / an elitist anglo-centric patriarchal GMO creating destroyer of the environment

          (please delete as appropriate)

          1. ecofeco Silver badge

            Re: It is a tragedy...

            You forgot the /s tag.

        2. Groo The Wanderer

          Re: It is a tragedy...

          You have hit the nail on the head. Where earlier North American society absolutely adored science and innovation, the majority of society now considers it "boring", "expensive", and "a waste of time" because they have all the Big Macs, cat videos, televised sports, and "reality" TV they can absorb.

          They don't want to be challenged; they don't want things to change - change is scary and disturbs one's routine.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: It is a tragedy...

      "we don't seem prepared to pay to keep doing it, or fund science enough to do the next big thing."

      What's all this "we" stuff?! I've wanted to see mankind back on the moon for decades. I sort of hoped I'd have a chance to go in my own lifetime, but passing the medical exam at this point would take a lot of money in bribes.

    3. Jon 37 Silver badge

      Re: It is a tragedy...

      What science requires putting a man on the moon?

      Landers and rovers can do science there, for less money.

      If you want to put a man on the moon again because "it's cool", or as a point of national pride, or "to inspire people", fine, but please don't call that science.

      And if you want cool engineering challenges to solve, perhaps lets try to reduce global warming a bit? And mitigate the impacts that it's going to have?

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: It is a tragedy...

        "Landers and rovers can do science there, for less money."

        Take a few days to read "Roving Mars" by Steve Squyres. Steve was the principal investigator on the MER rovers. The book is an amazing look into space science.

        A geologist can do more work in an hour walking around with a hammer in hand than a rover can do in a week. A Rover is very good for some initial reccy and even more in-depth work someplace as far away as Mars. The moon, on the other hand, is close enough that it could be worth having a meatsack with opposable thumbs bumbling about every once in a while. So use a rover to find the most interesting things for an astronaut to spend their time to investigate.

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "beyond their designed lifespan"

    There's the problem, right there: building to a designed lifespan as opposed to just building to last. Even so, NASA has a reputation for building spacecraft which have lasted well beyond their designed lifespan although they were inaccessible for maintenance.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to get to the moon before the decade is out.

      Your first step is to design a series of buildings that will last longer than your country has currently existed for ?

      I mean Christopher Wren's Greenwich Royal Navy hospital is very nice, but perhaps wouldn't have been the optimal thing to start building the day after Dunkirk to treat the wounded

    2. Richard 12 Silver badge

      All buildings require maintenance

      Because the weather literally tears them apart, no matter what they're made of.

      The church roof is the apocryphal example. All those ancient churches have had many new roofs.

      A lead or slate roof is probably the longest lasting, and it will need significant repairs after about 50 years. Hence the idea that the landowners around the church need to pay for a new church roof once a generation or so!

      Many modern building materials have a lower cost but rather shorter lifespan.

      Glass frontages and roofs last about 20-25 years because the sealant fails - still structurally sound, but leaks like a sieve. Maybe fine in a greenhouse, not so much for a cleanroom.

      Worst are the things that fail without warning, like the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete that was popular in the 1950-1980s. That stuff appears absolutely fine until it suddenly ceases to be self-supporting...

      And it reliably lasts approximately 30 years, so every single one needs replacing.

      Fortunately the collapses to date have been outside term time.

    3. Jon 37 Silver badge

      What do you mean by "built to last"?

      If you mean "built to last forever", well that's not really possible. Some examples of long-lasting buildings: The Pyramids are significantly damaged. Westminster Abbey (the UK parliament building next to Big Ben) needs major renovations.

      If you mean "build each part to last for as long as possible", that's just a waste of money. There's no point paying extra for a roof that will last 100 years, if the frame holding it up will only last 50 years. When you replace the frame you're going to have to replace the roof anyway. So it's better to get the cheaper roof that will only last 50 years. And if you're building for a project that's only supposed to take 10 years, then even that is a waste of money - you should go for the roof and frame that are cheaper but will only last 25 years, or 20 years.

      Spacecraft are different. And a lot of it is PR. If they put a rover on Mars, that costs a lot of money. Operating it is only a tiny part of the cost. And there's a whole bunch of science that rover can do. So of course they're going to plan to run it until it breaks. However, if they say "we plan to run this for 10 years", and it breaks after 9 years, then the mission gets branded a "failure", which is bad PR. Better to pretend it's a 3 month mission, and keep "extending it" until the rover breaks. That way it becomes a huge success. And it's not possible to predict exactly when the rover will fail - at best you have probabilities, but even that depends on how it actually performs when it gets there, which you can't know in advance.

      1. ITMA Silver badge
        Devil

        "Westminster Abbey (the UK parliament building next to Big Ben) needs major renovations"

        The Palace of Westminster is where Parliament is and Big Ben is the bell which chimes the hour.

        The iconic tower was originally called the The Clock Tower then recently renamed The Elizabeth Tower.

        Westminster Abbey is over the road from the Palace of Westminster, although the major parts of the Palace of Westminster (the House of Commons and the House of Lords) are both in need of serious renovation - and that is just their inept decrepit occupants.

  5. Dr. Ellen
    Big Brother

    There ARE alternatives

    Simple enough - hire SpaceX to do the job. NASA could save enough on red tape to pay for everything, and it wouldn't take 200 years, either.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: There ARE alternatives

      SpaceX is concentrated in a small number of states. To get funding, pork has to be spread among most states. Congress went absolutely berk when the human lunar landing system went exclusively to SpaceX. The Sustaining Lunar Development contract was created for the national team and had funding approved without hitch. Compare that to the stink that had to be created to get funding for space suits that can work on the Moon: Sorry congress, no flags or footprints because the astronauts cannot leave the lander. Budger flags and footprints - Blue Moon cannot take off until after astronauts go outside and remove bits that make it too heavy for the return journey.

    2. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: There ARE alternatives

      NASA is already paying SpaceX for what they're good at. Have done long before their first launch.

      SpaceX don't do what NASA do.

      Their model is large production quantities and reusability, to reduce the cost to LEO.

      Space probes and robots on the surface of other bodies are not those things.

      SpaceX are now very good at getting payloads to LEO, and at building large numbers of identical, disposable, short-lived and above all simple satellites.

      In fact, SpaceX only exist because NASA paid them a lot of money - because they saw that it would be a good investment if they succeeded. Quite a few of the commercial providers NASA have invested in have failed - which is OK. Commercial suppliers have to be able to fail or it's just pork barrel by another name.

      And if Starship ever launches, it will be because NASA paid for it.

    3. Groo The Wanderer

      Re: There ARE alternatives

      Hire Space-X to do the job. Then the "self-piloting mode" can crash it into the moon like the Russkies. :)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pretty sure NASA's budget...

    ...can be stretched to a few new buildings.

    Comparing NASA's investments with "industry standard" is disingenuous. If you are making socks, then yes, the factory is the big capital investment. If you are making space rockets, then salaries and equipment probably are most of where the money goes....

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

      ...can be stretched to a few new buildings.

      The problem is NASA is not a business like any other which can decide to spend it on buildings as needed, they have specific direction of how they can spend money. Congress does not just say "Here is $2B for the next so many months, do something cool", they specify it has to be spent on X, Y and Z projects that, oddly enough, just happen fall in states with key senators who make the decisions and who enforce such decisions.

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

        This.

        The problem NASA have is that they put in a budget to Congress, who then delete a load of line items and reduce the funding for the rest.

        NASA have been asking for more maintenance funding for decades. Congress keep reducing it.

        Think beancounters, except without the competence or any consequences for failure.

      2. Noram

        Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

        IIRC it's also the case that the cost of building upkeep is or was born entirely by projects that used them, with the result that if say the main assembly hall was only being used for the Shuttle program one year, and that year only two flights were planned, then the entirety of it's maintenance work (planned or otherwise) had to come out of the Shuttle program, so if it needed a new roof for it to remain usable it had to be paid out of the budget for those flights

        And there were apparently years when the Shuttle program was covering the cost of pretty much all of NASA's bigger building at some facilities.

        It's one of the main reasons that the Shuttle program was often so expensive per launch, it had to cover the cost of every bit of infrastructure it used even if only for a few weeks a year if it couldn't be shared out with other projects.

        Basically IIRC NASA never got a proper baseline "facilities" budget as such from Congress, it was always taken out of whatever projects they were working on, so for the moon launch they got all the money to build everything needed, but since then the cost of maintaining them has been down to what they could pull out of the budget for other things usually based on what was going to use it. Hence if only Shuttle flights were using something like the Main Assembly Building they got all the costs associated with it.

        There is a blog by one of the old NASA guys, who I think retired at some point after reaching the level of Flight Director (or higher), which does a really good job of explaining various bits about the space program, and in one of the entries where he's talking about why the Shuttle missions cost so much per flight he explains a bit about how NASA's funding works.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

          Basically IIRC NASA never got a proper baseline "facilities" budget as such from Congress, it was always taken out of whatever projects they were working on, so for the moon launch they got all the money to build everything needed, but since then the cost of maintaining them has been down to what they could pull out of the budget for other things usually based on what was going to use it.

          Again, this is the Adminstration's fault. Both NASA, and Congress. Especially when Administrators are political appointees and know exactly how pork barrels are filled. NASA's granted a budget, part of that budget has to be for overheads like facilities. So then a line item for FM that's indexed and protected. Sure, it'll vary based on any project specific facilities and timing, ie you need X cleanrooms for assembling satellites etc, but you shouldn't have to need a new cleanroom for every project that needs a satellite. But mismanaging that is probably why NASA's ended up with 5,300 facilities, many of which probably aren't needed or funded by active projects. This is all basic business stuff, and not exactly err.. rocket science.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

            "but you shouldn't have to need a new cleanroom for every project that needs a satellite"

            By the vary nature of what NASA does, they will sometimes need a purpose built facility. Ok, they should build that facility to a certain level/lifetime and decommission it when the project is finished. If some other project can make use of it before its best-by date, fine, otherwise it should be deleted. The best approach is to consider projects that mostly fit within what facilities NASA already has. When I had a manufacturing company, I was alway looking for products that fit within our capabilities. Even if it was sub-assembly work for another company that I could put on a second shift to do. I was paying for the building 24/7, so why not try to use up all of that time? Anything that might have a universal application such as a large machine shop, should be built to a high spec with an annual budget for maintenance and a long term budget for things that don't come along every year such as a new roof or a new sewer line. Those budgets being allocated to a general operating fund and not a specific project. Project billing at NASA is already bad enough. When you see a quote that a particular program cost $XXXmn, a large portion of that is where they shift the cost for things they'd have to pay for regardless to that project. The actual incremental cost of the project is usually far less.

          2. localzuk

            Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

            Blaming it on a nebulous "administration" is silly. The issue is with how government agencies are funded - and this is determined by the US Constitution to be Congress who decides that.

            As it is a purely political body, the people in control are always going to choose things that get them good PR, and get things for their own states over good management and administration.

            Without a change to the way the USA works in its entirety (from the very basis of it being a federal state, to its constitution), you aren't going to fix this.

            It is pointless blaming "administration".

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Pretty sure NASA's budget...

        "Here is $2B for the next so many months, do something cool",

        If that was done, I expect that we'd have some really cool stuff.

  7. FuzzyTheBear
    Mushroom

    What you expect ?

    Republicons are in congress .. of course eerything that's food and usefull will suffer.

    They wanty to defund the FBI the CIA , the Department of justice so on so forth.

    As long as they're in the house the only way for America is down.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: What you expect ?

      On a rocket sled.

  8. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    As a few have pointed out

    As a few have pointed out, the main issue here is that a vast majority of this money is earmarked. Yes, NASA gets $26 billion so $250 million is only a few percent of the budget. No, they are not allowed to just shave a percent or two off those projects to keep their buildings are maintained, the money is earmarked and cannot be spent on something else.

    Perhaps the easy solution would be if they could get a bill to run NASA like some universities do. With NIH money, a research project would get funded, but the university had line items for "overhead" and a university foundation and so on that'd take a nice percentage off the top. It could make it easy if NASA could get something passed that let them take like 1.5-2% off the top to cover infrastructure maintenance.

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