>===== Original Message From [EMAIL PROTECTED] =====
>It seems that Dr. Edward J. Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator for
>Space Science, doesn't believe that NASA can't "tell" American businesses
>to use the metric system. Dr. Weiler is responsible for providing overall
>executive leadership of NASA's Space Science Enterprise, and with the
>attitude voiced in the NPR report, NASA won't provide much leadership to
>America's metric-based space science activities.
Jim M,
This is a *very* common theme, here in the DOD too. It goes hand in hand with
the COTS mentality. It's not that we can't tell the contractor what we want,
it's that we aren't allowed to tell the contractor to do anything that the
contractor can't also sell in a commercial product. The idea is that the
government saves the taxpayer money by not developing specialized, one-off
products, but instead the vendor develops products for the general market and
the government only has to pay extra for what it really needs.
It's not as brain-dead an idea as it may sound at first, but so far as I've
seen it has not been implemented well enough to have the proper effect <"my
opinion and not my employer's &c.">. It does make us focus on the one or two
fondest wishes, and get rid of a lot of things we really can't justify the
need for. Unfortunately, it also makes it harder to get in the things you
really need but that are unpopular.
So, even though there's not yet a mass market for Mars exploration, it's
likely that Dr. Weiler (or the reporter, I didn't read the referenced article)
is saying that the government won't pay for the aerospace contractor to use
units other than those it uses in other, commercial aerospace applications.
This is consistent with the general attitude wrt government acquisition (at
least from my end of the world).
Jim F - I don't think there's any Buy American requirement (but wait a few
minutes... ;), but anything that has anything to do with space almost
certainly carries national security concerns, so it's unlikely NASA would look
outside our borders for a prime contractor.
I'm not saying I like it, folks, I'm just saying it is indeed the present
climate.
Mike
