Yes, I just think calling it a “jobs program” misses some of the nuance. You could ostensibly have the same number of jobs but much more political risk by concentrating them in one geographic area.

The political risk is the more salient point to me, and jobs is just a way to mitigate it. (You could also, for example, mitigate it with less productive means like lobbying)

(Suppliers is a different story. A lot of time NASA is handcuffed by which suppliers actually want work with them. There’s a lot of hoops to jump through and many suppliers just don’t find it worth the hassle)

Guess which suppliers lobby to keep those hoops.

I don't think being that cynical is warranted here.

1) The requirements aren't levied by congress. They are created by NASA civil servants who are usually the technical experts in a particular field. These aren't people who have much of any interface with lobbyists.

2) A lot of the instances where it's not worth it to suppliers isn't because they are being boxed out by some industry giant clamoring for some giant contract. It's usually closer to "it's not worth our effort to overhaul our manufacturing process to meet requirements so we can sell NASA a $70 teflon seal." The giant corps have little desire here either. But being a big manufacturer is sometimes correlated with having a more mature manufacturing process that meets specific standards.

When SLS was designed by congress they specifically wrote the requirements so that the Shuttle contractors would continue to receive contracts.

Those drive some of the main contractors (like Aerojet Rocketdyne) but not all those others in that protracted list. Those are selected by the supplier quality process defined by typical civil servants, not Congress.

That's true but not where most money goes. And for a lot of these things there are just the same legacy contractors.

This was about how that long list of suppliers gets selected, not about how they make money. If you look through my previous posts, you’ll see I acknowledged most of these suppliers aren’t on the list to make a ton of money from NASA, and that a lot of suppliers don’t even attempt to make the list for that very reason.

There’s already enough corruption in govt, we don’t have to make believe it’s in places that’s it’s not.

Thanks for sharing the map, that's pretty interesting. I wonder what NASA or their contractors got from Lowe's Home Improvement?

Is there any infrastructure there for the mission? My cynical side wonders if someone flew to Honolulu, went to a hardware store to pick up some JB Weld, and flew it back to Florida just so they could check off Hawaii on the list of states.

It’s important to note that being listed as a “supplier” doesn’t mean NASA has actually purchased anything. A lot of times, it’s preemptive as a way of ensuring all the quality checks have been put in place so an PO can just be issued when needed without the delay.*

It also doesn’t mean they want spaceflight material. It can just be something needed to support the project, like shelving to hold extra parts. But it the charge code is traceable to the program, it makes the list.

* this is also why SpaceX can do things cheaper. They don’t have the same quality requirements so they can streamline their processes. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes not: https://parabolicarc.com/2016/06/28/nasa-investigation-space...