NASA and Open-Source Software

Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by christophilus on Friday February 17, 2023 @06:33AM (#34833436)

There's a reason the government and government contractors rarely attract good developers, and when they do, they don't keep them. It's a shame.

I know someone who knows quite a bit about the military-side of this space, and we were discussing a related problem: the US's capability of ramping up war-time production if we get into a hot conflict with Russia or China. The amount of waste, bureaucracy, and cost that goes into all of our military contracts would simply have to change, or we'd be screwed.

This friend of mine thinks we'd figure it out, but I'm not so sure.

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by KineticLensman on Friday February 17, 2023 @07:06AM (#34833678)

One data point is the Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) [0] experience in the UK military during Operation HERRICK [1], a.k.a. the Afghan campaign. The UK's military acquisition is notoriously glacial but when soldiers started dying because they didn't have the right kit a lot of things were suddenly acquired extremely quickly, for example electronic countermeasures against IEDs, new drones, body armour and a whole range of vehicles that massively reduced crew vulnerability to IEDs. The speed of delivery was partly achieved by cutting the red tape around acquisition, e.g. by not requiring competitive tendering if a 'good enough' already product existed in the market.

This strategy itself created problems for long-term through-life support of a suddenly incoherent vehicle fleet but in turn increased motivation to develop standardised vehicle architectures [2] to allow faster modular upgrades.

This approach isn't going to suddenly deliver a new type fighter aircraft in the timescales of a hot war with China, but it does demonstrate that at least one NATO acquisition system could be speeded up a bit. A current example that is being worked at the moment is how to ramp up supplies of artillery and missiles for supply to Ukraine.

[Edit] Things more generally have slowed down again, e.g. as evidenced by the UK's (failed and cancelled) Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme, a disastrous attempt to upgrade the British Army's primary armoured infantry fighting vehicle.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/standing-commitments

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-forces-operations-in-afghanis...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_Vehicle_Architecture

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_tracked_armoured_vehic...

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by mistrial9 on Friday February 17, 2023 @07:54AM (#34834061)

NASA is civilian - why change subject to weapons ?

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by KineticLensman on Saturday February 18, 2023 @07:41AM (#34846471)

Because I was replying to someone who talked about the 'military-side of this space'

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by mistrial9 on Friday February 17, 2023 @07:53AM (#34834055)

ok except NASA is explicitly civilian.

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by felipelemos on Friday February 17, 2023 @11:13AM (#34836437)

But both, civilian and military, are government entities, not private, and I understand the OP is just exposing some similarities.

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Re:NASA and Open-Source Software by Teever on Friday February 17, 2023 @07:48PM (#34842681)

Which has more in common NASA and an agricultural business, or NASA and an arm's manufacturer?

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