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Show SALT FLAT NEWS, JULY, 1971 proposed strategy position for the ivestern states to offset the wrongfully oriented studies recommending location of the space shuttle site at Kennedy Space Center A By George S. Odiome Dean, College of Business and Professor of Management University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah The final reports of three sub- contracting teams studying the optimal site for the location of the proposed manned space shuttle are due shortly to be completed and turned over to NASA The evidence is strong that these reports will all be heavily in favor of Kennedy Space Center (KSC) as the location for the next phase. If such a decision is made, it will strongly influence future decisions in favor of KSC as well. These three studies should be redone. There is considerable evidence that the three studies have from their inception been strongly biased toward the selection of the KSC site, and that this bias, mainly in the form of criteria instructions from NASA has prevented, debarred and excluded objective technical area economic treatment of the three western locations (White Sands, California, and Utah). The western congressional position should therefore be to demand a redoing of these studies to widen the criteria and make them more objective. The origins of this bias for the Florida location are from the strong NASA backers in the House, who' were reported in National Issues (March, 1971) that NASA will succumb to strong pressures from some of its more powerful backers in the House to keep the launch area in Cape Kennedy where the government has already invested about $1 billion. In a December 14 letter to acting administrator Low, Congressman Teague, chairman, stated, Unless I am convinced that NASA is making maximum use of existing facilities, I intend to oppose money for the shuttle in every way, form or fashion This argument, which is founded upon a fallacious sunk cost argument permeates every contractor's instructions from NASA and will determine the outcome of their recommendations. At a news conference during Apollo 14 flight administrator Low stated that there was a very high probability that the space' shuttle will be based in Florida. liminary statements of the contractors teams in statements reported by the Associated Press from an aerospace conference in Phoenix on March 17. James T. Rose of the McDonnell-Dougla- s team reported that their team has recommended Cape Kennedy, citing water accessibility for transport as a major decision criteria. Newsmen immediately contacted North American Rockwell's study team and were told that they also have recommended Cape Kennedy in a report to NASA on January 13. The general tenor of the reports and the substance of their conclusions indicate that the choice of the Kennedy ate was preordained by the form of instructions which the team received at the time the contracts were let by NASA and by subsequent public utterances by NASA officials. This was done, not by instructions on which site to choose, but in the delineation of criteria to be used in the selection. These criteria were themselves fallacious and biased toward the Florida location, and cast doubt upon the objectivity and validity of the subsequent studies. Dr. Bryce Brisbin, Dean of the College of Business at New Mexico expressed a commonly held viewpoint of those attending the Phoenix conference when he stated that the contractors recommended what NASA wanted to hear. In the instance of one western location (Utah) the contractor teams visited the location only five days before the Phoenix conference when their decision was announced, thus making it apparent that objective analysis was . not an intention of the study, but rather the prior justification of a wrongly founded decision in favor of Cape Kennedy. In the instance of North American Rockwell their January report was filed favoring Florida two months prior to their visit to Utah. Improper Criteria Applied The study teams of the contractors in their early reports indicated the criteria which had been used in making decisions among alternatives sites. All of these criteria were those which would favor the KSC site, and omitted those which would favor the western sites. The early reports, which will undoubtedly be the format of the final report unless they are drastically modified prior to their final submission have the following major defects: 1.They rely heavily upon a fallacious sunk cost argument They place full valuation upon old, spent, and used up facilities which have in fact only scrap value. 2. They show no stream-of-cos- ts data. Their economic are rooted in original costs figures rather than costs in operation, and thus omit the most important variables in total program costs. 3. They omit ecological considerations. Aside from passing mention of sonic boom they have not fulfilled the requirements of studying all ecological effects. They do not, for example, do a simple ecological impact statement which is required of major construction under the Environmental Control Act of 1969 of power plants and similar projects. This leaves open the distinct possibility that the entire space pro gram might be stopped in its tracts for un considered ecological reasons. 4. They brush aside security considerations. With the exception of considering Cuban overflight, they do not take into their criteria the effects of base security from foreign vessel surveillance and other security issues. 5. They do not consider economic spillover. The Employment Act of 1946 makes it a matter of public policy that there shall be full employment, which places the conventional wisdom of pork barrel matters as a much more serious and high level issue of concern. The pouring of more federal funds into the already overheated central Florida economy, with a corresponding deterioration of the economy of the West is not a matter of useless spending, but of the serious allocation of national resources in such a way that it maximizes gross national product and personal disposable income in alternative parts of the nation. What is indicated for Western congressional strategy? The following steps would appear to be indicated for western senators and congressmen with respect to the proposed manned space shuttle site location. 1. The western delegations should make it dear that they will Dr. George S. Odiorne not see a dear way to support the space shuttle funding if it is based upon such incompleted and slanted conclusions from contractors studies. 2. The western delegations should state this position in suffident time to permit the amendment and completion of full dress objective studies to be completed by the very competent personnel of the contractors now working on the studies. 3. The administration of NASA should be apprised of the western position to reinforce their desires to obtain scientifically, economically and socially objective condusions from the studies. 4. As a move of last resort the western ddegations should resist the passing of funding measures which are founded upon studies aimed at wrong criteria, and continue to resist until such studies have been redone with due regard to all of the factors necessary for an objective study which indudes all of the criteria which bear the public interest. Clothes for Male , & Female ... . Such statements issued public- ly by the NASA chief, while the objective studies were being conducted, could only have the effect of tacit instructions as to the outcome of these studies, thereby making them scientifically invalid, and requiring that they be redone if a fair and objective assessment of the technical position of the western sites be made. The existence of this directive effect of the Teague and Low positions in shown in the pre , 3rd SOUTH and STATE SALT LAKE CITY |
