Context is everything. We easily commiserate with others when in similar poor straits or celebrate an achievement all the more in a backdrop of difficulties overcome. Either way, the best stories have scars in the scenery. Recently, NASA canceled another X-plane project, the electric X-57 aircraft. The usual NASA news with pictures from the James Webb space telescope, another launch, or a scolding of NASA’s Moon plans was momentarily displaced, if only for one thirty-minute news cycle. Reload, headlines change, and new news. At this moment, we hear the all-electric aircraft begun in 2016 would not be; the technology is not yet there for this ambitious project. Having seen my share of canceled X-projects, from the hundreds of millions to the billions, the $134 million NASA will have spent on the X-57 seems par for the course. But I can’t help but browse here or there outside NASA for some perspective.
Earlier in 2023, Alphabet shares took a nose dive of $100 billion in a single day. Google’s AI gave an incorrect answer to a question – about pictures from the NASA James Webb space telescope (so apropos) – and markets, meaning mostly large investors, took this as a bad sign. A NASA trivia question flusters the AI competition from Google and its sell, sell, sell. Poof, there went the budget of a small nation or two. For perspective, NASA’s yearly budget in 2023 is just over $25 billion. And human spaceflight is less than half of that.
I expected a Hal 9000, but I got a way to re-order coffee without picking up my cell phone instead. (Which is still cool.)
“Alexa, how much money did you lose Amazon in 2022?”
This is probably not the most popular question for Alexa – the answer is $10 billion, just shy of the entire NASA human spaceflight yearly budget. And by the way, rather than open the door and stick my head out, “Alexa, what’s the weather like?” I expected a Hal 9000, but I got a way to re-order coffee without picking up my cell phone instead. (Which is still cool.)
There is a phrase from long ago in the sub-title of the 2009 Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee. It’s “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation.” At the time, the part “worthy of a great nation” drew my attention. Having supported the teams assisting the committee, conversations endlessly dissected the meaning of the phrase, those chicken bones strewn on the cave floor. Norm Augustine waxed on in interviews about the “worthy” part, seemingly frustrated. What’s a few billion dollars in the grand scheme of things, in the context of such a great nation, and given the good NASA will put the money towards? That’s the few billion floated as the extra funding to make life so much easier for NASA’s grand plans to return to the Moon. What is the entire NASA budget, for that matter, popularized at about 10 cents a day per taxpayer? (My math comes to about 21 cents per person in the United States. It must be inflation.)
Over on the side of caution, context can also be damning, as when our mind plays tricks on us. In many analyses, providing advice, or reviewing the work of others, I was fond of hunting for biases. Selection bias, where we look for information that favors what we think is happening. We shrug off anything coming our way that runs counter to what we believe will be the correct answer. My mind’s made up. Now let’s go prove I was right all along. Mental accounting is another bias, where context warps the impact of a cost. We ignore that five-dollar bottle of water when we place it in the same bucket with tickets to Disney, literally a drop in an ocean of dollars.
“Ooh, ah,’ that’s how it always starts. But then later, there’s running and screaming.”
Optimism is the most well-worn bias in NASA projects, and well documented, the context that consumes all the other ones. I am as susceptible to these biases (and optimism) as anyone, all the more reason to run “sanity checks” and play “devil’s advocate” when our teams put out our answers. There is no vaccine yet against catching biases – again and again.
This will not be the last time we hear about a canceled NASA project. These projects begin with people walking into a room, day one. These were some of my favorite days. The air is full of hope, a fresh start, a new day, and I have that bounce in my step. But as Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park II, “Ooh, ah,’ that’s how it always starts. But then later, there’s running and screaming.” Context works for and against us, sometimes the proper awe, the useful perspective, but also the obliviousness to what’s ahead in the tunnel. I only need to remember which one is which.
Zapata Talks NASA 