Audit Report: DOGE Produced Unreliable Savings Figures

Posted on by onespaceman2000

We finally have more information on what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), being run by Elon Musk and friends, was doing (or not doing) while it was laying waste to the federal government last year.

We have learned from a recent US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that the savings figures claimed by DOGE (1) were based on an unknown methodology, (2) exaggerated savings, and (3) represented activities that never occurred.

Here is a statement from the report summary:

  • DOGE was not transparent regarding methodologies used to calculate savings. Specifically, DOGE did not use its stated methodology to calculate the majority of savings associated with the contracts reported as terminated. For grants, DOGE did not provide sufficient information to verify the method used to calculate 96 percent of DOGE-reported savings. Similarly, the Wall of Receipts does not include an explanation of how the savings from terminated leases were calculated.
  • The Wall of Receipts includes leases identified for termination before DOGE was established. Specifically,108 of the 264 leases identified for termination on the Wall of Receipts, about $15.3 million of the total $53.5 million in savings, were already in process for termination when DOGE was established.
  • GAO’s review of selected contracts identified potential cost savings, but the basis for some reported savings is unknown. For example, DOGE reported $1.7 billion in savings on the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Agency contract for IT services at more than 700 military treatment facilities worldwide. While DOGE initially identified the contract for termination, in the end, no action was taken to terminate the contract, or to reduce scope, value, or funding. Thus, no savings were achieved.

This should come as no surprise to those closely watching the destruction last year. It was clear from the start that DOGE was not interested in the mission of government. Instead, the whole operation was mindless foolishness intended to scare away those employees who could not be illegally fired or suspended. NASA was one of the victims of the insanity, and it will take a least a generation for the agency to recover.

The whole DOGE operation was basically Twitter, Part 2. But this time it was not his own company that Musk was destroying but instead your government. It could have been done with some thought and input from the auditors who oversee government everyday, but that would require hard work, real numbers, and boring processes.

The country needed a competent surgeon, and instead it got a cocky plumber.

Any country that hands over its space industry to such a man should be having second thoughts, or at least have a Plan B.

NASA Helps with Mining the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A false-color composite picture of the Moon taken through three color filters on NASA’s Galileo solid-state imaging system. (NASA)

While everyone was staring up at the dark Moon covering the bright sun during today’s eclipse, NASA was busy chatting about new ways to view the Moon. The image above is one of many that can be created using NASA data to assist commercial companies trying to understand the lunar terrain while looking for useful minerals.

The accompanying NASA story includes comments from multiple commercial companies eyeing the Moon’s resources.

Blair DeWitt, CEO of Lunar Station, stated:

We can find sites for landing pads, for cultivating the best paths for roving, and inform our clients about communications. If you can’t see Earth at a given location like in the polar regions or the far side of the Moon, you have to come up with a relay strategy…We can do this in part thanks to NASA data.

We can assume the Chinese are doing the same for their own commercial sector, though NASA has more data going back decades. Even so, China already has rocks from the far side of the Moon, which is a feat that not even NASA achieved. And not to be outdone, just last week China released its own comprehensive geological map of the Moon.

As with everything else pertaining to the Moon, the race is on.

Podcast: Is It Really an Exomoon?

Posted on by onespaceman2000

The recent news about the discovery of the first exomoon stirred up the astronomy community, including astronomy professor David Kipping, who needed to address it immediately on his Cool Worlds podcast.

The episode, “We Need to Talk About That “First Exomoon” Discovery,” is basically an hour-long monologue by Dr. Kipping as he discussed the discovery, compares it to earlier similar discoveries, goes over the current definition of a exomoon, and quotes other astronomers regarding their position on the discovery.

The bottom line is that the media may have overplayed the discovery, similar discoveries happened in the past, and the lack of a good definition for an exomoon makes any decision on this new discovery troublesome.

Dr. Kipping has a particular interest in exomoons, and he admits this bias at the start of the show, but he does a good job covering all of the terrain. It is an informative one-man debate reminiscent of the difficulties in defining Pluto.

I recommend you check it out.

Note: The episode can also be found on YouTube. Also, go to this earlier story for more by Dr. Kipping on exomoons.

A Hopeful Study on Solar Flares

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A graphic showing how space weather can impact eveyday technology. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Now that we know solar flares can be worse than anticipated (per the study cited in the prior post), let me add some good news about another study that may have a solution.

The recent study, Terrestrial Space Weather Protection Through Human-Produced Mass-Loading, has a plain language summary, fortunately, that explains one possible solution to the damaging effects of solar flares:

The study presents a new way to protect Earth from harmful space weather caused by storms from the sun that can disrupt technology and power grids. The study shows humans can actively reduce the impact by releasing neutral gas from orbiting satellites. Once released, this gas turns into plasma and drifts to the edge of Earth’s magnetic field where it softens the effects of solar storms. Computer simulations show this method could reduce the strength of a major solar storm by more than half, potentially saving lives and technology. The proposed approach uses existing technology and materials, making it a practical future defense against space weather risks.

What we really have here is a draw, with the first study saying the impact from solar flares may be twice as bad as previously thought and the second study saying the impact can be cut in half. So we are back to where we started assuming we launch a new batch of satellites.

Maybe future studies will bring us closer to even better defense mechanisms, but it is good to know that new solutions are being proposed.

Podcast: AI Data Centers in Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are following the debate about whether data centers belong in orbit, this Freakonomics Radio podcast titled “Should A.I. Move to Space?” may be for you.

Guest host Steve Levitt talks to a number of experts about the role of AI in our economy. I recommend listing to all of the podcast since much of it touches on the logistics of data centers in orbit, but it is the later part of the podcast involving a discussion with Will Marshall, co-founder and C.E.O. of Planet Labs, that peaked my attention. He discusses both the role of Planet Labs as its satellites monitors every corner of the Earth’s surface as well as the need for AI data centers in space.

In terms of the Planet Lab satellites, I found his most intriguing statements were related to the reduced costs of satellites. While most of the stories in the press seem to be about the decrease in rocket costs, Mr. Marshall said the real transformation is the miniaturization of satellites. Even under the earlier rocket system (pre-SpaceX), the drop in satellite costs due to smaller satellites would have been incredible.

In the quote below, Mr. Marshall is referring initially to the lower rocket costs, but then he expands into the real cost saving:

But remember even a four or five x reduction in cost, which really helps the whole space industry and has helped spawn it, is less significant, purely from an economic standpoint, than the 100 to a 1,000x improvement in cost performance of satellites that are going in. So, in each kilogram that you put up into space, if you can get a hundred times more data, because you’ve made the satellite way smaller, then you have won big time, even if the launch cost didn’t change one iota.

In his discussion about AI data centers, Mr. Marshall also has a unique view about the role of the Earth’s surface versus space:

I think it’s inevitable that, within a 10-ish year timeframe, most computers being built on the Earth will be going to space. I actually think not only is it going to be economically cheaper, but it’s going to be more sustainable. Earth’s life is so precious, it’s incredible, but yet we’re whittling away a lot of it. We’re doing deforestation for lithium, for cows, for whatever, we’re doing it. And we need to put our energy-intensive infrastructure into orbit, if we can, to not have a collision course with the biodiversity on the planet,

The podcast episode is in two parts, so be sure to listen to the second part when it comes out.