Worse, Nasa is like the state airline of a communist country.
It not only has to fly different obsolete aircraft. It has to fly it's biggest most expensive ones empty to a distant foreign country because of 'political links', it has to fly uneconomic routes to distant outposts, it can never fire anyone, it has to keep large fleets on standby for vague secret military purposes, it has to show huge losses on projects to hide military black-projects or subsidies to commercial aircraft makers.
And that's just assuming Nasa is otherwise perfectly competent and efficent.
No I'm not bitter - I jut worked on Hubble for a Nasa 'partner'.
It not only has to fly different obsolete aircraft. It has to fly it's biggest most expensive ones empty to a distant foreign country because of 'political links', it has to fly uneconomic routes to distant outposts, it can never fire anyone, it has to keep large fleets on standby for vague secret military purposes, it has to show huge losses on projects to hide military black-projects or subsidies to commercial aircraft makers.
And that's just assuming Nasa is otherwise perfectly competent and efficent.
No I'm not bitter - I jut worked on Hubble for a Nasa 'partner'.