The downside to keeping skilled labour 'hot' are many. First of all, if you have skilled labor, instead of of keeping them 'hot' actually 'eat' them. Ok, the analogy breaks down. But why keep them 'hot' just have them build actually useful stuff instead. Its not like there is a lack of useful things they could be doing.
And second giving people bullshit useless projects like SLS, does not actually keep them 'hot'. Its more like warmed up Pizza. The people and more importantly organization lose the actual ability to do things quickly at reasonable prices.
Somehow it seems acceptable that SLS will cost more then 30 billion $ in development cost and 2-4 more billion $ per launch. Not to mention the time.
Don't misunderstand political pork as actually strategic workforce development or long term government policy. That just what you personally wish it to be, not what it actually is.
And second giving people bullshit useless projects like SLS, does not actually keep them 'hot'. Its more like warmed up Pizza. The people and more importantly organization lose the actual ability to do things quickly at reasonable prices.
Somehow it seems acceptable that SLS will cost more then 30 billion $ in development cost and 2-4 more billion $ per launch. Not to mention the time.
Don't misunderstand political pork as actually strategic workforce development or long term government policy. That just what you personally wish it to be, not what it actually is.