Transrationality Science Assessment Bureau

Transrationality Science Assessment Bureau
TSAB logo
Agency overview
Formed	August 31, 2007
Preceding Agency	Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Jurisdiction	Federal government of the United States
Headquarters	The Pentagon
Agency Executives	Col. Stephen Caldwell, Director   Maj. Amy O'Connell, Operations manager
Parent agency	Department of Defense

The Transrationality Science Assessment Bureau (TSAB) is the American Department of Defense agency responsible for researching and reverse-engineering handwavium technology. After several rounds of concerted infighting between the US Air Force, US Navy and NASA, TSAB also became the agency responsible for maintaining the official American presence in Fenspace, including the portions of the former civilian manned space program not eventually sold to the Artemis Foundation.

TSAB's standard operating procedure is to obtain wavetech devices, analyze their working properties, then duplicate the process with hardtech. Their success rate with acquisition and analysis is better than their success with duplication, but TSAB has made several advances, most notably the air recyclers used by Rockhounds, Inc. in their later model space habitats.

In Fenspace, the (relatively few) fen who approve of TSAB call them NASFans, while others call them IPX or simply "those damned vultures." The majority of (sober) fen simply use the acronym, like many another government agency before them.

TSAB owns and operates Benjamin Franklin Station at the Earth-Luna L4 point. Franklin Station's commander, Air Force Col. Stephen Caldwell, is the ranking American military officer in the greater solar system. The station's public face is operations director Maj. Amy O'Connell.

Criticism

TSAB has come under fire multiple times during its short existence. Supporters of the mundane American space program have accused the TSAB management of "destroying" NASA by denying the agency handwavium or other technical support. Critics within the Defense Department have claimed that TSAB, despite being directly under Joint Chiefs control, has deliberately shut out the other service branches in favor of the USAF. The Navy took matters into their own hands with a small-scale handwavium space program using the decommissioned Seawolf submarine Stingray in 2011-2012.