Comments on: White House, Washington Times both criticize Senate commercial crew language

By: common sense

common sense — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 05:41:40 +0000

So what? The question was whether Boeing can innovate. And the answer is yes.

Pointing to SLS or MPCV and saying Boeing cannot innovate is ludicrous. Boeing as any other DoD contractors will gladly spend all the government money they can put their hands on. Why take risks if cash comes your way anyway? 8 crew Orion sir? Yes sir absolutely sir. What now? 6 crew? Aye aye sir right away sir. Okay that’s Lockheed Martin but same goes for any contractor. And if you don’t believe me it means you haven’t worked for one.

Do you think SpaceX does it for free? They have investors, stock holders to whom they must somehow answer. Sure it’s not public but if they don’t win Commercial Crew they may just have to IPO. Then we’ll see how different from the others they stay…

Do you believe Dragon is more advanced than X-37 ?

Why do you think the AF was willing to pay for it?

By: Art

Art — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 03:54:58 +0000

The x-37 was paid for by the Air Force. Everything. Boeing is willing to innovate, as long as there are billions of dollars paid by someone else.

By: Art

Art — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 03:26:08 +0000

Boeing wants NASA to foot the whole bill. They don’t want to invest their company funds…They are still thinking 70’s style in human spaceflight. If they would’ve made the investment in the 90’s to back up the shuttle with a capsule design, they could have spread the development out over 10 yrs & had sole source contracts for crew delivery after shuttle. It would be paying dividends, now. No, they are trying to respond to spaceX the only way they know how. All of their Senior Managers probably need to retire & let some fresh “blood” take over.

By: Dick Eagleson

Dick Eagleson — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 18:08:10 +0000

I’ll concede the point that NASA isn’t Boeing. But, as I noted in a previous comment, the Boeing of today is not the Boeing of old either. Compared to prior major all-new aircraft development projects, Boeing screwed the pooch big-time on the 787. They outsourced almost everything, tried to juggle too many balls at once and lost track of many of those they had up in the air. I suppose I should have noted in my previous comment that, in addition to not reading, losing and throwing away previously accumulated knowledge, it is also possible for an organization to mistakenly abandon such knowledge deliberately in the belief it is obsolete and that more modern notions should prevail only to discover their mistake too late. That seems to be what happened to Boeing on the 787 project. They knew how their predecessors had done things, decided deliberately to do them differently and got chopped for it.

By: Michael Kent

Michael Kent — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 04:05:54 +0000

Perhaps that’s why NASA has so much trouble with managing large projects.
But we weren’t talking about NASA’s ability to write things down, we were talking about Boeing’s. And Boeing obviously does have the ability to write things down.
Their commercial airplanes group has a steady stream of sought-after products from the 707 to the 787. Their military aircraft group has a steady stream of successes from the Phantom to the Growler. Their satellite group from the early Telstars to the latest all-ion comsats. And their manned spacecraft group from Mercury to the ISS.
Successful organizations develop their own culture and transfer knowledge across time and people.
The examples I gave were specific. A new engineer can put a note on the drawing to “Heat treat per process spec XXXXX” and capture decades of institutional knowledge from engineers no longer with the company — perhaps no longer even alive. “Seal fuel tank per Process Spec YYYYY using Material Spec ZZZZZ. Inspect per Inspection Procedure IIIII.” Decades more expert knowledge available to even the greenest new-hire.
Competent organizations breed success. The failures of dysfunctional organizations shouldn’t be laid at their feet.

By: Dick Eagleson

Dick Eagleson — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:33:58 +0000

Writing things down is no guarantee that they will subsequently be read. It’s also no guarantee they won’t subsequently be lost or thrown away. You might want to look at Keith Cowing’s many posts over at NASA Watch about the experiences of his and Dennis Wingo’s group in getting back control of the ISEE-3 spacecraft if you want a look at the realities of NASA’s “institutional memory.”

Rand is right.

By: Michael Kent

Michael Kent — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:16:57 +0000

“I got the feeling that they were never comfortable with that type of marketplace.”

Why would you think that? No one has done more commercial space than Boeing. I’d wager they’ve probably done more commercial space than all other companies combined.

By: Michael Kent

Michael Kent — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:14:25 +0000

“Organizations donâ€™t have knowledgeâ€”individuals do.”

This is true only for organizations that don’t write anything down. For organizations in the real world, it is flat-out false.

By: Jim Nobles

Jim Nobles — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:33:55 +0000

It’s a pity those cows don’t understand what awesome seats they have for the show.

By: common sense

common sense — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:01:39 +0000

Mostly agreed and experienced first hand.

Note too that the CEV (10 years ago!!!) was already championed by old hands at NASA and the industry – the supposed knowledge as in unchallengeable knowledge. Some from Shuttle background, a handful (literally) from Apollo. Today, so 10 years later, I am curious to know how many of those old hands are still around.

Some of this mismanagement of knowledge can be seen in Constellation, a product of ESAS. Clearly few people with any knowledge of such programs came up with that plan, no matter how academically brilliant they might be or have been.

But there is a significant difference if you are the customer or the contractor. When the contractor knows more than the customer yet the customer dictates the management we end up in a mess. And this is true of any organization. A contractor will not go against the will of its customers if it means loss of contract regardless of whether it makes sense or not. In a good relationship of course a contractor might offer a number of options to its customer to achieve any given goal. However if the customer tells you what to do and does not offer an opportunity for feedback then you get Constellation. Or now SLS/MPCV. Find who the primary customer is and you will know why we rate in such a mess.

C’est la vie.