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It's funny how extreme the reactions are here. It's either the end of the world or exactly as planned. Both are nonsense. To me, this looks like it was definit

It's funny how extreme the reactions are here. It's either the end of the world or exactly as planned. Both are nonsense. To me, this looks like it was definitely a noteworthy fuckup, but in the big picture it doesn't seem to be a major setback -- nothing like the recent Boeing issues. That is, as long as a pattern of such events doesn't develop. SpaceX continues to push the industry forward in interesting and exciting ways. To continue the arm-chair quarterbacking... I feel like a moderate decrease in process aversion would be a good response to this incident. Reduce the chance of similar future fuckups without slowing down too much.

gpm 7y ago
From a process design/management view I'm not sure you're right. In fact I think you're probably wrong, but there is definitely room for disagreement. To oversimplify things massively, "how careful do we want to be to avoid testing failures" is a parameter that SpaceX management gets to control. At the extreme careful end everything costs billions of dollars because you're paralyzed analyzing things and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple checking things. At the not at all careful end of things you keep building "complete rockets", pointing them at mars without any testing, and blowing them up. Obviously neither is rational. They've settled on some parameters that are basically "don't worry that much about test failures, but keep the failures really cheap". They seem to be doing pretty well by doing that. They're experimenting with manufacturing techniques, hiring and training a workforce, building facilities. The prototypes that they are building keep failing, but that looks to be a relatively minor cost considering that the current primary goal is (according to them) to build out the manufacturing processes and make the design easy to manufacture. Being slightly more careful would undoubtedly reduce the numbers of prototype failures, but would it actually be worth the cost of slowing other things down? Remember that the main cost of this program to SpaceX is engineering salaries, the faster it goes the cheaper it is. So of course this test didn't go as planned, of course it would be better if it had worked, but would it have really been worth it to management to reduce the probability of this test failing? Like I said, maybe they aren't being careful enough, but I don't think we have any real evidence for that right now and I personally doubt it.
- bumby 7y ago
  I think this is where NASA went wrong in many respects. They got so risk adverse, they built a bureaucracy of checks and oversight that moves slow. That’s one of thew reasons the industry needs fresh blood like SpaceX
  - mcbutterbunz 7y ago
    Two reasons and probably more: 1. The risk is different when there are human lives on the line. 2. NASA is publicly funded and if they want to keep receiving funding, they can’t be blowing up the public’s money.
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      I feel NASA's approach is right for manned spaceflight, but is not sensible for robotic missions - metal is cheap, design time is expensive. I feel the public appearance is not a hard - nosed calculation, but Is instead a pr requirement
      - greglindahl 7y ago
        NASA has different risk categories for manned spaceflight and robotic missions, depending on cost.
      - sbuttgereit 7y ago
        I actually disagree with you. For one, consider that Starship is ultimately intended for manned spaceflight... yet SpaceX is still trying things and blowing stuff up (or imploding or...) From my armchair perspective I think the risk adversity criticism is justified. NASA should take much more risk even in human spaceflight... in the early stages of platform development. First see if you can build the damn thing and build it repeatedly. Later, after that period, reduce risk and prove out and refine things to the human spaceflight standard. If you jump immediately to, "my God people are suppose to fly on that thing!" well, you're probably going to pay the Russians a lot of money for a fairly long time. I do agree with you that the political management becomes a real issue. Politicians and bureaucrats are naturally disposed to a certain cravenness about such issues once they get to significant positions of power (senior execs of many companies do, too). But I think a charismatic leader that's out in front of the messaging could pull it off.
101404 7y ago
Just remember how many F9s crashed when they were learning to land the rocket. This is just the same.
weare138 7y ago
But what are we comparing this to? NASA and the Soviet's space program accomplished more with a fraction of the resources and had a better success rate.

gpm 7y ago

From a process design/management view I'm not sure you're right. In fact I think you're probably wrong, but there is definitely room for disagreement. To oversimplify things massively, "how careful do we want to be to avoid testing failures" is a parameter that SpaceX management gets to control. At the extreme careful end everything costs billions of dollars because you're paralyzed analyzing things and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple checking things. At the not at all careful end of things you keep building "complete rockets", pointing them at mars without any testing, and blowing them up. Obviously neither is rational. They've settled on some parameters that are basically "don't worry that much about test failures, but keep the failures really cheap". They seem to be doing pretty well by doing that. They're experimenting with manufacturing techniques, hiring and training a workforce, building facilities. The prototypes that they are building keep failing, but that looks to be a relatively minor cost considering that the current primary goal is (according to them) to build out the manufacturing processes and make the design easy to manufacture. Being slightly more careful would undoubtedly reduce the numbers of prototype failures, but would it actually be worth the cost of slowing other things down? Remember that the main cost of this program to SpaceX is engineering salaries, the faster it goes the cheaper it is. So of course this test didn't go as planned, of course it would be better if it had worked, but would it have really been worth it to management to reduce the probability of this test failing? Like I said, maybe they aren't being careful enough, but I don't think we have any real evidence for that right now and I personally doubt it.

bumby 7y ago
I think this is where NASA went wrong in many respects. They got so risk adverse, they built a bureaucracy of checks and oversight that moves slow. That’s one of thew reasons the industry needs fresh blood like SpaceX
- mcbutterbunz 7y ago
  Two reasons and probably more: 1. The risk is different when there are human lives on the line. 2. NASA is publicly funded and if they want to keep receiving funding, they can’t be blowing up the public’s money.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    I feel NASA's approach is right for manned spaceflight, but is not sensible for robotic missions - metal is cheap, design time is expensive. I feel the public appearance is not a hard - nosed calculation, but Is instead a pr requirement
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      NASA has different risk categories for manned spaceflight and robotic missions, depending on cost.
    - sbuttgereit 7y ago
      I actually disagree with you. For one, consider that Starship is ultimately intended for manned spaceflight... yet SpaceX is still trying things and blowing stuff up (or imploding or...) From my armchair perspective I think the risk adversity criticism is justified. NASA should take much more risk even in human spaceflight... in the early stages of platform development. First see if you can build the damn thing and build it repeatedly. Later, after that period, reduce risk and prove out and refine things to the human spaceflight standard. If you jump immediately to, "my God people are suppose to fly on that thing!" well, you're probably going to pay the Russians a lot of money for a fairly long time. I do agree with you that the political management becomes a real issue. Politicians and bureaucrats are naturally disposed to a certain cravenness about such issues once they get to significant positions of power (senior execs of many companies do, too). But I think a charismatic leader that's out in front of the messaging could pull it off.

101404 7y ago

Just remember how many F9s crashed when they were learning to land the rocket. This is just the same.

weare138 7y ago

But what are we comparing this to? NASA and the Soviet's space program accomplished more with a fraction of the resources and had a better success rate.