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> To me, they give a feeling that they have some very experienced, and conservative type managing their engineering who does everything by the book. I think th

> To me, they give a feeling that they have some very experienced, and conservative type managing their engineering who does everything by the book. I think this is pretty clearly not true. "The book" says that once you have an operational configuration you freeze it. I remember hearing that the shuttle program was having to scrounge for old CPUs from warehouses because someone of the processors it used were no longer manufactured, and they didn't want to make changes to the hardware. In contrast to this, SpaceX is famous for continuously modifying their rockets - so much so that one of the NASA requirements for certification was that they freeze the design of their F9.

leoc 6y ago
> I remember hearing that the shuttle program was having to scrounge for old CPUs from warehouses because someone of the processors it used were no longer manufactured, and they didn't want to make changes to the hardware. Indeed they were literally buying Shuttle replacement parts from eBay: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/us/for-parts-nasa-boldly-goes-on-ebay.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/us/for-parts-nasa-boldly-...
orbital-decay 6y ago
>"The book" says that once you have an operational configuration you freeze it. I guess we've been reading different books then. The Shuttle you're referring to had been constantly modified and tuned (noise suppression to prevent STS-1-like body flap damage, autopilot, the anti-geyser line, LWT, SLWT etc etc etc). The other manned vehicle, Soyuz, is on its 8th major iteration already, and got many minor modifications in between. They looked for old CPUs instead of upgrading because it wasn't worth it. Shuttle program got cancelled in 2004, and it was known well in advance that it will stop flying. The difference is, they don't make headlines nearly as much. (Shuttle did early on, but it was too long ago)

leoc 6y ago

> I remember hearing that the shuttle program was having to scrounge for old CPUs from warehouses because someone of the processors it used were no longer manufactured, and they didn't want to make changes to the hardware. Indeed they were literally buying Shuttle replacement parts from eBay: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/us/for-parts-nasa-boldly-goes-on-ebay.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/us/for-parts-nasa-boldly-...

orbital-decay 6y ago

>"The book" says that once you have an operational configuration you freeze it. I guess we've been reading different books then. The Shuttle you're referring to had been constantly modified and tuned (noise suppression to prevent STS-1-like body flap damage, autopilot, the anti-geyser line, LWT, SLWT etc etc etc). The other manned vehicle, Soyuz, is on its 8th major iteration already, and got many minor modifications in between. They looked for old CPUs instead of upgrading because it wasn't worth it. Shuttle program got cancelled in 2004, and it was known well in advance that it will stop flying. The difference is, they don't make headlines nearly as much. (Shuttle did early on, but it was too long ago)