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When your goal is profits all you have to do is make more money than you spend and you are successful. If you don't do that you are a bad business and fade awa

When your goal is profits all you have to do is make more money than you spend and you are successful. If you don't do that you are a bad business and fade away into obscurity. Public funded projects are cost centers, their measure of success isn't profit but things that are more vague. Since money is an equalizer everyone instead looks at the money. This means that failure becomes much less acceptable. After all failures are money wasted. The good thing about this is NASA is very careful to avoid failure with fixed payment contracts designed to shield it from problems with contractors. The bad thing is talking about mistakes becomes bad. After all NASA is known for eliminating problems to maximize success, how could they fail to do that everywhere? And thus these kind of soft risks that we need to accept are viewed as hidden problems that shouldn't be talked about. Side note Space Shuttle crews being unsure about a foreigner potentially killing them would be a terrible news cycle... Of course the crew knows it is just "I don't know this person" but outsiders will hear it is a cultural issue. Heck this article's main point was described as that on this page.

dylan604 3y ago
> After all failures are money wasted. sometimes, you have to test ideas out to make sure the idea you are currently going with is the best one. sure, maybe it's working now, but is there a way to do it cheaper, faster, safer? sometimes, you have to spend the money to test to find out. sometimes, those tests don't work. are those tests failures, or are they just reinforcement that the current idea is the better option?
- Guvante 3y ago
  I am responding to the question as to why NASA is private about failures like this. Certainly failing is fine and learning from failures is useful. But you cannot honestly claim that the public perception of NASA agrees with what you wrote. The reason NASA hides failures is because the public demands perfection. Anything less results in cut funding. (Failures leading to less money is a great way to succeed...)

dylan604 3y ago

> After all failures are money wasted. sometimes, you have to test ideas out to make sure the idea you are currently going with is the best one. sure, maybe it's working now, but is there a way to do it cheaper, faster, safer? sometimes, you have to spend the money to test to find out. sometimes, those tests don't work. are those tests failures, or are they just reinforcement that the current idea is the better option?

Guvante 3y ago
I am responding to the question as to why NASA is private about failures like this. Certainly failing is fine and learning from failures is useful. But you cannot honestly claim that the public perception of NASA agrees with what you wrote. The reason NASA hides failures is because the public demands perfection. Anything less results in cut funding. (Failures leading to less money is a great way to succeed...)