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Before I worked in aerospace, I wondered why that industry cost so much. Now I understand that every requirement within each requirement document has to be "fl

Before I worked in aerospace, I wondered why that industry cost so much. Now I understand that every requirement within each requirement document has to be "flowed down," maintained, verified, documented, and that compliance has to be proven along the chain from design to operation. The number of these documents grows at some beyond-linear rate with project complexity. Of course, this is not all the source of cost but it is a good chunk. But, if you're building spaceflight hardware that can't be repaired once launched, it is necessary.

mschuster91 2y ago
... and all of the documentation has to be kept around for decades, same for the knowledge of how it was constructed and maintained. That's what makes missions like Voyager or even the ISS possible in the first place - a lot of the people who did the early work on either are probably dead now.
tekla 2y ago
When I worked on some aircraft, every single line of code that was added or changed had a digital and paper record of the change and the reason for it.
neilv 2y ago
Inspired by very serious traceability, like for aerospace engineering, I did a very-very simple and lightweight system, for the security practices & assurances of a non-aerospace startup. I was proud of not only of how effective yet non-encumbering the practices, and how smart our external assurances, but the lightweight way of implementing traceability between the two. A single, short internal document tracked not only practices, but sections were annotated with all the external documents/instances that made assurances wrt to those practices. So when we did need to change something, we knew what was easy and hard to change. (Interface vs. implementation.) Of course, the very first externally-shareable document side of this, I explained to our enterprise salesperson that it would convince the partner's savvy IT people that we were fully competent and diligent, and said a bit about how everything in there was carefully designed and traceable... Well, maybe you can guess how that went. Not everyone is familiar with building things that really have to work correctly, nor with how a little bit of judicious process can actually make things dramatically more efficient, nor with any kind of traceability rigor. If you're not familiar with that, or aren't aligned with that, then the most efficient thing in your mind might be to quietly change a copy of engineering document, to say whatever is most expedient in the moment. And don't tell anyone that you changed a copy of an engineering document, since that would not be a happy vibe when everyone likes what you're saying, and so not a good use of your time. :) (I default to confidentiality about such things, even in absence of NDA. But I can mention this anecdote, in this professional practice discussion within the field, since the company is no longer in business, and there are no unresolved liabilities.)
- newsclues 2y ago
  I think it may be seen as a feature not a bug when there is cost plus contracts and regulatory capture limits competition.
  - OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
    I will agree that there is a lot of overhead per engineering hour in this market area. But, I also think there's a great deal of misunderstanding about how government contracting works. Cost-plus fixed fee means the fee is agreed upon at the outset. If you overrun you may get the cost of the extra work performed but you get no fee (profit) on it. When the corporation sees that dilution, there is usually hell to pay. If the government gets tired of the overruns, it can and does cancel the contract. There are different contract types with award fee and/or incentive fees each with its own peculiarities. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) make for interesting reading: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-16 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-16 " Part 16 - Types of Contracts"
    - newsclues 2y ago
      The government contracting scam is to agree to a set percentage of the total cost as profit, so the contractor has an incentive to increase the total cost in order to maximize the dollar amount of profit they can extract. And that’s without using subcontractors to transfer even more wealth. The business is: If profit is % of X Then maximum X
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
  > If you're not familiar with that, or aren't aligned with that, then the most efficient thing in your mind might be to quietly change a copy of engineering document, to say whatever is most expedient in the moment. You might be joking here but in case you're not, there is serious configuration control and change management at play. Documents go into a controlled repository, are watermarked, and have other protections applied to them. Anyone trying this especially on a government contract is risking a lot.
euroderf 2y ago
Oh but we're bringing in some hotshots from McKinsey who have some ideas about how we can trim all this unnecessary overhead. They have assured me that absolutely nothing can go wrong.

mschuster91 2y ago

... and all of the documentation has to be kept around for decades, same for the knowledge of how it was constructed and maintained. That's what makes missions like Voyager or even the ISS possible in the first place - a lot of the people who did the early work on either are probably dead now.

tekla 2y ago

When I worked on some aircraft, every single line of code that was added or changed had a digital and paper record of the change and the reason for it.

neilv 2y ago

Inspired by very serious traceability, like for aerospace engineering, I did a very-very simple and lightweight system, for the security practices & assurances of a non-aerospace startup. I was proud of not only of how effective yet non-encumbering the practices, and how smart our external assurances, but the lightweight way of implementing traceability between the two. A single, short internal document tracked not only practices, but sections were annotated with all the external documents/instances that made assurances wrt to those practices. So when we did need to change something, we knew what was easy and hard to change. (Interface vs. implementation.) Of course, the very first externally-shareable document side of this, I explained to our enterprise salesperson that it would convince the partner's savvy IT people that we were fully competent and diligent, and said a bit about how everything in there was carefully designed and traceable... Well, maybe you can guess how that went. Not everyone is familiar with building things that really have to work correctly, nor with how a little bit of judicious process can actually make things dramatically more efficient, nor with any kind of traceability rigor. If you're not familiar with that, or aren't aligned with that, then the most efficient thing in your mind might be to quietly change a copy of engineering document, to say whatever is most expedient in the moment. And don't tell anyone that you changed a copy of an engineering document, since that would not be a happy vibe when everyone likes what you're saying, and so not a good use of your time. :) (I default to confidentiality about such things, even in absence of NDA. But I can mention this anecdote, in this professional practice discussion within the field, since the company is no longer in business, and there are no unresolved liabilities.)

newsclues 2y ago
I think it may be seen as a feature not a bug when there is cost plus contracts and regulatory capture limits competition.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
  I will agree that there is a lot of overhead per engineering hour in this market area. But, I also think there's a great deal of misunderstanding about how government contracting works. Cost-plus fixed fee means the fee is agreed upon at the outset. If you overrun you may get the cost of the extra work performed but you get no fee (profit) on it. When the corporation sees that dilution, there is usually hell to pay. If the government gets tired of the overruns, it can and does cancel the contract. There are different contract types with award fee and/or incentive fees each with its own peculiarities. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) make for interesting reading: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-16 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-16 " Part 16 - Types of Contracts"
  - newsclues 2y ago
    The government contracting scam is to agree to a set percentage of the total cost as profit, so the contractor has an incentive to increase the total cost in order to maximize the dollar amount of profit they can extract. And that’s without using subcontractors to transfer even more wealth. The business is: If profit is % of X Then maximum X
OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
> If you're not familiar with that, or aren't aligned with that, then the most efficient thing in your mind might be to quietly change a copy of engineering document, to say whatever is most expedient in the moment. You might be joking here but in case you're not, there is serious configuration control and change management at play. Documents go into a controlled repository, are watermarked, and have other protections applied to them. Anyone trying this especially on a government contract is risking a lot.

euroderf 2y ago

Oh but we're bringing in some hotshots from McKinsey who have some ideas about how we can trim all this unnecessary overhead. They have assured me that absolutely nothing can go wrong.