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> During a visit to Michoud in 2023, for example, inspectors discovered that welding on a component of the SLS Core Stage 3 did not meet NASA standards. Per the
by mananaysiempre 2y ago
> During a visit to Michoud in 2023, for example, inspectors discovered that welding on a component of the SLS Core Stage 3 did not meet NASA standards. Per the report, unsatisfactory welding performed on a set of fuel tanks led directly to a seven-month delay in EUS completion.
> “According to NASA officials, the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision,” the OIG says. [...]
Welders are highly qualified and well-paid craftsmen. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’d been hit particularly hard by management that doesn’t value tenured, expensive employees.
- emchammer 2y agoYou must have seen how beautiful the welds are on the Rocketdyne F-1 joints. Whoever made those put pride in their work.
- jprete 2y agoI guess they felt, correctly, that they were not just making a weld, not just making an engine or a rocket, but helping to put people on the moon. "Building a cathedral", indeed.
- starspangled 2y agoMuch more than that though, they would have been highly skilled people with thousands of hours of welding high pressure piping and exotic metals. It doesn't matter how slowly or carefully somebody goes, or how much they revere what they are working on, if they aren't experienced then they will turn out poor work.
- dandellion 2y agoIf anyone else is curious this article has close-up photos of the joints: https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/2/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the...
- typeofhuman 2y agoMVP, thank you.
- GVRV 2y agoCan someone please explain why this is a high quality welding job? In India, welders are not paid handsomely and are rarely rigorously trained but I'm unable to distinguish between a welding job done by them compared to these photos.
- bratwurst3000 2y agodidnt read the article but I am assuming it is the material they are working on. copper and iron are easy to handle but aluminum is a bit harder and then there is stuff like titanium which recuire very high skills… and all those cases with titanium with steel or whatever. they need to know what they are doing. …. got my information from my ex roommate who welded bikes with titanium and he was a highly skilled enthusiast. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/how-it-works/how-it-works-why-welding-titanium-difficult https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/how-it-works/how-it-wor...
- lowdownbutter 2y agoOh just like Skyrim smithing.
- michaelt 2y agoThe photos don't do a great job of showing it, and a lot of the skills in welding aren't immediately visible. Welding joints that look good as-welded, instead of passing over it with a grinder and a coat of paint to cover up any imperfections? That needs decent skills. Welding thin material, and not having the heat of the welding process just melt a hole right through? That's needs skill. Welding thin material to thick material, where it's easy to blow a hole in the thin part before the thick part gets up to temperature? That needs skill. Welding complex shapes where some of the work has to be done upside-down and you have to control what's going to happen to that molten metal under gravity? That's a special skill. Doing continuous welds around complex shapes, where you have to keep the weld puddle in the right place and moving at a constant rate while completely repositioning your body and moving your feet? That's a special skill. Because of thermal expansion/contraction, to get precision results you don't just put the parts in the desired location and weld them - you need special 'fixturing' that anticipates the inevitable change of shape due to the heat of welding. That's a special skill. Welding joints where, to prevent contamination, you need to get shielding gas not only at the front of the joint but also at the back? That's a special skill. Welding unusual metals, like special high temperature rocket nozzles might involve? That's a special skill. And most importantly, if you're welding a part that takes 40 hours of welding and 39 hours in you slip on the pedal and ruin the part, you've lost loads of work. So a part that needs 40 hours of welding requires exceptional consistency too. Of course none of this stuff is impossible. But for sure it's skilled work, and not easy to hire for.
- mohaine 2y agoA welding book I had mentioned that stick welding aluminum is no longer done because it is too hard and used the F-1 stick welds as an example of such welds. I think they we not so much welds as strategic strengthening.
- genter 2y agoI'm surprised they stick welded it. I know they oxy-acetylene welded aluminum aircraft in WW2, (which I've attempted, I found it impossible to do) and TIG welding has existed since the 50s.
- zo1 2y ago[flagged]
- MR4D 2y agoThat’s a Mike-drop type comment. Agreed 100%.
- andrewflnr 2y agoWhat's this about Mike, did someone give a bad report about his welds too?
- whatshisface 2y agoGood luck fighting it. The basic human desire to stay out of the line of fire, combined with feudal loyalty trees, lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union despite the great intelligence and administrative ability of the people at the top. The only economic difference between the state monopoly of the USSR and the many companies of the US is that here, it's legal to start new organizations, where in the USSR that would be prosecuted as anti-party activity. The "I have a family to feed" effect worked exactly the same way over there. Reading about the history of socialism is eye-opening, specifically the period where it turned into a giant bureaucratic corporation that nobody was allowed to leave. That period started even before the mass murder toned down into "repression," so strong was the desire of individual managers to make it impossible to blame them for shortfalls relative to unrealizable plans. For all that's been said about how different the east and west are, their fatal economic problems were nothing more alien than politics plus monopoly.
- schmidtleonard 2y agoPrivate ownership isn't anti-monopoly, though. Big fuck-off monopolies are the best way to deliver rents to shareholders, which is capitalism's objective function, so ownership and management pursue the goal with a single mind and eventually they succeed. Eventually they find a combination of vertical/horizontal integration, economies of scale, network effects, platform effects, last mile dynamics, regulatory capture, and ownership rights that lock out competition. It's all they talk about, it's all they think about, and if you try to deliver a pitch to an investor without some kind of plan to build an anticompetitive moat god help you, lol. I'll believe that capitalists believe in competition when they start passing policy that promotes it. Policy that tax disadvantages large corporations to encourage them to break up. Policy that winds down the "cheat codes" that business students and boardrooms salivate over. Policy that prevents political influence from becoming just another route to investment return. Policy that makes it easier to do incorporation/payroll/taxes/benefits for small businesses. Until these things happen, I see capitalism as just one more flavor of the same old empire-building dynamics that stretch back through time. And not necessarily the winning one. Selling the industrial base of the United States economy to the Communist Party of China in order to pump the assets of wealthy Americans was a real six dimensional chess move. I suppose we'll see how it turns out.
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoHaving NASA come and test stuff.. Creates a 'see what sticks' kind of attitude. Eat your own dogfood
- pjscott 2y agoThe obvious patch for this is to have monetary penalties for failing inspection written into the contract, so that submitting shoddy work has a price measured in dollars. Money is the unit of caring, at least at a corporate scale, so there needs to be money involved if you want them to care systematically. (I don’t know if NASA already does this. They might.)
- nradov 2y agoInspections can help to an extent, but you can't inspect quality into a product. The customer can't anticipate every possible serious failure. Good results in safety-critical systems require an organizational culture that focuses on quality throughout the product lifecycle.
- jajko 2y agoYeah but as we see with Boeing now, when its shitshow, its more like crap is landing left and right and not a situation of overall excellence with one singular failing point. Meaning many failures would be spotted. Maybe not 100% automatically corrected but much better situation than current regulatory capture one and stuff we see in news every second week.
- sgnelson 2y agoOne of the very interesting parts of the report is that the OIG recommended 4 areas that needed to be fixed/worked on. NASA agreed to 3 of them, and was working on making those areas better. The one recommendation that NASA did not agree with was to monetarily penalize Boeing for continuous quality issues. I found that interesting.
- wonderwonder 2y ago
- dgfitz 2y ago> Welders are highly qualified and well-paid craftsmen. They’re not. You must be one of those people that hears something once and quotes it as gospel. My BIL did that yesterday: “nfl viewership has been down because of all the different platforms, and it’s been trending down for years.” As it so happens, last year was their second-best year of ratings since ratings were tracked. But, it fit his narrative, facts be damned. “We all see the welding school advertisements: Make Over $100,000 As a Welder! And while it’s true that skilled welders are among the most sought-after workers in the job market, the average welder is bringing in $48,000 per year, a far cry from six figures.” [0] [0] https://primeweld.com/blogs/news/how-much-do-welders-make-in-2023#:~:text=We%20all%20see%20the%20welding,far%20cry%20from%20six%20figures https://primeweld.com/blogs/news/how-much-do-welders-make-in....
- nothercastle 2y agoI can assure you that skilled welders like the ones you need for aerospace applications are rare and valuable. The welding techniques and standards are much higher than your average welding application
- dgfitz 2y agoI agree with you. 3% of welders make good money. I never disagreed with this.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoI had a friend who was a welder for nuclear power plants. He got shipped around the country. Not exactly a trade-school C-student. Had a better house than mine, but I’m a cheapskate.
- windexh8er 2y agoThis is 1000% false and misleading. My Dad was a journeyman machinist and many of his friends were highly sought after welders in the area we lived. These guys could weld anything anywhere and exceed quality criteria. Welding is an art and at a certain required level of performance it's not something you teach, but find the folks who have the drive to be that good and want to weld for high precision requirements. What you've linked is a run of the mill welder. My Dad machined classified parts for USG and NASA. When they'd get those jobs they would go to the guys who had a reputation to be able to produce the die to the spec required. Messing up a multi-ton die of a specific quality could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost material and time. You don't make $48k on those tolerances, even back in the 80s.
- sgnelson 2y agoIf you read the OIG report, it states: "Michoud officials stated that it has been difficult to attract and retain a contractor workforce with aerospace manufacturing experience in part due to Michoud’s geographical location in New Orleans, Louisiana, and lower employee compensation relative to other aerospace competitors."
- eddiewithzato 2y agoaka they aren’t willing to pay, many such cases.
- Terr_ 2y agoTheir wages are fine, there is simply a shortage of labor which is everybody's problem and needs government intervention in the form of tax dollars or something. /s
- whimsicalism 2y agoThere is a reason that major contractors for government have widely distributed facilities in politically relevant states.
- BurningFrog 2y agoIdeally there should be one facility in all 435 districts. This isn't ideal for optimizing quality work.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- selimthegrim 2y agoHow did they build LIGO then? Fairy dust?
- selimthegrim 2y agoUNO’s enrollment has dropped by 2/3rds since Katrina. What did people think was going to happen to the labor supply?
- ggernov 2y ago[flagged]
- userbinator 2y ago[flagged]
- nvy 2y ago[flagged]
- userbinator 2y agoDEI wasn't a thing 60 years ago.
- napierzaza 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- noworld 2y agoRelated: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/08/12/whats_behind_us_navys_worst_warship_production_in_25_years_1050933.html https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/08/12/whats_b... The Navy’s ability to build lower-cost warships that can shoot down Houthi rebel missiles in the Red Sea depends in part on a 25-year-old laborer who previously made parts for garbage trucks. Lucas Andreini, a welder at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, in Marinette, Wisconsin, is among thousands of young workers who’ve received employer-sponsored training nationwide as shipyards struggle to hire and retain employees. The labor shortage is one of myriad challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats. Combined with shifting defense priorities, last-minute design changes and cost overruns, it has put the U.S. behind China in the number of ships at its disposal — and the gap is widening. Navy shipbuilding is currently in “a terrible state” — the worst in a quarter century, says Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. “I feel alarmed,” he said. “I don’t see a fast, easy way to get out of this problem. It’s taken us a long time to get into it.”
- mensetmanusman 2y agoGovernment incentivized wall-st backed outsourcing of critical skill sets turned out to be a bad idea.
- coliveira 2y agoI think it is a great development, the US decided to export jobs to other countries to pay less its own workers, so it fits well that now it has no expertise to build its war machines.
- Workaccount2 2y agoIt doesn't even have to be like that. People want comfy WFH service jobs and college is basically just becoming 13th-16th grade at this point. America is an advanced economy and the advanced work is where the money and comfy life is. No one did anything wrong, really the problem is that too many are doing everything right. The only real answers to this is either immigrants (who undercut local workers) or some kind of wage incentive rebalancing/redistribution (which pisses off service workers above the median income).