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Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. If you designed/built/influenced any part of the design and watching this play out publicly. Leaving astro

Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. If you designed/built/influenced any part of the design and watching this play out publicly. Leaving astronauts stranded and potentially with a module stuck on the space station. Do you definitely start looking for a new job? Assume that ultimately nothing will change?

charlie0 2y ago
You certainly can't snitch, we saw what happened with that one guy who tried it.
- skyfaller 2y ago
  Two Boeing whistleblowers: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblower-josh-dean-dead https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblow...
  - DoctorOetker 2y ago
    We should concede that its probably hard to do one's job properly, if one "has" to take on the second job of organizing a gangstalking crew or assassins. How can we fault them for improperly leading Boeing workforce with these extra tasks? /s
phkahler 2y ago
>> Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. I'm even more curious about the astronauts. Are they willing to risk it? Are they even part of the discussions? Are they saying "screw that thing, get me a dragon"? I haven't heard a single word about their take on it.
- trebligdivad 2y ago
  If you listen to the teleconference, NASA was asked and it really seem to be more that they'll do what they're told; which seemed odd to me. And those conferences have not had either the astronauts or Boeing on; which IMHO is just weird. Having said that, I suspect the astronauts aren't actually that worried by that thruster issue. They managed to dock it OK (manually). It's more NASA getting comfortable that they understand the failure.
  - laweijfmvo 2y ago
    NASA has strong military roots and astronauts used to as well; the “do what they’re told” fits that’s motiff.
    - alwa 2y ago
      I mean also they seem smart enough to have some intellectual and epistemological modesty. If I’m the guy or woman floating around in space, I have to imagine that the collective brainpower on the ground is better-informed to make that judgment than I am.
      - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
        Two issues with that approach: 1 - do they have the right incentives, is there colossal pressure to save face from Boeing? Politics? This happened before 2 - lack of accountability - this is not a question of property that can be compensated if they are wrong. they can’t die instead of you. Your family expects to see you again, and you are responsible. There in no prize for being ‘Dead right’
        alwa 2y ago
        Very true, but am I, sitting up in space, in a position to have enough information to act on either of these concerns? I can imagine a situation where I have a gut instinct that “this thing is just squirrelly, I don’t trust it.” But if I don’t have that instinctive reaction, how am I to know which return option is more reliable? They successfully docked despite the anomalies, and it doesn’t seem to have led them to say “like hell I’m flying that deathtrap back.” At some level aren’t everyone’s incentives, including Boeing’s, aligned around getting everyone home alive? Sure Boeing’s risk appetite may look different, but wouldn’t even Boeing rate the loss of the return capsule as a catastrophic outcome? Wouldn’t I, as an astronaut, have priced Boeing’s incentives in to my decision not to put my foot down? And don’t I have to trust the ground team with my life before I let them strap me onto a space rocket in the first place?
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  They've been standing by the process in the statements they've made. I'm sure they're confident they're going back on a Dragon by now so their personal risk is minimal.
- basementcat 2y ago
  Astronauts, first and foremost, want to fly. They have been known to hush up health issues, safety issues, vehicle issues if it gets them closer to flying. I'm guessing Butch and Suni are having the time of their lives watching the surface of the Earth fly by outside the window. They will chomp at the bit to manually fly a Starliner home good valves or no just to show their colleagues how awesome they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly:_NASA_and_the_Crisis_Aboard_Mir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly:_NASA_and_the_Crisis...
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    I dunno, they cover up health issues and etc _to get into space_. They're in space now, might as well drag it out as long as they can.
  - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
    > health issues, safety issues, vehicle issues if it gets them closer to flying I would take a risk driving experimental motorbike, would not risk driving a normal motorbike on a highway where mechanic checking it was sloppy and stupid. Even if risks were, hypothetically identical, risk A is honourable, risk 2 is someone’s incompetence or greed.
  - Intralexical 2y ago
    They're also perfectly eager to cuss out bureaucrats who get them killed by forcing them to fly known faulty vehicles. > One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage So, you know, it's one thing to be a badass cowboy with the risks inherent to exploration. But maybe don't romanticize the political and technical incompetence in this particular situation.
- fergie 2y ago
  Its worth noting that NASA astronauts are gifted, but often more working class than equivalent organisations. I wonder if their humble social status (relatively speaking) makes it easier to coerce them into doing dangerous things?
  - alemanek 2y ago
    IMO it is probably more that people that work their entire lives to be astronauts and then wait years, sometimes decades, to get a flight slot are not the type to be risk averse. Lots of them were test pilots as well. So, these types of folks are naturally risk takers and I am sure have full trust in their supporting teams. I doubt they need to be coerced into doing dangerous things. All space flight is inherently risky.
- axus 2y ago
  It's probably cooler to fly back on a different vehicle instead of re-using the same one.
numpad0 2y ago
What's the problem? The vehicle mostly worked. It's like your app shipped but had a spinning cursor issue and users had to manually clear cache. It's an overwhelming success by standards of software industry.
- TMWNN 2y ago
  Watch the Starliner crew entering ISS. Williams is very, very, very happy to have survived the ascent. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsURePrNTx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsURePrNTx0> Does she seem to think that the craft merely had a spinning-cursor issue?
  - numpad0 2y ago
    Yeah?
  - yardstick 2y ago
    I interpreted it as she was very happy to have completed the first manned mission on a new spacecraft type
- bigln 2y ago
  Maybe not everything is just like apps all the time.
  - kloop 2y ago
    You can treat spaceflight like software and work out the bugs by trial and error. Lord knows spacex did. You just can't put people on the vessel while you're doing that part
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  The software industry literally has no standards.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Software isn’t an industry. NASA has amazing processes to diagram software before a line of code is written.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
katzinsky 2y ago
>Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. As long as the paychecks don't bounce they're probably more worried about their individual KPI than the actual results.
bamboozled 2y ago
*morale

charlie0 2y ago

You certainly can't snitch, we saw what happened with that one guy who tried it.

skyfaller 2y ago
Two Boeing whistleblowers: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblower-josh-dean-dead https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblow...
- DoctorOetker 2y ago
  We should concede that its probably hard to do one's job properly, if one "has" to take on the second job of organizing a gangstalking crew or assassins. How can we fault them for improperly leading Boeing workforce with these extra tasks? /s

phkahler 2y ago

>> Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. I'm even more curious about the astronauts. Are they willing to risk it? Are they even part of the discussions? Are they saying "screw that thing, get me a dragon"? I haven't heard a single word about their take on it.

trebligdivad 2y ago
If you listen to the teleconference, NASA was asked and it really seem to be more that they'll do what they're told; which seemed odd to me. And those conferences have not had either the astronauts or Boeing on; which IMHO is just weird. Having said that, I suspect the astronauts aren't actually that worried by that thruster issue. They managed to dock it OK (manually). It's more NASA getting comfortable that they understand the failure.
- laweijfmvo 2y ago
  NASA has strong military roots and astronauts used to as well; the “do what they’re told” fits that’s motiff.
  - alwa 2y ago
    I mean also they seem smart enough to have some intellectual and epistemological modesty. If I’m the guy or woman floating around in space, I have to imagine that the collective brainpower on the ground is better-informed to make that judgment than I am.
    - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
      Two issues with that approach: 1 - do they have the right incentives, is there colossal pressure to save face from Boeing? Politics? This happened before 2 - lack of accountability - this is not a question of property that can be compensated if they are wrong. they can’t die instead of you. Your family expects to see you again, and you are responsible. There in no prize for being ‘Dead right’
      - alwa 2y ago
        Very true, but am I, sitting up in space, in a position to have enough information to act on either of these concerns? I can imagine a situation where I have a gut instinct that “this thing is just squirrelly, I don’t trust it.” But if I don’t have that instinctive reaction, how am I to know which return option is more reliable? They successfully docked despite the anomalies, and it doesn’t seem to have led them to say “like hell I’m flying that deathtrap back.” At some level aren’t everyone’s incentives, including Boeing’s, aligned around getting everyone home alive? Sure Boeing’s risk appetite may look different, but wouldn’t even Boeing rate the loss of the return capsule as a catastrophic outcome? Wouldn’t I, as an astronaut, have priced Boeing’s incentives in to my decision not to put my foot down? And don’t I have to trust the ground team with my life before I let them strap me onto a space rocket in the first place?
- CamperBob2 2y ago
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
They've been standing by the process in the statements they've made. I'm sure they're confident they're going back on a Dragon by now so their personal risk is minimal.
basementcat 2y ago
Astronauts, first and foremost, want to fly. They have been known to hush up health issues, safety issues, vehicle issues if it gets them closer to flying. I'm guessing Butch and Suni are having the time of their lives watching the surface of the Earth fly by outside the window. They will chomp at the bit to manually fly a Starliner home good valves or no just to show their colleagues how awesome they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly:_NASA_and_the_Crisis_Aboard_Mir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly:_NASA_and_the_Crisis...
- lesuorac 2y ago
  I dunno, they cover up health issues and etc _to get into space_. They're in space now, might as well drag it out as long as they can.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > health issues, safety issues, vehicle issues if it gets them closer to flying I would take a risk driving experimental motorbike, would not risk driving a normal motorbike on a highway where mechanic checking it was sloppy and stupid. Even if risks were, hypothetically identical, risk A is honourable, risk 2 is someone’s incompetence or greed.
- Intralexical 2y ago
  They're also perfectly eager to cuss out bureaucrats who get them killed by forcing them to fly known faulty vehicles. > One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage So, you know, it's one thing to be a badass cowboy with the risks inherent to exploration. But maybe don't romanticize the political and technical incompetence in this particular situation.
fergie 2y ago
Its worth noting that NASA astronauts are gifted, but often more working class than equivalent organisations. I wonder if their humble social status (relatively speaking) makes it easier to coerce them into doing dangerous things?
- alemanek 2y ago
  IMO it is probably more that people that work their entire lives to be astronauts and then wait years, sometimes decades, to get a flight slot are not the type to be risk averse. Lots of them were test pilots as well. So, these types of folks are naturally risk takers and I am sure have full trust in their supporting teams. I doubt they need to be coerced into doing dangerous things. All space flight is inherently risky.
axus 2y ago
It's probably cooler to fly back on a different vehicle instead of re-using the same one.

numpad0 2y ago

What's the problem? The vehicle mostly worked. It's like your app shipped but had a spinning cursor issue and users had to manually clear cache. It's an overwhelming success by standards of software industry.

TMWNN 2y ago
Watch the Starliner crew entering ISS. Williams is very, very, very happy to have survived the ascent. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsURePrNTx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsURePrNTx0> Does she seem to think that the craft merely had a spinning-cursor issue?
- numpad0 2y ago
  Yeah?
- yardstick 2y ago
  I interpreted it as she was very happy to have completed the first manned mission on a new spacecraft type
bigln 2y ago
Maybe not everything is just like apps all the time.
- kloop 2y ago
  You can treat spaceflight like software and work out the bugs by trial and error. Lord knows spacex did. You just can't put people on the vessel while you're doing that part
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
The software industry literally has no standards.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Software isn’t an industry. NASA has amazing processes to diagram software before a line of code is written.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

katzinsky 2y ago

>Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. As long as the paychecks don't bounce they're probably more worried about their individual KPI than the actual results.

bamboozled 2y ago

*morale