4 ms·

It can't be solved 100%, but it can be _mostly_ solved with systemic buy-in to the safety culture. Commercial aviation is a great example IMO. We've spent the

by njovin 7mo ago

It can't be solved 100%, but it can be _mostly_ solved with systemic buy-in to the safety culture. Commercial aviation is a great example IMO. We've spent the last several decades making sure that every single person trained to participate in commercial aviation (maintenance, pilots, attendants, ATC, ground crew) knows their role in the safety culture, and that each of them not only has the power but the _responsibility_ to act to prevent possible accidents. The Swiss Cheese Model [1] does a great job of illustrating this principle and imparting the importance of each person's role in safety culture. A big missing piece with manned space flight IMO is the lack of decision-making authority granted to lower staff. A junior pilot acting as first officer on their very first commercial flight with real passengers has the authority to call a go-around even if a seasoned Captain is flying the plane. AFAIK no such 'anyone can call a no-go' exists within NASA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
No, CRM is a disaster you clearly are not in aviation. The reliability in aviation came from incredibly strict regulation and engineering improvements, NOT from structural alignment of parties. They were forced to get safer by the government if you can believe there was a time where the government did anything useful at all. I could go off for literally hours on this topic but suffice to say I’ve done an unbelievable amount of CRM as an officer in the United States Air Force who flew on and executed 100s of combat missions in Iraq My friends from Shell 77 are all dead because of CRM failures Sounds like you need to watch the Rehearsal
- poopmonster 7mo ago
  I am suddenly reminded of a clip I saw recently of Ronald Reagan on Johnny Carson in 1975. (https://youtu.be/CNmnmdtcdcg?si=UMpkHwOVA74Nv5P7 https://youtu.be/CNmnmdtcdcg?si=UMpkHwOVA74Nv5P7) Reagan speaks with grandfatherly warmth about the importance of finding a middle ground between reasonable safety regulations and progress. In the same clip, he mentioned not knowing of any group with as little influence on politics as business. Dog convinces owner to let it off leash. The rhetoric that charmed Americans into letting down their guard, in miniature.
ethbr1 7mo ago
Yes and... NASA space programs (doing rare, unknown things) are different than commercial aviation (doing a frequent, known thing with high safety). Best be careful applying solutions from the latter to the former. Layering additional safety layers on top of a fundamentally misaligned organization process also generally balloons costs and delivery timelines (see: NASA). The smarter play is to better align all stakeholders' incentives, from the top (including the president and Congress) to the bottom, to the desired outcome. Right now most parties are working towards very different goals.
pas 7mo ago
Safety culture requires the ability to learn from mistakes, the capability to ground planes (without that turning into a political problem), and someone to foot the bill. (Which did not always happen, Boeing MCAS with a SPoF AoA sensor without retraining. A chain of cost-cutting decisions. And of course there were usual problems with market distorting subsidies to both Boeing and Airbus.) NASA's missions are way too big, because the science payloads are unique, so they "can't do" launch early, launch often. And then things sit in storage for years, waiting for budget. (And manned flights are in an even worse situation of course, because they are two-way.) And there's too much sequential dependency in the marquee projects (without enough slack to be able to absorb problems if some earlier dependent outcome is unfavorable), or in other words because of time and cost constraints the projects did not include enough proper development, testing, verification. NASA is doing too many things, and too much of it is politics. It should be more like a grant organization, rewarding cost-efficient scientific (and engineering) progress, in a specific broad area ("spaaace!"), like the NIH (but hopefully not like the NIH).
- gus_massa 7mo ago
  > without enough slack to be able to absorb problems if some earlier dependent outcome is unfavorable It's strange because unmanned mission are heavy in the "under promise and over deliver" territory. They may say something like "we are sending a car to Mars for a month", but everything is over engineered to last for a year. Then it miraculously work for eleven month and it's a huge success.
  - AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
    Are you just now learning about propaganda?
    - gus_massa 7mo ago
      No, it's just strange that different parts of the same organization make oposite decisions for the propaganda.
randomNumber7 7mo ago
Did you miss the Boeing 737max?

by njovin 7mo ago

AndrewKemendo 7mo ago

No, CRM is a disaster you clearly are not in aviation. The reliability in aviation came from incredibly strict regulation and engineering improvements, NOT from structural alignment of parties. They were forced to get safer by the government if you can believe there was a time where the government did anything useful at all. I could go off for literally hours on this topic but suffice to say I’ve done an unbelievable amount of CRM as an officer in the United States Air Force who flew on and executed 100s of combat missions in Iraq My friends from Shell 77 are all dead because of CRM failures Sounds like you need to watch the Rehearsal

poopmonster 7mo ago
I am suddenly reminded of a clip I saw recently of Ronald Reagan on Johnny Carson in 1975. (https://youtu.be/CNmnmdtcdcg?si=UMpkHwOVA74Nv5P7 https://youtu.be/CNmnmdtcdcg?si=UMpkHwOVA74Nv5P7) Reagan speaks with grandfatherly warmth about the importance of finding a middle ground between reasonable safety regulations and progress. In the same clip, he mentioned not knowing of any group with as little influence on politics as business. Dog convinces owner to let it off leash. The rhetoric that charmed Americans into letting down their guard, in miniature.

ethbr1 7mo ago

Yes and... NASA space programs (doing rare, unknown things) are different than commercial aviation (doing a frequent, known thing with high safety). Best be careful applying solutions from the latter to the former. Layering additional safety layers on top of a fundamentally misaligned organization process also generally balloons costs and delivery timelines (see: NASA). The smarter play is to better align all stakeholders' incentives, from the top (including the president and Congress) to the bottom, to the desired outcome. Right now most parties are working towards very different goals.

pas 7mo ago

Safety culture requires the ability to learn from mistakes, the capability to ground planes (without that turning into a political problem), and someone to foot the bill. (Which did not always happen, Boeing MCAS with a SPoF AoA sensor without retraining. A chain of cost-cutting decisions. And of course there were usual problems with market distorting subsidies to both Boeing and Airbus.) NASA's missions are way too big, because the science payloads are unique, so they "can't do" launch early, launch often. And then things sit in storage for years, waiting for budget. (And manned flights are in an even worse situation of course, because they are two-way.) And there's too much sequential dependency in the marquee projects (without enough slack to be able to absorb problems if some earlier dependent outcome is unfavorable), or in other words because of time and cost constraints the projects did not include enough proper development, testing, verification. NASA is doing too many things, and too much of it is politics. It should be more like a grant organization, rewarding cost-efficient scientific (and engineering) progress, in a specific broad area ("spaaace!"), like the NIH (but hopefully not like the NIH).

gus_massa 7mo ago
> without enough slack to be able to absorb problems if some earlier dependent outcome is unfavorable It's strange because unmanned mission are heavy in the "under promise and over deliver" territory. They may say something like "we are sending a car to Mars for a month", but everything is over engineered to last for a year. Then it miraculously work for eleven month and it's a huge success.
- AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
  Are you just now learning about propaganda?
  - gus_massa 7mo ago
    No, it's just strange that different parts of the same organization make oposite decisions for the propaganda.

randomNumber7 7mo ago

Did you miss the Boeing 737max?