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It's also technology. "But the project suffered a series of technical issues last year that pushed the service module preliminary design review back by about 10

by smackfu 12y ago

It's also technology. "But the project suffered a series of technical issues last year that pushed the service module preliminary design review back by about 10 months." http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-slips-orion-em1-flight-2018-0 http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-slips-orion-em1-flight-201... It's someone doing good PR that gets it boiled down to "limited NASA budgets."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 12y ago
I can't help but think part of the technology problem is also caused by budget constraints. Less budget means less actual testing and experimentation and more theoretical planning, work and design. I imagine more real world experience with tests and experiments for those involved would help these problems get solved sooner, possibly before they even come about.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It is not clear that more budget would make things go faster. 9 women can't make a baby in 9 months, for example. It really depends on how well the project could utilize the extra funding (they probably could do with more, but at some point progress/dollar would have to fall). It is just like software, actually.
  - DigitalJack 12y ago
    Well in this case it would have. The sub contractors went through multiple stop-work start-work iterations and there is always a loss of efficiency with that as the engineers get shuffled. The ones on the program when it starts frequently aren't the same people as when it was stopped.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Good point: consistency in funding is pretty important, and to manage projects for the long term...also in industry. It would be tough not to know what your budget would be for 5 years on a 5 year project.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Good point: consistency in funding is pretty important, and to manage projects for the long term...also in industry. It would be tough not to know what your budget would be for 5 years on a 5 year project.
  - OvidNaso 12y ago
    "9 women can't make a baby in 9 months, for example." Very true. However, 9 women and 1 man are more likely to give you a baby in 9 months that 1 women and 1 man.
  - ericd 12y ago
    Don't mean to be pedantic, but I think it's "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month", but they can make 9 babies in 9 months. Bandwidth vs. latency. I'm sure NASA could speed up the overall project if they had more resources by doing lots of things in parallel. NASA went from having unmanned ICBMs to putting a man on the moon in under a decade when they were given enormous funding.
  - nhaehnle 12y ago
    The Apollo project is historical precedent that shows that precisely this type of project can go much faster, given the required budget and focus. The second part here is also important, of course. Just pouring more money onto a problem isn't necessarily going to help if e.g. there is more focus on political turf wars than there is on the actual technical challenge.
anovikov 12y ago
That's also politics, they have been bouncing service module work between NASA and ESA.

by smackfu 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kbenson 12y ago

I can't help but think part of the technology problem is also caused by budget constraints. Less budget means less actual testing and experimentation and more theoretical planning, work and design. I imagine more real world experience with tests and experiments for those involved would help these problems get solved sooner, possibly before they even come about.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
It is not clear that more budget would make things go faster. 9 women can't make a baby in 9 months, for example. It really depends on how well the project could utilize the extra funding (they probably could do with more, but at some point progress/dollar would have to fall). It is just like software, actually.
- DigitalJack 12y ago
  Well in this case it would have. The sub contractors went through multiple stop-work start-work iterations and there is always a loss of efficiency with that as the engineers get shuffled. The ones on the program when it starts frequently aren't the same people as when it was stopped.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Good point: consistency in funding is pretty important, and to manage projects for the long term...also in industry. It would be tough not to know what your budget would be for 5 years on a 5 year project.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Good point: consistency in funding is pretty important, and to manage projects for the long term...also in industry. It would be tough not to know what your budget would be for 5 years on a 5 year project.
- OvidNaso 12y ago
  "9 women can't make a baby in 9 months, for example." Very true. However, 9 women and 1 man are more likely to give you a baby in 9 months that 1 women and 1 man.
- ericd 12y ago
  Don't mean to be pedantic, but I think it's "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month", but they can make 9 babies in 9 months. Bandwidth vs. latency. I'm sure NASA could speed up the overall project if they had more resources by doing lots of things in parallel. NASA went from having unmanned ICBMs to putting a man on the moon in under a decade when they were given enormous funding.
- nhaehnle 12y ago
  The Apollo project is historical precedent that shows that precisely this type of project can go much faster, given the required budget and focus. The second part here is also important, of course. Just pouring more money onto a problem isn't necessarily going to help if e.g. there is more focus on political turf wars than there is on the actual technical challenge.

anovikov 12y ago

That's also politics, they have been bouncing service module work between NASA and ESA.