The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem • Hacker News Board

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#61

Post by hwillis » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

grandinj wrote: post #54

Given the size and complexity of such a device, and the limited number of them that are constructed (which means they are always a one-off), it would be a miracle on the order of Moses parting the Red Sea for one of them to be built __without__ such mistakes happening. In you are a developer, think of the number of times you have seen a successful SAP deployment i.e. on time, on budget, meets specs. Then multiply tha…

Engineering has a much stronger and more specific focus on avoiding "unexpected" problems like this. At its most general you use things like dimensional analysis to identify and avoid issues that you can't specifically foresee.

This is, bare minimum, an embarrassing failure of design. No system, especially on a military ship, should have no redundancy. A single point of failure should not bring down every toilet on the ship. It's a damn aircraft carrier- splurge on separate sewage in the aft and fore.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#62

Post by vsareto » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #52

zdragnar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of red tape involved in working with the government- especially anything related to defense- is astounding. I previously worked with a start up whose contacts in the military genuinely wanted to buy our services, but the process to do so was so long that the company ended up pivoting to focus exclusively on the commercial market. It was a less ideal fit, but it actually paid. Take: One part slow bureaucrac…

I worked for a government contractor for a little over two weeks once. (I gave my 2 weeks notice almost right away.) It’s hard to express how wasteful and broken this process is. When I realized that I wouldn’t actually be doing anything useful for the first two months of my job, I just quit. No way could I do that kind of “work” day in and day out.

I did the exact same thing for similar reasons (although it would be nice to have a paycheck during COVID-19). 3 months of side projects, nothing related to what I had studied to do. We were projected to begin work 3 months later, but that was after dozens or so deadline pushbacks already.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#63

Post by dreamcompiler » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #61

grandinj wrote: post #54

Given the size and complexity of such a device, and the limited number of them that are constructed (which means they are always a one-off), it would be a miracle on the order of Moses parting the Red Sea for one of them to be built __without__ such mistakes happening. In you are a developer, think of the number of times you have seen a successful SAP deployment i.e. on time, on budget, meets specs. Then multiply tha…

Engineering has a much stronger and more specific focus on avoiding "unexpected" problems like this. At its most general you use things like dimensional analysis to identify and avoid issues that you can't specifically foresee. This is, bare minimum, an embarrassing failure of design. No system, especially on a military ship , should have no redundancy. A single point of failure should not bring down every toilet on…

Engineering in the traditional sense plays very little role in modern defense systems. The overriding concern is profit: How can we extract the most money from the DoD? Good engineering that avoids recurring costs is discouraged in favor of gee-whiz technology that's easy to sell but expensive to build and maintain. The icing on the cake is that bids no longer matter; the largest contractors always underbid to get the contract then send bills that are 2x, 4x or 10x the bid, knowing they have the DoD over a barrel.

The solution for this nonsense is competition. Real, honest, open, transparent competition. Combined with laws that dictate refusal to pay in excess of the bid, instant scrapping of programs that exceed cost estimates, and a 10-year timeout window between when people in DoD leadership can transition out and get jobs with DoD contractors.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#64

Post by hwillis » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

avree wrote: post #46

Lagogarda wrote: post #40

Human poop cannot polute oceans, fishes tend to poop and pee as well

Fish and humans have vastly different diets, and human feces contain different bacteria and viruses than fish feces. You can absolutely pollute an ocean with sewage. Please try to educate yourself.

It's also not just about the ocean- hepatitis A spreads quite regularly when shellfish feed on contaminated sewage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJLKhsLx18&ab_channel=Steve...

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#65

Post by grandinj » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #61

grandinj wrote: post #54

Given the size and complexity of such a device, and the limited number of them that are constructed (which means they are always a one-off), it would be a miracle on the order of Moses parting the Red Sea for one of them to be built __without__ such mistakes happening. In you are a developer, think of the number of times you have seen a successful SAP deployment i.e. on time, on budget, meets specs. Then multiply tha…

Engineering has a much stronger and more specific focus on avoiding "unexpected" problems like this. At its most general you use things like dimensional analysis to identify and avoid issues that you can't specifically foresee. This is, bare minimum, an embarrassing failure of design. No system, especially on a military ship , should have no redundancy. A single point of failure should not bring down every toilet on…

Any very large project is expected to have a number of embarrassing failures. You just don't hear about most of them. Not surprisingly, on a __military__ ship, sewage is not considered mission critical and required to have multiple redundancy. You can, after all, take a poop in a bucket and throw it over the side. Redundancy engineering is reserved for truly mission-critical things, like being able to find and shoot the enemy, and surviving a certain amount of damage. You don't waste valuable redundancy resources on things like this.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#66

Post by hwillis » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #55

Reason077 wrote: post #20

“system must regularly be cleaned with ... acid solution that costs $400,000 per use.” I realise the government/military procurement process can result in higher costs than the private sector would pay, but that is beyond ridiculous.

I think it's less insane when instead of perceiving it as flushing a building's plumming, you're flushing a town of 6000's plumming.

4,656 to 4,758 crewmen, at $391 million average annual.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#67

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #63

hwillis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering has a much stronger and more specific focus on avoiding "unexpected" problems like this. At its most general you use things like dimensional analysis to identify and avoid issues that you can't specifically foresee. This is, bare minimum, an embarrassing failure of design. No system, especially on a military ship , should have no redundancy. A single point of failure should not bring down every toilet on…

Engineering in the traditional sense plays very little role in modern defense systems. The overriding concern is profit: How can we extract the most money from the DoD? Good engineering that avoids recurring costs is discouraged in favor of gee-whiz technology that's easy to sell but expensive to build and maintain. The icing on the cake is that bids no longer matter; the largest contractors always underbid to get th…

> instant scrapping of programs that exceed cost estimates

So you're gonna build 75% of an aircraft carrier, and... then what?

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#68

Post by Ididntdothis » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #34

unixfg wrote: post #2

Wait, what kinda of acid and how much? $400,000 seems like a lot.

If you have to make 120m each in campaign donations to 3 senators to get the contract, plus another 40m in actual cost of research, supply and profit margin and then the navy only wants to buy 1000 units because its new and they get in trouble for buying necessary supplies instead of cool shit like torpedoes, then you sort of have to charge 400k a unit...

" 120m each in campaign donations to 3 senators to get the contract"

The contributions they are making are usually much lower. When you read the numbers it's actually surprising how little money you have to spend to get government money in return. Very good ROI.

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#69

Post by jakear » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #67

dreamcompiler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering in the traditional sense plays very little role in modern defense systems. The overriding concern is profit: How can we extract the most money from the DoD? Good engineering that avoids recurring costs is discouraged in favor of gee-whiz technology that's easy to sell but expensive to build and maintain. The icing on the cake is that bids no longer matter; the largest contractors always underbid to get th…

> instant scrapping of programs that exceed cost estimates So you're gonna build 75% of an aircraft carrier, and... then what?

Realize you’ve screwed your self over for underbidding and not do it again?

Re: The U.S.'s $13B aircraft carrier has a toilet problem

#70

Post by bane » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

grandinj wrote: post #54

Given the size and complexity of such a device, and the limited number of them that are constructed (which means they are always a one-off), it would be a miracle on the order of Moses parting the Red Sea for one of them to be built __without__ such mistakes happening. In you are a developer, think of the number of times you have seen a successful SAP deployment i.e. on time, on budget, meets specs. Then multiply tha…

I mean it's not like humans have been putting toilets in ships for a while and have past metrics they can use to predict things like pipe diameter or anything.