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NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

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Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#101

Post by HPsquared »

whatshisface wrote: post #96
schmidtleonard wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private 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…

I didn't actually mention private ownership, only what might be called the right of free assembly. Also, for what it is worth, individual players in the market obviously want to become literal kings. They're "capitalists" but not "capitalist ideologists." Capitalist ideologists are people like Milton Friedman, who was not a fan of monopoly and who was himself not much of a businessman.

Free assembly is gradually being chipped away in the West.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#102

Post by dylan604 »

29athrowaway wrote: post #73

When Yuri Gagarin saw Earth from orbit for the first time in history, he saw a planet without borders between nations. One planet, one human species. This vision is the last thing that the people profiting from conflict want you to see.

Another version of this first is the Blue Marble and Earth rise images when they looped around the Moon for the first time. IIRC, at least one climate group formed based on them.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#103

Post by whatshisface »

HPsquared wrote: post #101
whatshisface wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't actually mention private ownership, only what might be called the right of free assembly. Also, for what it is worth, individual players in the market obviously want to become literal kings. They're "capitalists" but not "capitalist ideologists." Capitalist ideologists are people like Milton Friedman, who was not a fan of monopoly and who was himself not much of a businessman.

Free assembly is gradually being chipped away in the West.

Our rights can't be eroded, only infringed. :-)

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#104

Post by jordanb »

mc32 wrote: post #52
jtriangle wrote: post #3

Headline makes it sound like it's intentional, like Boeing knows the moon's haunted and wants to prevent people from going. Turns out they're just a giant company suckling on the teat of mommy government and have developed severe structural dysfunction that prevents them from effectively executing their plans.

I usually despise stack rank, but it looks like there are times when it's needed. Maybe companies should mostly eschew it for other methods, but run it once per decade and flush out all the dead weight, of course, including management.

The problem is that stack ranking rewards the political actors and not people who heads down focus on their work. This is especially true when the organization has already been taken over by the parasites.

I think Boeing needs to immediately fire everyone in leadership positions with a finance or consulting background, unless they're under the CFO. Everyone needs to be reviewed to make sure they have the background to lead their team. If the leader can't do the work of the people at least one and ideally two levels under them they need to be fired for incompetence. Basically Boeing needs rebuilt from the top down as a company of doers.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#105

Post by Yeul »

School-Cotton wrote: post #23

Does anyone actually seriously believe the U.S. will land a person on the moon in 2025? This is the country that takes decades to open a new subway station.

If America can make space a crusade again instead of a business sure.

The Chinese are currently in their Apollo phase in which every engineer dedicates their life to the mission.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#106

Post by ggernov »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #10

> 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 su…

[flagged]

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#107

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dgfitz wrote: post #65
mananaysiempre wrote: post #10

> 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 su…

> 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 d…

I 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.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#108

Post by ethbr1 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #72
DSMan195276 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can't run a large engineering department based on "Bob says Steve isn't that good". It just doesn't scale, that's the whole reason metrics get introduced.

Exactly. Who's to say Bob knows what he's talking about?

There's a great scene at the end of Generation Kill where the war reporter asks the commander why he didn't reprimand one of the worst leaders underneath him more harshly.

The commander essentially says that he constantly receives conflicting reports about his leaders' performance, and if he relieved one for unproven reports, his command would disintegrate. Because the good leaders have equal numbers of bad reports about them, from those who don't like them.

Summed up the proper exercise of authority nicely, imho.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#109

Post by dotnet00 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #51
dotnet00 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This service is awful, let's switch to the better one" You: "and give them money in exchange for services rendered?!!?"

The whole thing is a boondoggle and running a deficit to redistribute more wealth to the top should disgust people. Your strawman is meaningless.

Where's the strawman? You're whining about giving money to SpaceX in exchange for asking SpaceX to build something to the specifications of the program. That's not redistributing wealth to the top, that's purchasing a service.

Re: NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon

#110

Post by schmidtleonard »

whatshisface wrote: post #96
schmidtleonard wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private 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…

I didn't actually mention private ownership, only what might be called the right of free assembly. Also, for what it is worth, individual players in the market obviously want to become literal kings. They're "capitalists" but not "capitalist ideologists." Capitalist ideologists are people like Milton Friedman, who was not a fan of monopoly and who was himself not much of a businessman.

So they aren't true capitalists? Why does that sound familiar?

My contention with the likes of Milton Friedman isn't that he enjoyed monopolies, it's that his policies (and those of capitalists by any definition I have heard put on the field) tend to support and encourage the formation of monopolies. Markets are full of natural anti-competitive forces (again, just ask any investor about moats) and if you don't have a plan to stomp them out, markets just devolve back into the world's 500th mechanism for the people on top to extract rents from the people on the bottom. As a side effect, the monopolies grow into the same bureaucratic monstrosities they claim to be the cure for.

Exhibit A: Boeing, per TFA.

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