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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

#131

Post by nordsieck »

dylan604 wrote: post #94
justinclift wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they keep awarding contracts to SpaceX for getting the needed pieces done, then it's possible. :) At least until SpaceX starts to feel a bit too comfortable... o_O

That doesn't really seem like something SpaceX will do any time soon though. After all, they want Mars. The moon is just wasting time to SpaceX. So until SpaceX achieves Mars, they have too much to do to become too comfortable. Of course, I just sit on a couch offering opinions.

> That doesn't really seem like something SpaceX will do any time soon though. After all, they want Mars. The moon is just wasting time to SpaceX.

IMO, the opposite is true.

1. SpaceX needs money to fund their Mars dreams. And the HLS contract is a couple billion dollars that they can grab.

2. Getting to the moon with NASA will dramatically help SpaceX because NASA will be working with them to crew rate the lander for everything except taking off from and landing on Earth.

3. Developing HLS Starship will let SpaceX begin to offer private Lunar missions.

4. Mars is really tough. It's far away, it's only feasible to travel there once every 2 years, it's very difficult to land, and it'll be super hard to get in-situ resource utilization - basically harvesting resources from Mars to generate enough propellant that a return trip to Earth is possible.

I'm sure SpaceX will probably send some rockets to Mars. But the first few sets will be figuring out hwo to land and maybe set up ISRU. And in the meantime, the Moon is a great venue for SpaceX to train systems and earn a bit of money.

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

#132

Post by otteromkram »

mr90210 wrote: post #70
iancmceachern wrote: post #59

It could just stop at hindering. I think it's safe to say at this point that Boeing is hindering Americans. Full stop. I'm a very proud American, my grandfather worked on Apollo, and was a submariner in WWII. Recently Boeing has not made me proud.

Off-topic: Dear proud American, pls loosen up your immigration rules for highly-skilled workers who despite the last years would still be very grateful to move to America. We want our grandchildren to one day also be proud Americans. Cheers, A friend from abroad who still believes in America

Dear prospective immigrant,

Thanks for the offer, but we have plenty of highly-skilled workers in the US already. Unless you're a medical doctor, that is.

Cheers!

The Unemployed (and Forgotten) Masses

(Note: I'm not unemployed, but was for a several months until earlier this year.)

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

#133

Post by nradov »

Yeul wrote: post #99
DSMan195276 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plot twist is that Bob is rushing all of his welds and thinks Steve is wasting his time by making them "look good".

There is this scene in Das Boot were one of the crew members says that they are going deeper than the sub is rated for and the captain says "don't worry German engineering".

German engineering like in the new Berlin airport? Or perhaps the new F125 frigates?

https://www.dw.com/en/berlins-new-airport-finally-opens-a-st...

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/late-and-overweight-ge...

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

#134

Post by mc32 »

mangamadaiyan wrote: post #98
mc32 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who stack-ranks the management? How?

You would have employees evaluate the managers. You can have outside consultants also evaluate the health of the management --but that can get tricky.

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

#135

Post by nordsieck »

dgoodell wrote: post #63
gttalbot wrote: post #13

Why is this not cancelled?

Probably the same reason the Space Shuttle wasn't cancelled even through pretty early on it was clear that it didn't make sense. Upper management decisions are seldom made for good technical reasons.

> Probably the same reason the Space Shuttle wasn't cancelled even through pretty early on it was clear that it didn't make sense. Upper management decisions are seldom made for good technical reasons.

> SLS's existence has nothing to do with upper management. This is the child of Congress who funded it without any sort of mission.

Which is a big part of why Artemis is kind of messed up - neither SLS nor Orion was designed with the mission in mind. So Orion has to go to a relatively high near "rectilinear halo orbit" instead of Apollo's "low lunar orbit" because the SLS/Orion system doesn't have enough delta-V to get to the superior orbit and back.

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

#137

Post by starspangled »

jprete wrote: post #47
emchammer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have seen how beautiful the welds are on the Rocketdyne F-1 joints. Whoever made those put pride in their work.

I guess they felt, correctly, that they were not just making a weld, not just making an engine or a rocket, but helping to put people on the moon. "Building a cathedral", indeed.

Much more than that though, they would have been highly skilled people with thousands of hours of welding high pressure piping and exotic metals. It doesn't matter how slowly or carefully somebody goes, or how much they revere what they are working on, if they aren't experienced then they will turn out poor work.

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

#138

Post by dehrmann »

I wonder how much of this is Boeing and how much is NASA. It's very easy to throw Boeing under the bus right now, and they might even deserve it, but at a minimum, NASA deserves blame for not doing due diligence. They're also trying to build something that we've largely forgotten how to build. It's a different NASA, and different Boeing, and design technology and manufacturing is completely different. It isn't reasonable to expect this to go smoothly.

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

#139

Post by selimthegrim »

sgnelson wrote: post #100
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…

If you read the OIG report, it states: "Michoud officials stated that it has been difficult to attract and retain a contractor workforce with aerospace manufacturing experience in part due to Michoud’s geographical location in New Orleans, Louisiana, and lower employee compensation relative to other aerospace competitors."

UNO’s enrollment has dropped by 2/3rds since Katrina. What did people think was going to happen to the labor supply?

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

#140

Post by nvy »

ggernov wrote: post #106
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…

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