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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

#141

Post by wonderwonder »

sgnelson wrote: post #125
pjscott wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious patch for this is to have monetary penalties for failing inspection written into the contract, so that submitting shoddy work has a price measured in dollars. Money is the unit of caring, at least at a corporate scale, so there needs to be money involved if you want them to care systematically. (I don’t know if NASA already does this. They might.)

One of the very interesting parts of the report is that the OIG recommended 4 areas that needed to be fixed/worked on. NASA agreed to 3 of them, and was working on making those areas better. The one recommendation that NASA did not agree with was to monetarily penalize Boeing for continuous quality issues. I found that interesting.

Regulatory capture

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

#142

Post by Dalewyn »

sgnelson wrote: post #97
akira2501 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think it's worth it to go back and read the original Apollo program proposals, technical conference memos, and NASA administrative plans to see the history of the program and how something like this gets off the ground in the first place. The US was not a bastion of technical capability or well educated people in the 1950s. To say that the "skill doesn't exist anymore" suggests a misunderstanding of "where i…

I think you drastically underestimate the influence that World War 2 had on up-skilling a technological workforce in the United States. I know a handful of people who's fathers or relatives went from farm boy to a radio technician with basic electrical engineering skills (or a similar story) because of the war. The effect that war had on the technological progress, including learning the skills of how to manage a not…

Most people want to deny it, but both Apollo and Space Shuttle were the results of there being a Fucking War(tm) that had to be won at any cost.

Nowadays, that specific motivator is squarely with the Chinese.

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

#144

Post by Mistletoe »

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."

New Orleans is one of the greatest cities in the world and definitely has access to experienced welders, this argument makes no sense to me.

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

#145

Post by wmf »

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."

The entire purpose of SLS is to create high-paying jobs and they just... didn't. Imagine having a blank check and cheaping out. Amazing.

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

#146

Post by BurningFrog »

whimsicalism wrote: post #128
sgnelson wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

There is a reason that major contractors for government have widely distributed facilities in politically relevant states.

Ideally there should be one facility in all 435 districts.

This isn't ideal for optimizing quality work.

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

#147

Post by wonderwonder »

dehrmann wrote: post #138

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 reason…

I think Nasa has forgotten how to Nasa because of SpaceX. They still cannot adapt to how fast SpaceX moves. They are used to being able to plan everything for years as technology moved slowly. Now their plans are obsolete by launch date.

Boeing appears to have simply collapsed under its own hubris.

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

#148

Post by wmf »

nordsieck wrote: post #124
jaggederest wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Defense contractors extract money from the government, they are not here to enable space travel, they are here to move money from other people's pockets to their own. Any other actions are purely ancillary. And if they can get the money without delivering any result at all, why, they're fine with that.

> The purpose of a system is what it does. Defense contractors extract money from the government, they are not here to enable space travel, they are here to move money from other people's pockets to their own. Any other actions are purely ancillary. And if they can get the money without delivering any result at all, why, they're fine with that. This is part of the reason why the new era of firm, fixed price contracts…

Old Space companies will never adopt fixed price. NASA just needs to drop them.

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

#149

Post by _moof »

Mistletoe wrote: post #144
sgnelson wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

New Orleans is one of the greatest cities in the world and definitely has access to experienced welders, this argument makes no sense to me.

Not only that but Stennis Space Center is nearby. It's no Cape Canaveral but it's not as though aerospace is completely unheard of there.

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

#150

Post by nradov »

grahamjameson wrote: post #15
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 do not know the details of their contracts, but assuming these are cost-plus contracts then it may be fair to equate structural dysfunction to intent.

These are not cost-plus contracts for the most part. Boeing has incurred huge losses on fixed-price contracts with NASA.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/boeing-says-it-cant-ma...

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