NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by katzinsky » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:27 PM UTC

BirAdam wrote: post #280

elzbardico wrote: post #264

What MBAs and Financists destroyed so far: - Western Industry. - The blue-collar middle class - The Middle Class - Our health care system - Our education - Western Economic Leadership. - Social Mobility Now they are busy destroying western technology, science and innovation on their never-ending selfish wealth-extraction quest. They convinced us that our homes are investments, so they can fleece us with their usurary…

No one really “let them” destroy things. This is one of the key dangers of majoritarian government. The moment that people can vote for representatives the representatives will be purchased, and later, the votes will purchased. Once this happens, money will be destroyed to allow the purchasing class to rob the wealth of the civilization, and this leads to financialization of economics. This pattern has been repeated…

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

#302

Post by mmcconnell1618 » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

elzbardico wrote: post #264

What MBAs and Financists destroyed so far: - Western Industry. - The blue-collar middle class - The Middle Class - Our health care system - Our education - Western Economic Leadership. - Social Mobility Now they are busy destroying western technology, science and innovation on their never-ending selfish wealth-extraction quest. They convinced us that our homes are investments, so they can fleece us with their usurary…

It wasn't always this way. Milton Friedman introduced the idea in the 1970s that businesses could ignore their workers and communities because if they focused on profit, that would benefit everyone. Shareholder Theory elevates the stockholders above all others and leads to stock buybacks and optimizing for wealth extraction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

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

#303

Post by IX-103 » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

Eumenes wrote: post #276

You could find/replace Boeing with NASA/Federal government with this entire article. Boeing has a crazy amount of oversight. This is the governments failure.

And SpaceX doesn't? They had the same requirements.

Boeing failed to meet the basic standards, but has been given a pass by NASA up til now. Bad welds? Sternly worded letter. Inadequate heat shielding? Well, it didn't get too hot so let's try with people. Bad valves? Just replace the broken ones, In sure there's no borderline valves from a systemic problem. Leaky tanks? Not a problem. Flaky thrusters that might not be able to make it to re-entry? Hold on there!

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

#304

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #275

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While SpaceX has been successful and innovative, it certainly doesn’t keep folks around. Average tenure is ~3.6 years What was it for the Apollo programme?(The entire programme was 11 years [1].) > Are we optimizing for the individual? Or for an aerospace manufacturing and supply chain system that requires care and feeding over decades? I’m not arguing against having more people at NASA. Simply against the claim th…

The Apollo program doesn’t seem to be a good example of a space pipeline that is sustainable for a few decades at least.

> Apollo program doesn’t seem to be a good example of a space pipeline that is sustainable for a few decades at least

Correct. OP suggested the root of the problem is we haven't made "these workers government employees." The Apollo programme had lots of government employees. Commercial interests clearly aren't at the root of the problem.

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

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Post by exabrial » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

The SLS is a sinking ship and money pit. Blaming on Boeing is just en vogue.

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

#306

Post by underlipton » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

noworld wrote: post #254

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…

Related: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/08/12/whats_b... The Navy’s ability to build lower-cost warships that can shoot down Houthi rebel missiles in the Red Sea depends in part on a 25-year-old laborer who previously made parts for garbage trucks. Lucas Andreini, a welder at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, in Marinette, Wisconsin, is among thousands of young workers who’ve received employer-sponsored t…

Everything about this reeks to me. Why do we need to build so many warships? (To fight China? We're going to war with another nuclear power?) Why are we fighting Houthi rebels? But also, why isn't the government sponsoring this training? Why is it only thousands, and not hundreds of thousands or even millions of workers being trained? And when did the call go out that they were going to be offering training? (I never hear about these initiatives, or when I do, it's for a couple thousand people to get into a position that pays $18/hr starting. Might as well walk onto a warehouse job.) If this is so important, why did they close so many shipyards during realignment?

Like, from every angle, it's ill-conceived.

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

#307

Post by sgu999 » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

BirAdam wrote: post #280

elzbardico wrote: post #264

What MBAs and Financists destroyed so far: - Western Industry. - The blue-collar middle class - The Middle Class - Our health care system - Our education - Western Economic Leadership. - Social Mobility Now they are busy destroying western technology, science and innovation on their never-ending selfish wealth-extraction quest. They convinced us that our homes are investments, so they can fleece us with their usurary…

No one really “let them” destroy things. This is one of the key dangers of majoritarian government. The moment that people can vote for representatives the representatives will be purchased, and later, the votes will purchased. Once this happens, money will be destroyed to allow the purchasing class to rob the wealth of the civilization, and this leads to financialization of economics. This pattern has been repeated…

> This is one of the key dangers of majoritarian government. The moment that people can vote for representatives the representatives will be purchased

What better alternatives are you thinking of? An intelligent, compassionate, eco-friendly and forward-thinking dictator would be great I guess, but historically that's not the ones emerging on top.

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

#308

Post by snapcaster » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:43 PM UTC

BirAdam wrote: post #289

snapcaster wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think 1913 was the first boom/bust in United States financial history you're either trying to push an agenda or just totally ignorant

No, that’s just when the economy began financialization.

I assume you're saying because of the fed, but wouldn't it be more appropriate to mark JP Morgan's efforts to create monopolies throughout the economy a better start point?

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

#309

Post by underlipton » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:44 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #287

tw04 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is monopoly. Spacefaring isn’t exactly the type of work that attracts the safe and secure job for life types. Sure, but we aren't talking about hiring astronauts (who ironically do tend to spend their entire career in government because it's the only place to get the thrills they want from fighter pilot to space). We're talking about quality professional welders. Stereotyping them into one bucket would b…

Do you make more welding for the USG than you do welding in the private sector? If so it might be the only government job in the country that beats the private sector in terms of pay.

People say this so confidently, shortly before the layoff that keeps them out of the job for half-a-year (for the 3rd time).

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

#310

Post by jprete » Tue, Aug 13, 2024, 1:44 PM UTC

mhuffman wrote: post #297

elzbardico wrote: post #264

What MBAs and Financists destroyed so far: - Western Industry. - The blue-collar middle class - The Middle Class - Our health care system - Our education - Western Economic Leadership. - Social Mobility Now they are busy destroying western technology, science and innovation on their never-ending selfish wealth-extraction quest. They convinced us that our homes are investments, so they can fleece us with their usurary…

You should know that in business school and after everything you just described would be called "optimized". There is some short discussion about ethics, usually involving not stealing from investors, but otherwise the world is seen as one giant place where people are the same as nuts and bolts or ingredients in a chocolate bar to be optimized. This goes for customers and employees.

Optimization is one of the more useful terms for it, but I think a big part of the problem is foundational. It's easier to trade in measurable values than unmeasurable ones, so the trades with something measurable on both sides get prioritized, which subtly increases the demand and market value of measurable values over unmeasurable.

So we end up gradually converting our productivity to the measurable outputs because we can more safely trade them. But then unmeasurable values get shafted.

The non-fungible values get shafted even harder. For example, it's inherently impossible to trade for true human relationships because the bidirectional flow is where the value comes from and that flow must be built. But that means two people must simultaneously choose to take a mostly unknown level of risk on building a relationship that could fail or even be a net negative. Our relationship drive is pretty strong. The people making AI chatbot friends and SOs, not even to mention dating apps and relationship-commodifiers like Meetup or old Facebook, are doing their best to commodify relationships, though. The sheer level of social toxicity caused by online mass social media has been correspondingly enormous.