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Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu

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Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#71

Post by SahAssar »

jameshart wrote: post #61

I don’t feel like a field that has in its entire history only produced a handful of actual successful designs at all can possibly rate this kind of ‘world weary cynicism’ style of writing. Nobody has the experience or ability to be able to say ‘trust me I’ve built a few spaceships, this is the hard won truth of how it is’. There are exactly nine spacecraft that humans have ever flown in. Only the Mercury/Gemini/Apoll…

Setting the bar at "spacecraft that humans have ever flown in" seems very restrictive to what experience you count.

That'd be like saying no one can talk about websites in the same way because we probably only have at the most 9-ish "successful" social media services. The list also mentions many things that are learned from non-human space flight programs, or non-successful programs.

Is everything in it true? Probably not. But from an outsider perspective it seems to contain some insights that most definitely are. I think of it sorta like https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks is for devs. Cynical humor that contains a lot insights.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#72

Post by DennisP »

Zandikar wrote: post #8
avmich wrote: post #4

This is definitely the wisdom of ages, but some points do show some age. 39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule: 1) No new launch vehicles. 2) No new launch vehicles. 3) Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles. Recent SpaceX developments, Starship in particular, put some doubts on this one.

Err, what? Keyword there: "New". SpaceX still faces large costs and delays in developing new launch vehicles, including starship, which is delayed and unfinished btw, so no matter how you try to spin it, Starship is not (currently) a good example of SpaceX being an exception to the adage. Artermis 3 isn't exactly cheap afterall, and if you don't know what that is but know what Starship is, that proves the adage this…

> And when they were new, well, lots of delays and setbacks and costs as they kept accidentallying rockets trying to land them.

They were launching just fine, it's just the landings where they blew up.

This wasn't any sort of delay or major cost. Nobody else was landing rockets at all, they were just blowing them up intentionally. This is still the case today for all production orbital rockets other than SpaceX.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#73

Post by bombcar »

Eduard wrote: post #41
e40 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it to mean when blame is being aimed you are not in the line of fire.

interesting - I understand it differently, namely as in: "at a project's beginning, define rules such as 'if component X explodes, it is team ABC's fault'". context: > 37. (Henshaw's Law) One key to success in a mission is establishing clear lines of blame.

Blame is just another word for responsibility. If you don’t have clear lines of blame you don’t have clear responsibilities.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#74

Post by carabiner »

jameshart wrote: post #61

I don’t feel like a field that has in its entire history only produced a handful of actual successful designs at all can possibly rate this kind of ‘world weary cynicism’ style of writing. Nobody has the experience or ability to be able to say ‘trust me I’ve built a few spaceships, this is the hard won truth of how it is’. There are exactly nine spacecraft that humans have ever flown in. Only the Mercury/Gemini/Apoll…

The secret to success: work hard. Who said it? Albert Einstein.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#75

Post by bombcar »

DennisP wrote: post #72
Zandikar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, what? Keyword there: "New". SpaceX still faces large costs and delays in developing new launch vehicles, including starship, which is delayed and unfinished btw, so no matter how you try to spin it, Starship is not (currently) a good example of SpaceX being an exception to the adage. Artermis 3 isn't exactly cheap afterall, and if you don't know what that is but know what Starship is, that proves the adage this…

> And when they were new, well, lots of delays and setbacks and costs as they kept accidentallying rockets trying to land them. They were launching just fine, it's just the landings where they blew up. This wasn't any sort of delay or major cost. Nobody else was landing rockets at all, they were just blowing them up intentionally. This is still the case today for all production orbital rockets other than SpaceX.

If I recall correctly they had their experience of them blowing up on the go up part, but that is old history now

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#76

Post by visviva »

jameshart wrote: post #61

I don’t feel like a field that has in its entire history only produced a handful of actual successful designs at all can possibly rate this kind of ‘world weary cynicism’ style of writing. Nobody has the experience or ability to be able to say ‘trust me I’ve built a few spaceships, this is the hard won truth of how it is’. There are exactly nine spacecraft that humans have ever flown in. Only the Mercury/Gemini/Apoll…

What makes you think this is limited to human-rated spacecraft?

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#77

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #11
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #7

> 3. Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time. I'm going to agilely build a space craft! /S

It's the only way a spacecraft has ever really been built!

Gotta test it one way or another. I love it to be honest because it makes the waterfall boomers seethe.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#78

Post by bombcar »

Swizec wrote: post #55
avmich wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point of these two adages is that reusing an existing design is better than a new one. Yes, and that's put in doubt. Starship aims to improve on previous designs - in terms of affordability, that is, making human flights cheaper. This cheapness can't be realized with existing designs, so a new design becomes better in that regard. > SpaceX's REUSABLE rockets are great for a number of reasons yes, but by d…

The “No new launch vehicles” adage reads to me as “Don’t develop a new browser when you make a website” That doesn’t mean we never need or want a new browser. It just means that developing a browser is a separate project and if your fancy websites requires a new browser, it is in fact a browser development project, not a website project.

I take it as similar to the “never do a massive rewrite” rule for coding. It’s not that it never should be done, it’s that it shouldn’t ever be assumed to be “the easy part”.

Re: Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design

#79

Post by dylan604 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #68
dylan604 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate. Are the Martian rovers outliers to this rule? >I want to go up in a ship that's a little better than the absolute minimum. This makes me think of the "this was built by the lowest bidding contractor" quote

The rovers likely are completely on spec but simply because of all of their redundancies and tolerances designed as they are, they exceeded on-paper minimum expectations.

at this point though, if I was on a team that made a $newShinyToy for a space mission that did not "over perform" like this, I would personally feel shame and have a sense of failure if it only performed to the papers and end of mission came exactly when the paper said.
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