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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

#91

Post by chiefalchemist »

whatshisface wrote: post #43
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out they're just a giant company That should die. This is what happens when you allow monopolies, you can’t even let them die because you’ll be left with nothing. They face no competition , and have no reason to improve

The "left with nothing" fear is unfounded. All of their assets would be bought up by investors seeking to do the same thing but the right way; a factory has value and somebody will want it.

Perhaps. But now imagine trying to be the politician(s) selling the "let'em die" idea. Most voters will be thinking, "What if my company is next to go?" and will vote accordingly. Thus there are few very politicians willing to take the high road.

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

#92

Post by dylan604 »

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.

It only reads that way if you're being very very generous and have lived under a rock for the past few years so that you've not seen any other information about Boeing.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

justinclift wrote: post #89
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 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

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by dylan604 »

justinclift wrote: post #89
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 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.

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

#95

Post by mangamadaiyan »

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?

Yeah, for all you know Bob could be one of those "weld quickly and break things" people.

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

#96

Post by whatshisface »

schmidtleonard wrote: post #87
whatshisface wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck fighting it. The basic human desire to stay out of the line of fire, combined with feudal loyalty trees, lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union despite the great intelligence and administrative ability of the people at the top. The only economic difference between the state monopoly of the USSR and the many companies of the US is that here, it's legal to start new organizations, where in the USSR that wou…

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.

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

#97

Post by sgnelson »

akira2501 wrote: post #67
desperate wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but money can't pay for skill that doesn't exist anymore.

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-so-simple idea like going to the moon into reality was incredible, and a direct spinoff from the bureaucracy created during the war.

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

#98

Post by mangamadaiyan »

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.

Who stack-ranks the management? How?

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

#99

Post by Yeul »

DSMan195276 wrote: post #83
BobbyJo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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".

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

#100

Post by sgnelson »

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."

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