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NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon
- borisk 2y agoBoeing has been very slow at raising salaries and contract rates in the last 15 years or so. That lead to a lot of the best engineers, managers and technicians leaving.
- BobbyJo 2y agoIt's a pervasive problem among all gov contractors. Most don't pay as well as private market, and you have the added downside of needing a clearance in a lot of positions, so they try to make it up with "job security". That means, when times are tough, instead of letting people go they freeze or cap raises, often below inflation. Good people wind up leaving. If half your best people leave every few years when the gov hits its next debt ceiling, your company is gonna have a bad time.
- Animats 2y agoAnyone found the actual Office of the Inspector General report yet? It ought ot be here [1] or here [2], but it's not. [1] https://oigforms.nasa.gov/audits/auditReports.html https://oigforms.nasa.gov/audits/auditReports.html [2] https://oig.nasa.gov/investigation-reports/ https://oig.nasa.gov/investigation-reports/
- bloggie 2y agoI found it here: https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/nasas-management-of-space-launch-system-block-1b-development/ https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/nasas-m...
- jtriangle 2y agoHeadline 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.
- quantified 2y ago"Moss on my teeth is hindering my getting a date" reads the same. I think different people will get different interpretations.
- a1445c8b 2y ago“NASA considering sending FlossX to extract moss from teeth”
- grahamjameson 2y agoI 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.
- jaggederest 2y agoThe 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.
- nordsieck 2y ago> 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 at NASA is so important. And why it's so troubling that NASA is having difficulty transitioning SLS contractors to such contracts for later (Artemis V+) rockets.
- wmf 2y agoOld Space companies will never adopt fixed price. NASA just needs to drop them.
- sbuttgereit 2y agoA nice video commentary on this by Philip Sloss: https://youtu.be/XDsxdrIL_Cs https://youtu.be/XDsxdrIL_Cs
- PopePompus 2y agoI don't know which is a better illustration of America's decline during my baby boomer lifetime - California High Speed Rail vs The Interstate Highway System or Artemis vs Apollo.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoGood examples. The same comparison can be made in other western countries. When I point out there issues, people act like they were always there - but they weren’t. We used to build! Or they say it’s an inherent feature of democracy. Or they get angry.
- wonderwonder 2y agoI watched the Superman movie with my kids the other day and I wondered how a planet like Krypton could just collapse after all its accomplishments. It seemed unrealistic. I totally understand now.
- fourseventy 2y agoJust give the whole contract to SpaceX already
- adamm255 2y agoHas SpaceX even been outside low earth orbit with anything meaningful?
- pennomi 2y agoThey regularly have missions to Geostationary Transfer Orbit, but I assume that’s not what you’re talking about.
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoNot yet, but I believe the Artemis 3 manned moon landing is still a planned for 2026.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ktpecot 2y ago"Launches to higher-orbits have included DSCOVR to Sun–Earth Lagrange point L1, TESS to a lunar flyby, a Tesla Roadster demonstration payload to a heliocentric orbit extending past the orbit of Mars, DART to the asteroid Didymos, Euclid to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, and Psyche to the asteroid 16 Psyche." Per wikipedia, not sure if those count as meaningful. Plus Europe Clipper in a few months.
- dotnet00 2y agoIf you mean human spaceflight, current Boeing has less experience flying humans to anywhere in space than SpaceX, let alone beyond low earth orbit. If you mean general spaceflight, SpaceX has launched more lunar and interplanetary payloads than Boeing has in the past decade or two. Boeing and its proponents love to talk about things like "spaceflight heritage", but none of that means anything when most if not all of those employees are gone and nothing was done to transfer the knowledge.
- mananaysiempre 2y ago> 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 supervision,” the OIG says. [...] Welders are highly qualified and well-paid craftsmen. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’d been hit particularly hard by management that doesn’t value tenured, expensive employees.
- emchammer 2y agoYou must have seen how beautiful the welds are on the Rocketdyne F-1 joints. Whoever made those put pride in their work.
- mohaine 2y agoA welding book I had mentioned that stick welding aluminum is no longer done because it is too hard and used the F-1 stick welds as an example of such welds. I think they we not so much welds as strategic strengthening.
- genter 2y agoI'm surprised they stick welded it. I know they oxy-acetylene welded aluminum aircraft in WW2, (which I've attempted, I found it impossible to do) and TIG welding has existed since the 50s.
- jprete 2y agoI 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.
- starspangled 2y agoMuch 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.
- gttalbot 2y agoWhy is this not cancelled?
- dgoodell 2y agoProbably 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.
- nordsieck 2y ago> 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.
- deelowe 2y agoSame reason the most popular political candidates never make it past primaries.
- dotnet00 2y agoBecause Congress critters use it as a means to spend taxpayer money on purchasing votes. They'll do pretty much anything to avoid having to admit that SLS was a mistake.
- akira2501 2y agoIs "Moon Policy" anywhere near the ballot box? Particularly for senators? To the extent it might be, isn't it the inverse problem, to cancel the program is to lose jobs. So they're mostly just being held hostage by the monopoly. The person you are voting for has fantastically small power. Which, is not what we were taught, but it does seem to be the fact.
- givemeethekeys 2y agoThe money is in the journey, not the destination /s
- School-Cotton 2y agoDoes 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.
- akira2501 2y agoWe're the only nation that has ever done it. It seems like unchecked graft is our current main problem. In the scope of all problems of returning people to the Moon this is both expected and the easiest to deal with.
- School-Cotton 2y ago> We're the only nation that has ever done it The USA of the 1960s was very different from the one that exists today.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoWhat “the US” did 50+ years ago has absolutely no say in what “the US” can do now.
- whatshisface 2y agoOur GDP is about 50x higher now than it was then, in real terms.
- mglz 2y agoThe damage to Boeing is already done I am afraid. But moving forwards there needs to be accountability for management types that destroy companies in such a way. This is a massive destruction of capability for the USA and will continue to be extremely expensive in the future.
- mr90210 2y agoNNT wrote Skin in the Game, which discusses such types of managers who cause similar damages. He argues that there should be clawbacks to managers that harm a company to the degree Boeing’s current management has. He invokes The Code of Hammurabi to illustrate how ancient civilization used to deal with such class of professionals.
- whatshisface 2y agoThe Soviet Union would actually send managers to GULAG for "wrecking," or other labor crimes, and it didn't really help. In fact, "accountability" was the only thing the USSR did not have a short supply of. Extraordinary punishments don't help if the system for figuring out who's doing a good job, and who isn't, is not working in the first place.
- carlmr 2y agoIf only there was some middle ground between a golden parachute and gulags.
- mr90210 2y agoAccording to NNT, there is. He claims that if a company doesn't want state intervention then it should not ask for bailouts when things start to go wrong. And, should they want or need to be bailed out, then it's the state who determines how much all employees from such a company can make in compensation. So, no more executives making $30M/year despite terrible years such as those Boeing has had.
- 2y ago
- vlark 2y agoWhat killed American expertise? Middle management.
- darth_avocado 2y agoMore than middle management, it was extreme financialization.
- umeshunni 2y agoLack of adequate STEM education in US schools --> more liberal arts majors --> more MBAs --> low value for engineering fundamentals and higher value for financialization --> Oh crap, MBAs can't send stuff to space?
- whatshisface 2y agoThere are an enormous number of physicists who can't find jobs now, the systemic problems are much deeper than that. In fact, I would posit that the "low standards" of highschool STEM relative to countries like India are actually due to the extraordinarily high fraction of our kids we push in that direction.
- grecy 2y agoWith no universal healthcare, no free higher education, very little social safety net and a raft of other holes in society to fall through, America is the poster child of “F$$k everyone else, I got mine” People have to behave this way just to survive.
- tgv 2y agoThe best quote I've ever read about that was "Why become a physicist, when you can be his boss?" Can't find the source anymore.
- hnthrowaway0315 2y agoThat was the decision of US elites decades ago. The whole matter becomes a bit clearer if you regard those elites as aristocratic and the US happened to be one of their most fertile lands. How do you extract value from your land? There are many ways.
- zugi 2y ago> For example, Boeing Defense’s Earned Value Management System (EVMS)—which NASA uses to measure contract cost and schedule progress ... has been disapproved by the Department of Defense since 2020. Officials claim this precludes Boeing from reliably predicting an EUS delivery date. Interesting that instead of commenting on engineering or technology issues, this is basically NASA bureaucrats complaining about Boeing bureaucrats' procedures. The whole SLS program is so bureaucratized it's amazing they can get anything of the ground, and not surprising that Space X is beating them in performance and cost by 3X.
- whatshisface 2y agoJust read a little farther, here are some comments on technical issues: >“According to NASA officials, the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision,” the OIG says. “The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that Boeing will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards.”
- zugi 2y agoFair enough and thanks for pointing that out. Even that focuses on "adhere to NASA requirements" rather than "will it work". In between there's stuff like: > DCMA also found that Boeing personnel made numerous administrative errors through changes to certified work order data without proper documentation and > Some technicians reported they had to hunt through layers of documentation to identify required instructions and documentation of work history and key decisions related to the hardware It sounds like the focus is more on making documents and reading documents and complying with documents than "will this thing fly?"
- Majromax 2y agoIt's the OIG, the government's auditors. They're not equipped to make engineering decisions, but they are experts at seeing whether that policies ostensibly written by engineers are being followed.
- iancmceachern 2y agoIt 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.
- mr90210 2y agoOff-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
- otteromkram 2y agoDear 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.)
- silexia 2y agoIf we stopped illegal immigration, we would have far more room for high skills legal immigrants.
- barbazoo 2y agoHow does that work exactly?
- nozzlegear 2y agoHighly-skilled, legal immigrants and ostensibly low-skilled, illegal immigrants are two different groups of people with different motivations. Low-skilled immigrants contribute to different kinds of jobs (e.g. agriculture, construction, domestic work) than the ones highly-skilled, legal immigrants do. A family swimming across the Rio Grande, trying to escape destitution in Venezuela, probably isn't going to take a programming job from the man or woman from India, who came to the US on a work visa.
- 29athrowaway 2y agoWhen Yuri Gagarin saw Earth from orbit for the first time in history, he saw a planet without borders between nations. One planet, one human species. This vision is the last thing that the people profiting from conflict want you to see.
- whoitwas 2y agoWhat's worse ignorance or malice? Boeing presents the best of both all to maximize quarterly earning$. Can we please stop giving my tax dollars to them? Maybe it's better than building functioning weapon systems?
- trentnix 2y agoPournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy claims another victim. In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely. RIP Jerry. A Step Farther Out is one of my all time favorites.
- silexia 2y agoThis is why bankruptcy is such a good thing in private industry. And we need a mechanism like bankruptcy for government agencies.
- sgnelson 2y agoThe OIG Report itself: https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-015.pdf https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-015.pd...
- pharos92 2y agoAnd SpaceX are sitting there with all the capability, resource and a good chunk of the technology ready to go. The legacy defence contractors have been watered with a hoover dams worth of taxpayer money for far too long and have little to show for it.
- preisschild 2y agoMaybe SpaceX should finish the HLS that they have saying should have landed on the Moon by now.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoSpaceX is about to launch Starship for the fifth time in a few weeks. If they pull off a controlled landing and catch (which they are rumored to attempt), that's going to be the best ticket to the moon by far. They might actually manage to get there before the Chinese if they put their mind to it and get the resources and backing to do it. Chinese peer pressure might achieve what years of lobbying hasn't managed to achieve: a sense of urgency. The Chinese establishing a moon base without US boots on the surface would be a major embarrassment. They've done a few unmanned landings now. So, they clearly have the capability to pull this off now.
- reddog 2y agoThis is an easy fix for Boeing: budget for more lobbyists and campaign contributions.
- exabrial 2y ago[flagged]
- atlgator 2y agoIs Boeing salvageable at this point? They are so bloated and bureaucratic. We've seen nothing but dishonesty from their executives. I'd rather see Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic step up beyond this space tourism nonsense.
- eBombzor 2y agoIntel and Boeing. Sad to see greats turn into this.
- dehrmann 2y agoI 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.
- wonderwonder 2y agoI 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.
- Sophistifunk 2y agoBoeing haven't exactly been covering themselves with glory with their non-NASA work over the last decade or two, either. But I'd still go with "both" :)
- notabee 2y agoThe blame should honestly go to Congress, because they keep interfering in the process to force NASA to stick with SLS. NASA has tried several times to ditch this albatross around their necks only to be scolded by influential senators determined to keep money flowing into their states despite the overall project failing wildly. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/so-long-senator-shelby-key-architect-of-sls-rocket-wont-seek-reelection/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/so-long-senator-shel...
- wmf 2y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41193416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41193416
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- andy_ppp 2y agoSack all the managers at Boeing and watch everything work better…
- esskay 2y agoHonestly think we're beyond that now. They need stripping of all government contracts - obviously not in one go as theres currently no alternatives in many cases. They certainly should be banned from being involved in anything going forwards.
- andy_ppp 2y agoI work at a company like this where management self interest has taken over and the staff have zero power to say no. It makes everything impossible if I’m honest, the 200 layers of management might as well be using a magic 8 ball to run the company.
- once-in-a-while 2y ago[dead]
- lucasRW 2y agoBoeing's number one priority is DEI.
- elzbardico 2y agoWhat 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 schemes. So, what next? our organs? They convinced us to exchange our pensions for the privilege of being the mark on a market where the sharks like them do whatever the fuck they want, from blatant insider trading, to pump and dump schemes, to outright fraud, having for all practical purposes bought the SEC a long time ago. What they will kill next? How long are we going to transfer wealth to those slimmy sweet talking ignorant greedy bean counters? Our daily work is like being in a mad house because almost everything is subordinated to the the most sacred goal of cooking the next quarter numbers to ensure we maximize executive bonuses, and fuck the long run! crazy projects started, spin offs, merges, projects cancelled, company killing layoffs, fuck long term value generation! they want more and more, and more, and they fucking want it right now! the fucking bonus gollums. Everything is fucked in our society but executive compensation. Xerox, HP, IBM, Boeing... How many other proud symbols of our economy and civilization are we going to let them destroy?
- rmbyrro 2y ago> So, what next? our organs? Yep, they started with our eye balls. In exchange, we are getting "relevant ads". Also our frontal lobe. In exchange, we get depressive dopamine releases.
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- yunohn 2y ago> So, what next? our organs? I’m almost certain I’ve seen a study that tried to prove opening up the organ trade would help the economy and hinder the black market.
- klyrs 2y agoI see your organ trade study and raise you a billion dollar VC to turn kidneys into penis enlargement powder, buying at a rate that prices out the majority of dialysis patients.
- Eumenes 2y agoYou could find/replace Boeing with NASA/Federal government with this entire article. Boeing has a crazy amount of oversight. This is the governments failure.
- bdavisx 2y agoNope - Boeing has been failing at many things for many years - this is the fault of putting accountants in charge.
- Eumenes 2y agoBoiling the downturn of one of the largest military contractors in the country down to "accountants" is a mass simplification. Boeing has 1000s of employees focused on regulation and oversight. If the federal government didn't see this coming, they are either complicit in this or incompetent. I will say, its a mix of both.
- IX-103 2y agoAnd 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!
- kazinator 2y agoIf the delays end up with Boeing extracting more money from NASA, it is obviously NASA who is inexperienced and mismanaged, while Boeing looks rather clever. If outside contractors and suppliers are causing delays while you pay them, the poor manager is you.
- dei-no-uuu 2y ago[flagged]
- exabrial 2y agoThe SLS is a sinking ship and money pit. Blaming on Boeing is just en vogue.
- BizyDev 2y agoDon't worry you Americans. Your government will soon find a reason to sue Airbus (corruption, unfair competition, etc.) in order to extract its secrets and supply them to Boeing, and voila, Airbus' technological lead will be wiped out. See Alstom's story for a manual of the perfect economic imperialist : https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american-takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption-investigation https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-americ...
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- nojvek 2y agoIMO its a huge opportunity cost for humans to land on moon if it comes at cost of gazillions of dollars. We've been to moon, many countries have spent probes on the Moon. Humans are fragile blood bags covered in thin skin plastic. It takes a ton of other infrastructure around to sustain them. Even losing a single human is a disaster. That money and time could be spent building better rovers. We could likely send 10 +rovers to different planets for exploration at the same time + cost factor. Spirit & Opportunity spent ~21 years combined on Mars. We could have an army of rovers for years on Moon and build habitable bases. It'd be cheaper than sending a few human astronauts to the Moon for a few hours of "we did it" videos.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]