Space and Science BS Thread

Hey @Gregthespy and others in the KSC area, looks like the Air Force Space and Missile Museum is having a Space Collectible Show and Sale this weekend.

https://afspacemuseum.org/

https://twitter.com/james_w_draper/status/1425476095789441028?s=21

 

Not to mention the in your face factor for Boeing and how abysmal their progress has been. This isn’t the company it used to be and it’s not providing the level of competition needed to keep Spacex on its toes. If this turns into a one-horse race it doesn’t usually work out well.

 

Can you elaborate on this?

 

During the Ball Intern Remote Sensing Team (BIRST) payload project, aerospace interns had the opportunity to design, build, test and launch payloads of their own creation on a high-altitude balloon or sport rocket. This particular photo was the Balloon launch from Team GORDON’s payload on Sunday, August 1.

Team GORDON’s objective was to develop RAMSaY (Roundtrip Assembled Milkshake to the Stratosphere And Yonder), a BalloonSat payload to shake, freeze and insulate a pre-assembled ice-cream mixture for consumption upon its return to the Earth. The milkshake was contained within a Ball Aluminum Cup and took advantage of the stratosphere’s extremely low temperatures.

 

If NASA concludes Boeing is no longer a viable candidate for future contracts considering how much time and money they’ve flushed on Starliner and the inexcusable events leading to the 737MAX tragedies then Spacex could be in the position Boeing was in decades ago in the airline industry with no competition to keep them honest. Over time managers with aeronautics engineering experience were traded for bean counters and an ethic of on-time and under-budget was traded for how-much-can-we-milk-out-of-this-one. By the time Airbus became a true competitor the changeover was complete and the die cast. It’s impossible to say for sure what the consequences would be this time around but lack of COMPETENT competition generally leads to complacency. One thing is certain, bad things will happen when you break new ground, regardless of which developemental approach is used. Whether it’s fly it, break it, and figure out why or run simulations instead of all-up tests, sooner or later you will come across something unforeseen.

 

I think if there were a space company that might not fall prey to that, it would be SpaceX, at least under Elon - as far as I've been able to tell, any government contract they can get along the way to getting humanity to being multiplanetary species is just a boost along the way, not the end goal. I'd really like someone else to step up to that plate, and give SpaceX some real competition, I just don't think any of the existing launch companies (BO included) are managed/run in a way to make that possible. It seems they're just too slow and too afraid to fail.

 

I agree with you, I think everything Elon does, no matter the industry, is being done with the thought of being transferrable to Mars.

He want's to be the guy that makes us multi planetary.

Hell, he's so confident that he's going to succeed that he's prepositioned his own car to Mars!

 

X may fail but it won't be because Elon let his guys get complacent. He keeps his guys moving ruling with an iron fist and a turnover rate that reflects that. He has laid crews of hundreds off without a days notice multiple times. As far as working conditions, X is known around KSC as the only place you can make 100k a year making $18 dollars an hour.

 

I agree with your assessment of Musk’s corporate style of management. Being up front about the expectations of pace and effort, it’s basically like every dude there is still in their post hire “probation” period where they’re out the door for any misstep. Not like a union job where your period ends and you get to be a slug now.
Had a cousin move down to boca to work there and I knew he wouldn’t last long. Lasted 8 weeks. Still won’t admit why he was fired, but it wasn’t for his welding skills.

 

Bad Ass tweet of the day:

https://twitter.com/arceneauxhayley/status/1425564264417447945?s=21

 

That is awesome!

 

True, but no one is going to stick out their necks just to compete with Musk. They will wait until the technology becomes cheaper and proven.

 

Douchebags of the decade- possibly two:

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1425595283967135744?s=21

 

Not sure we should celebrate that sort of management. Sure, you can build bad culture in an organization with lazyness but a lack of culture also leads to a lack of direction. Elons master and commander now, but what happens when he's not? My two cents anyway. We have a competitor in my industry that bascially functions on yearly decimation. They aren't new and shiny like SpaceX though. The average quality of employee has dropped from all the random layoffs and has really hurt them the last ten years. At one point their marketshare was untouchable. Now they're 2nd or 3rd in share in my industry and falling hard. Hopefully that's not the future of SpaceX.

 

Another tool/resource to better understand the cosmos:

https://esahubble.org/announcements/ann2108/

 

https://twitter.com/space_station/status/1425765370087055362?s=21

 

Funniest smack down tweet of the current space race era:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1425639813416427526?s=21

 

Who remembers?

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1425823897467768840?s=21

 

This is always the case. Boeing used to be well run. There’s no guarantees, in fact, I’d say the odds are against Spacex after EM unless he can clone himself. A board of directors could easily snuff the company with foot dragging.