🚀 go-pugleaf

Pat Bahn wrote:
> 
> rk wrote:
> 
> > edwright@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > This is illogical. If I ship a package with Federal Express and they
> > > have a maintenance problem with the plane, I don't blamed for it. I can
> > > only be blamed for something that was under my control -- like if I
> > > shipped hazardous material. By micromanaging everything, NASA
> > > *increases* the number of things it can be blamed for.
> >
> > Arguing by analogy is always a dangerous thing.
> >
> > If I ship a proposal in via Fed Ex and it doesn't make it to the
> > receiving place by the deadline, I believe Fed Ex will only give you
> > your $15 back.  You very well be held responsible for that - perhaps
> > losing millions in potential revenue for your company - and then fired.
> > FedEx will most likely not hire you.  If you do, however, just drive the
> > proposal down to where it needs to be, hand it to the person that is
> > supposed to receive it, and get a time stamped receipt identifying your
> > proposal, then all is well and one doesn't have to rely on any else.
> 
> and if you have a break down in your car, or end up stuck in traffic on
> the washington beltway, and miss your deadline, then what?

Well, you are off on an even bigger tangent then Ed?  He would suggest
that you make a claim to your auto insurance company, I'm sure!

At least if you're on your own, you have no one but yourself to blame. 
I would suggest, if it is that important, you leave early enough in the
day so that if you do have problems, you recover, if you are hand
delivering it.  Or perhaps drop it off the day before it was due. 
Planning to drop it off with margin for delivery delay is a sign of bad
planning.  Being "stuck in traffic on the Washington beltway" is
something that even someone half-awake should guess is a likely
outcome!  <hint: I live between DC and Baltimore>

For one proposoal that I did, to ensure it made it to the right box on
time and in the right spot, I e-mailed it to a friend at that company,
he printed it out, and then hand delivered it to the place it was
supposed to be.  The address to deliver the proposal looked confusing
and I didn't want to take a chance with a delivery person getting
confused.  Plan! Plan! Plan!  For this business, one has to plan for
contigencies.  On-orbit and on the ground! :-)

================================
 
> If the package is due locally, and the deadline is short, it seems silly to
> send
> anything via fedex, when one can instead hire a local courier service and
> have a maddened bicycle courier get your package anywhere in 1 hour.

Depends on your organization and how well they are set up.  For many
organizatins, it is "faster, better, cheaper" to just hop in your car
for a situation such as you describe.

- - - - - - -

> any transit method has fault paths, the competent professional leaves
> enough room to succeed inspite of a failure.

Exactly my point.  Saying, "well, uh, FedEx has insurance so I am not
responsible" is unacceptable for delivering a proposal to a bureaucrat
or a spacecraft which performs on orbit, if it really, really has to be
there.  Being blind and dumb and delegating everything is not a good
plan, in my position.  True story, from day job.  I was reviewing a
harness design and noted to the lady who was lead engineer on it that
the ground symbols were confusing (multiple grounds and shields, of
course).  In this case, the wrong symbol was used, and it wasn't
consistent, for the shield.  Pretty big error.  The response: I don't
have to worry about that or know that - the contractor is responsible
for it.  Not a formula for success!

=================================================

> leaving millions of dollars in revenue up to the vagaries of a car battery
> or traffic congestion, seems much more irresponsible then hiring professional
> couriers.

No one is suggesting that.  But having a $20 repayment if you package
doesn't make it will not relieve YOU of being responsible for on-time
delivery.


> > > There is little evidence that government micromanagement decreases the
> > > chance of failure.
> >
> > Actually I have seen the numbers [don't know where] that government
> > management of launch vehicles results in a higher success rate than the
> > same launch vehicles used commercially.  If this is incorrect, then
> > please delete this.
> >
> 
> you are incorrect.
> 
> NASA claims a higher success rate then commercial deltas, the USAF clearly
> has a lower success rate with the T4 then Industry has with it's suite of
> Atlas,delta,ariane.
> 
> However, none of these claims are very meaningful due to the very small
> numbers involved.
> none of these numbers exist to a confidence value of much more then 50%.

Actually, from what you say, my statement above is correct.  The success
rates are higher.  The success rate is a measurement and is done by
counting.  Even counting launches from Florida! :-)

The numbers for all of this stuff are small so that the statistics are
not so good.  The numbers may change over time.

I do note, however, that communications companies buying satellites from
the same vendor do have different success rates, depending on their
style of verification.  Those with good, competent, authoritative
insight do better than those that are more hands off.  Again, the
numbers for all of this are not large, but the success rate is high
enough that one entity does not buy insurance.  Note that quality of
insight is an important qualifying term here.

==================================================

> > Some communications organizations go through their contractors with a
> > fine-tooth comb and wield large, powerful axes to those that don't
> > follow the rules [former client of mine, great job].  The result is an
> > *extremely* high success rate on orbit.  On the other hand, improperly
> > done, intrusive monitoring/verification can easily result in more BS
> > [budget and schedule] and lower reliability rates.  One can not
> > generalize on this, and I make no attempt to do so, but how something is
> > done is perhaps more important than what is done.
> 
> yes.



> > > NASA blamed the Mars failures on cost-cutting and
> > > reduced management, but NASA had considerable control over those
> > > missions. The more costly, old-style Battlestar Galatica planetary
> > > missions had similar failures, however.
> >
> > Mars Exploder I comes to mind; any others?  Here I am talking not about
> > any failure [and I believe all spacecraft have them] but about failures
> > that are mission catastrophic.  Galileo did have some failures that
> > reduced mission performance; many of the science goals were met - I
> > believe that not all of them were.  Nevertheless, most people regard
> > Galileo as a successful mission and there has been excellent science
> > returns.
> 
> galileo was years behind schedule.

And way over budget.  But it didn't have similar failures to the recent
Mars missions, where mission effectiveness was reduced to zero for both
missions in the previous cycle.  There are many things to be learned
from Galileo, good and bad.  But the scientists on Galileo seem quite a
bit happier then those on MCO and MPL.  Note: this does not imply that
everything should be done the "Galileo way" - hopefully cutting off a
tangent article.  Again, there were good things and bad things and
lessons to be learned/re-learned from that mission.


> > Other "Battlestar Galactica" missions that come to mind:
> >
> >      1. Hubble
> 
> years behind schedule

And way over budget.  But more successful than MCO/MPL.  Again, this is
not an argument on how to do things; just an argument against Ed's
blabber.  ;)


> >      2. EOS-AM [Terra]
> 
> ditto

I second your ditto!


> >      3. AXAF
> 
> ditto.

I third your ditto!


> >      4. Pioneer Venus
> 
> was not a Battlestar mission.

It was a biggie and I don't think it fell into the FBC-class of
missions, focused on just a few instruments.  I believe each of the two
spacecraft had 10 or more experiments each.  Most of the small ones seem
to have from 1 to 3 instruments, or so.  Was this FBC ahead of it's
time?  ;)


> >      5. Magellan
> 
> was not really a battlestar mission.

I would strongly disagree.  It was a lot like Galileo - used quite a bit
of the same hardware and people - it was huge, it was expensive and it
was, as you like to say, "years behind schedule."


> >      6. Voyager I, II
> 
> ancient history

I am getting to be ancient history.  Just trying to go through Ed's
pseudo-point with all available data.  There are so few missions, one
has to go back in history to gather up some statistics.  I have trouble
backing up Ed's point.


> >      7. Viking I, II and their landers
> 
> ditto

Ditto to the ditto.


> >      8. Can't remember the name of the other observatory
> 
> CGRO?  years behind schedule.

Apply previous ditto.  And, going back to Ed's point, this one didn't
have a similar failure to MPL/MCO.

I note that the recent Aerospace Corp. study showed, to a certain level
of assurance, that development time for complex missions was a key
factor in failure rate and that NASA missions came out high in the
complexity factor (x-axis on their charts).

Not that I approve of being behind schedule, but it sure beats sending
things out when they're not ready and then blowing them up or crashing
them.





> > SIRTF, EOS-PM (Aqua?) are not launched yet.
> 
> and years behind schedule

I shall assume that they are over-budget, too. ;)


> > > By contrast, Lunar Prospector
> > > and Clementine were successful with much smaller budgets and far less
> > > management overhead than the "better, faster, cheaper" Mars missions.
> >
> > To be complete, we should perhaps add some of the following:
> >
> >      1. HETE (HETE-II recently launched, launch vehicle failure
> >         for the first one.
> >      2. Small Explorer/WIRE
> >      3. Terriersat
> >      4. SAC-? (Argentinian FBC mission)
> >
> > and I guess there are some others.
> 
> one could include all the STEP and MIGHTSAT missions, etc...

That would be good.

In summary, I can't find the evidence to support Ed's statement.

=========================================================================


> > > NASA's own track record hardly puts it in a position to lecture other
> > > people on reliability. "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to
> > > launch?" Before you tell me things have changed, riddle me this: Why is
> > > NASA spending a billion dollars to develop an escape system for ISS,
> > > while making no effort to provide an escape system for the Shuttle,
> > > although launch vehicles are demonstrably more dangerous than space
> > > stations?
> >
> > This paragraph assumes that NASA is monolithic and time-invariant.
> > False assumptions.

> however, your list above is also time invariant. mixing missions from the
> 70's to the 90's

Listing missions over a large time period shows the history over time. 
One can judge from that whether NASA is time invariant or not.

Summarizing, with respect to Ed's point, the only similar NASA mission
failure that comes to mind, as being similar to the recent Mars
disaster's, is Mars Exploder I.  Only a single point.  Going back
approximately 30 years does not add any data to support his claim.

rk