🚀 go-pugleaf

From:
                  AUSROC II : A Post Mortem
                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Tzu-Pei Chen

"The  design  of  AUSROC II was in many ways too  "positive".
Much  thought  had  been put into each of the  systems,  but
little  thought had been allocated to possible failures  and
their  consequences.  Obviously,  greater  testing  of  each
component may have shown up some of these problems  earlier.
This simply highlights the very limited resources with which
the  group currently works. The six static firings  were  in
themselves,  major  system tests, but they  were  already  a
major strain on our resources. Hopefully AUSROC II-2 will be
able  to proceed in an environment where financial and  man-
hour   constraints  become  secondary  to  the  process   of
engineering."

Here is an example of what can go wrong with "fast track" programs
where too positive an outlook leads to overlooking simple, and
in 20/20 hindsight, obvious problem areas. The problems were
only obvious in hindsight, however, which is the main risk of
a success oriented program. Pegasus' teething problems stem
from a similar outlook. As Chen notes, financial and manpower
requirements for adequate engineering studies and testing for
the project were overly optimistic leading to complete vehicle 
loss and a major financial and schedule loss to the project.

We hope they'll be able to muster the financial and manpower
requirements to do the job right the next time. It's an
engineering maxim that "There is always time to do it over,
but never time to do it right the first time."

Gary
-- 
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary      
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     | emory!ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu