NASA puts jet propulsion lab on blast over Psyche mission failures(futurism.com)
futurism.com
NASA puts jet propulsion lab on blast over Psyche mission failures
https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-jpl-psyche-independent-review
185 comments
Venus is more interesting to me than Mars. We already know more about Mars than I cared to know. Venus is still packed with mystery. Hot mystery, yes.
It's also really interesting purely from a physics or human adventure perspective. The way it crushes anything that goes near the surface.
Mars seems like an introductory class to Venus' horror story. But yes there's plenty to learn, especially from a statistical analysis for finding life in interstellar space type of thing.
Mars seems like an introductory class to Venus' horror story. But yes there's plenty to learn, especially from a statistical analysis for finding life in interstellar space type of thing.
At cloud-top level, temperature, pressure, and gravity are all close to Earth-normal, and breathing-air is buoyant.
Numerous materials can be extracted from the outside air, including oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and even some metals.
A day/night cycle is about 100 hours, depending on how close you are to a pole.
A nuclear reactor is as simple as a big fabric tube suspended vertically with a naked atomic pile hanging near the bottom, and a wind turbine turning in an opening at the top, the only moving part.
You need something non-solar because nights are long.
Alternatively, you can store energy with a weight on a cable attached to a generator. Play it out to discharge, winch it back up to charge.
Or maybe different layers of atmosphere circulate at different rates. If so, you can hang a wind turbine in the next layer below.
Numerous materials can be extracted from the outside air, including oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and even some metals.
A day/night cycle is about 100 hours, depending on how close you are to a pole.
A nuclear reactor is as simple as a big fabric tube suspended vertically with a naked atomic pile hanging near the bottom, and a wind turbine turning in an opening at the top, the only moving part.
You need something non-solar because nights are long.
Alternatively, you can store energy with a weight on a cable attached to a generator. Play it out to discharge, winch it back up to charge.
Or maybe different layers of atmosphere circulate at different rates. If so, you can hang a wind turbine in the next layer below.
I love the mention of gravity storage here. The potential of gravity storage is very real, but you need a lot of weight and a lot of height to achieve meaningful amounts of electricity. And at large scales of weight and height it becomes a surprisingly hard problem. For example, a steel cable can’t stretch much further than a mile under earth gravity before it succumbs to its own weight. But there are other solutions. It’s not rocket science, as they say.
A steel cable one square inch in cross section and a mile long weighs <19k lb on Earth, a bit less on Venus. Cheap mild steel has tensile strength 50k lb/in², and can be as much as 10x as strong. So, self-supporting steel 3 miles to 30 miles.
Getting 250 tons of high-strength steel cable (sheathed against corrosion) to Venus is left as an exercise for the reader. Likewise, a big enough balloon to hold that up. And a strong enough winch.
But in practice, you would make the cable of carbon extracted from atmospheric CO2, instead, and it could support itself all the way down to the surface, 50 mi below. You would need to protect the end against acid vapor corrosion at 470 C: another exercise for the reader.
Getting 250 tons of high-strength steel cable (sheathed against corrosion) to Venus is left as an exercise for the reader. Likewise, a big enough balloon to hold that up. And a strong enough winch.
But in practice, you would make the cable of carbon extracted from atmospheric CO2, instead, and it could support itself all the way down to the surface, 50 mi below. You would need to protect the end against acid vapor corrosion at 470 C: another exercise for the reader.
> At cloud-top level, temperature, pressure, and gravity are all close to Earth-normal ...
... and the cloud is made of sulfuric acid droplets. Don't breathe in, and make sure that nothing important is ever exposed to the outside air.
... and the cloud is made of sulfuric acid droplets. Don't breathe in, and make sure that nothing important is ever exposed to the outside air.
Maybe just coat the outside of your airship in ten microns of teflon, glass, or lead? As corrosives go, sulfuric isn't that bad.
> Maybe just coat the outside of your airship in ten microns of teflon, ...
Based on my experience, there's always that one astronaut who forgets and uses a metal spatula.
Based on my experience, there's always that one astronaut who forgets and uses a metal spatula.
Ordinary plastic is fine. You can buy concentrated H2SO4 at an auto supply store in a plastic bottle.
Edit: maybe not fine. Resistance to H2SO4 corrosion falls off sharply as its concentration approaches 100%. On Venus, the clouds would be very nearly 100%.
Edit: maybe not fine. Resistance to H2SO4 corrosion falls off sharply as its concentration approaches 100%. On Venus, the clouds would be very nearly 100%.
"Plastic" is lots of different things. I'd think polyethylene will be fine but not polylactide.
I was surprised to find that carbon fiber can sit in 50% H2SO4 indefinitely, but degrades above 65%, at normal temperatures.
https://www.gab-neumann.com/Corrosion-resistance-of-impervio...
https://www.gab-neumann.com/Corrosion-resistance-of-impervio...
At low concentration a sulfuric acid solution corrodes only by being an acid.
Neither carbon fiber is affected by acids, nor some types of plastic with carbon-carbon bonds, like polyethylene (but polyesters and other polymers made by polycondensation may be hydrolyzed by acids).
At high concentrations, a sulfuric acid solution begins to have an oxidizing behavior, even if not so strong as nitric acid, so it can convert the carbon from carbon fibers or some plastics into carbon dioxide, damaging them.
The difference in behavior is because the sulfate ions have a very high affinity for water. At low concentrations, they are strongly hydrated, so the attached water shields them from making direct contact with an immersed material. At high concentrations, there is much less water available for hydration and the sulfate ions can make direct contact with an immersed material. Then the oxidized sulfur atoms from the sulfate ions can oxidize any less electronegative elements.
Neither carbon fiber is affected by acids, nor some types of plastic with carbon-carbon bonds, like polyethylene (but polyesters and other polymers made by polycondensation may be hydrolyzed by acids).
At high concentrations, a sulfuric acid solution begins to have an oxidizing behavior, even if not so strong as nitric acid, so it can convert the carbon from carbon fibers or some plastics into carbon dioxide, damaging them.
The difference in behavior is because the sulfate ions have a very high affinity for water. At low concentrations, they are strongly hydrated, so the attached water shields them from making direct contact with an immersed material. At high concentrations, there is much less water available for hydration and the sulfate ions can make direct contact with an immersed material. Then the oxidized sulfur atoms from the sulfate ions can oxidize any less electronegative elements.
That was fascinating. As a non- chemist it's easy to think the water is inert and 50% concentration just means 50% as much corrosion, but the water obviously plays an active role.
Thank you, that was deeply enlightening.
[deleted]
Neat. Wouldn’t a near 100% cloud be basically a liquid? What would it be like for a spacecraft to fly through that? A big puddle floating in the sky?
A near 100% H2SO4 cloud would be a cloud whose droplets have vanishingly little water in them.
As your balloon drifts up or down through it, the sheen of moisture it collects on its surface is maximum strength sulfuric acid. I hope your balloon is not of a material subject to oxidation, because if it is, you will soon discover a place even worse than in that cloud.
As your balloon drifts up or down through it, the sheen of moisture it collects on its surface is maximum strength sulfuric acid. I hope your balloon is not of a material subject to oxidation, because if it is, you will soon discover a place even worse than in that cloud.
He meant that each droplet would be nearly 100% H2SO4, not the entire volume of the cloud.
Long-term we could plant massive new floating plant species in the atmosphere to decarbonize it and form floating soil layers, which eventually would compactify and metamorphosize and spread out latitudinally to form a ring around the planet, thinning out towards the poles and making cliffs and beaches and islands with the atmosphere. The growing regions would not actually stay together but break apart and move technically on top of the atmosphere, with plate boundaries and subduction zones and volcanoes, driven by the pressure below, surface volcanism proper, and weather around the coastal areas.
Keeping carbon persistently out of the atmosphere would be hard, if you are freeing oxygen.
One alternative would be to make diamonds out of the extracted carbon and drop them to the ground. The released oxygen could then bind to crustal aluminum, iron, silicon, calcium, etc.
Venus has sadly little hydrogen, so you won't get oceans.
One alternative would be to make diamonds out of the extracted carbon and drop them to the ground. The released oxygen could then bind to crustal aluminum, iron, silicon, calcium, etc.
Venus has sadly little hydrogen, so you won't get oceans.
Just for a sense of scale, the venusian atmosphere has a mass of about half a billion GigaTons, 97% of which is CO2. Here on Earth, with all our industrial infrastructure, the substances we produce the most (iron and concrete) are in the low single digits GigaTons per year. The next ones (fertilizers and plastics) are in the hundreds of megatons per year. If you want to make a difference on Venus, you'd need to make millions of time more diamonds each year in some balloons in the skies than we make iron here on Earth.
It is a matter of how big a hurry you are in.
But, yes, it would be pointless to try terraforming Venus without von Neumann machines, and then it would end up thick with those, instead.
The Kuiper Belt offers more than the inner planets, provided energy is solved e.g. via aneutronic fusion.
But, yes, it would be pointless to try terraforming Venus without von Neumann machines, and then it would end up thick with those, instead.
The Kuiper Belt offers more than the inner planets, provided energy is solved e.g. via aneutronic fusion.
> provided energy is solved e.g. via aneutronic fusion
You can use regular fission as a dense energy source. If you are worried about the waste, you can just blow it up. In space there's no fallout. The particles from the explosion will just move radially forever. Most of them (99.9999..%, too many nines to count) will keep moving for billions of years through empty space without encountering anything. Oh, and as a curiosity, if you blow up a nuke in space, there's no fireball. The fireball we see in movies of nuke detonations are due to the air absorbing the X-rays from the nuke and becoming overheated plasma. But there's no air in space, so a nuke explosion is invisible and silent.
You can use regular fission as a dense energy source. If you are worried about the waste, you can just blow it up. In space there's no fallout. The particles from the explosion will just move radially forever. Most of them (99.9999..%, too many nines to count) will keep moving for billions of years through empty space without encountering anything. Oh, and as a curiosity, if you blow up a nuke in space, there's no fireball. The fireball we see in movies of nuke detonations are due to the air absorbing the X-rays from the nuke and becoming overheated plasma. But there's no air in space, so a nuke explosion is invisible and silent.
Fission is not a good energy solution for the outer solar system (except maybe on Titan) because of the need for a detour through a clunky heat engine. Likewise, hot-neutron fusion.
Layered mirrors concentrating monochromatic solar irradiation into laser cavities, and beaming power to where needed, is the fallback until aneutronic fusion works.
Layered mirrors concentrating monochromatic solar irradiation into laser cavities, and beaming power to where needed, is the fallback until aneutronic fusion works.
Might the lighter O2 naturally rise away from the organics layer? It may then be able to oxidize metals and meteors sprayed into the upper atmosphere, eventually falling back down with those compounds to fertilize the substrate.
Wind speed is hundreds of km/h. So, "turbulent mixing processes" rule.
There is plenty of un-oxidized material on the ground. Oxygen just needs to be kept off the carbon. And, it needs stirring. Big meteors could do a bit of that.
Earth gets its stirring from tectonics, which Venus lacks.
There is plenty of un-oxidized material on the ground. Oxygen just needs to be kept off the carbon. And, it needs stirring. Big meteors could do a bit of that.
Earth gets its stirring from tectonics, which Venus lacks.
Just to chip in, that life on Earth produced oxygen from photosynthesis, which over billions of years oxidised the iron in the ocean producing the iron ore beds as it precipitated out.
This occurred in stages.
This occurred in stages.
To work, it needed stirring from plate tectonics.
This is one of the plots in the Space Merchants...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants
That book any good?
It's older but considered one of the great classics of sci-fi.
A 3.85 avg rating with 9,862 ratings on Goodreads, so: average, but ever so slightly tilted towards good?
> breathing-air is buoyant
I'm really curious what the temperature, atmospheric makeup, and density is at different altitudes on Venus. I had no idea there could be a theoretically habitable altitude on it.
I'm really curious what the temperature, atmospheric makeup, and density is at different altitudes on Venus. I had no idea there could be a theoretically habitable altitude on it.
Atmosphere is mostly CO2, with relatively small amounts of other stuff. O2 and N2 are lighter, so a balloon filled with them could hold stuff up.
So we could live in balloons?
That is the idea. Want to go first? I will watch carefully.
What's really interesting to me is that at the right latitude you can dig in and find Mercury quite habitable.
176 Earth days from sunrise to sunrise: 2 local years, half an Earth year. So instead of spring/ summer/fall/winter, you have day/night/day/night.
At the right latitude, and a few meters deep, temperature would be comfortable. But energy would be a problem, with the season-long night.
Axial tilt is <2 degrees. There might be some volatiles frozen in polar craters.
Temperature at a pole would be low, but solar panels mounted vertically (or, better, a wavelength-selective mirror reflecting onto horizontal panels), rotating slowly, would offer continuous power. Constant temperature too low is a lot easier to handle than too high, or varying much. You need to dig down for protection from cosmic radiation.
Gravity is about like Mars, which might or might not be adequate, long term. Nobody knows.
It is remarkably hard to get to and from Mercury. Jupiter is easier.
At the right latitude, and a few meters deep, temperature would be comfortable. But energy would be a problem, with the season-long night.
Axial tilt is <2 degrees. There might be some volatiles frozen in polar craters.
Temperature at a pole would be low, but solar panels mounted vertically (or, better, a wavelength-selective mirror reflecting onto horizontal panels), rotating slowly, would offer continuous power. Constant temperature too low is a lot easier to handle than too high, or varying much. You need to dig down for protection from cosmic radiation.
Gravity is about like Mars, which might or might not be adequate, long term. Nobody knows.
It is remarkably hard to get to and from Mercury. Jupiter is easier.
And the Sun rise/sets would be in the opposite direction from Earth. Imagine watching the sun setting in the East!
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/26/what-is-the...
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/26/what-is-the...
To get a sense of it, just visit the opposite hemisphere (edit: on Earth).
What do you mean by that? The sun sets in the west whether you live in the northern or southern hemisphere.
That said, I’m not there’s any appreciable/perceptive difference to which way the sun sets for us anyway. It’s not like we have some internal compass that naturally grounds our cardinal direction. Our only frame of reference during the day on which way is east or west is the movement on the sun. If it suddenly started going the opposite direction it’d be weird if your were experiencing it in a familiar location. If you were somewhere where you’d never experienced a sunrise or sunset before (i.e., as little as a few miles away) I suspect you’d not even notice the difference. You’d have no frame of reference to suggest anything had changed.
That said, I’m not there’s any appreciable/perceptive difference to which way the sun sets for us anyway. It’s not like we have some internal compass that naturally grounds our cardinal direction. Our only frame of reference during the day on which way is east or west is the movement on the sun. If it suddenly started going the opposite direction it’d be weird if your were experiencing it in a familiar location. If you were somewhere where you’d never experienced a sunrise or sunset before (i.e., as little as a few miles away) I suspect you’d not even notice the difference. You’d have no frame of reference to suggest anything had changed.
> It’s not like we have some internal compass that naturally grounds our cardinal direction.
I'm reminded of "Story of Your Life" [1] / "Arrival" [2] wherein a character's language shapes their thoughts. Those are fiction, but there's also some supporting non-fiction evidence.
Apparently there's a tribe of humans on Earth (in Australia) whose language primarily refers to cardinal directions when describing the location of things - as in "hand me the north cup on the table". I don't think that's the only one - there's also Tenejapan Mayans [4]. From the latter group there's cited examples of an experiment with blindfolded/dizzy Tenejapan in a darkened interior who can identify the cardinal directions accurately. All of this is to say that maybe in fact some humans actually can sense this as if they had an internal compass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
[3] https://pages.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/Publications/ETHOSw.Diags....
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095761/
I'm reminded of "Story of Your Life" [1] / "Arrival" [2] wherein a character's language shapes their thoughts. Those are fiction, but there's also some supporting non-fiction evidence.
Apparently there's a tribe of humans on Earth (in Australia) whose language primarily refers to cardinal directions when describing the location of things - as in "hand me the north cup on the table". I don't think that's the only one - there's also Tenejapan Mayans [4]. From the latter group there's cited examples of an experiment with blindfolded/dizzy Tenejapan in a darkened interior who can identify the cardinal directions accurately. All of this is to say that maybe in fact some humans actually can sense this as if they had an internal compass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
[3] https://pages.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/Publications/ETHOSw.Diags....
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095761/
> there's cited examples of an experiment with blindfolded/dizzy Tenejapan in a darkened interior who can identify the cardinal directions accurately
Strongly calling B.S. on this claim.
Strongly calling B.S. on this claim.
I doubt a human could directly sense magnetic north, but with practice you could perhaps learn to integrate external cues (like sunrise/set) with your own movements to keep track of the cardinal directions.
Ignorant skepticism is exactly equally as bad as ignorant credulity.
There is no physical reason humans could not have a latent magnetic sense. Other animals are known to have it. So, experiment is determinative.
There is no physical reason humans could not have a latent magnetic sense. Other animals are known to have it. So, experiment is determinative.
While sun always moves from east to west, in northern hemisphere, if you look at the sun then it's towards the south and moves left to right; and in southern hemisphere the sun is towards the north and thus moves right to left.
When I visit the southern hemisphere I’m always struck by how weird it is that the sun is going the wrong way across the sky. It really messes with my sense of the time of day.
If the sun is going the wrong way across the sky, it’s not because of the hemisphere you’re on.
I wonder if this is like an implanted memory that you have or what?
I wonder if this is like an implanted memory that you have or what?
It’s going east-to-west in both hemispheres, that’s for sure. However, in the northern hemisphere the Sun goes from left to right, and in the southern from right to left, when you’re looking at the Sun.
I guess that is true in the higher latitudes on Earth. On Venus the tilt is 2.64 degrees, so it would be even more apparent in lower latitudes.
> I wonder if this is like an implanted memory that you have or what?
As pointed out below, it's because in my normal latitude (south UK) the sun moves from left to right (as you face South) and at a similar distance below the equator, it goes from right to left (as you face North). So at home when I look at the Sun I know that a couple of hours later it be quite a bit to the right of where it is now, and I can use this to assess where shadows will be.
As pointed out below, it's because in my normal latitude (south UK) the sun moves from left to right (as you face South) and at a similar distance below the equator, it goes from right to left (as you face North). So at home when I look at the Sun I know that a couple of hours later it be quite a bit to the right of where it is now, and I can use this to assess where shadows will be.
Seems like this would only be true if you’re above the Tropic of Cancer and then comparing to below the Tropic of Capricorn. Between those zones the left/rightness of travel would change dependent on the season.
Umm… what?
The moon is more interesting than either. Focus on asteroid belts. Big gravity wells suck.
It’s not sexy but it’s true. Asteroid mining will completely change life on earth.
Imagine the technical implications of copper, gold, platinum, etc becoming as cheap and abundant as tin foil.
Imagine the technical implications of copper, gold, platinum, etc becoming as cheap and abundant as tin foil.
I imagine the most efficient option will be to either crash the asteroids into the Earth directly (assuming they aren't too big), or "land" them on the moon for exploitation there. Sending a whole mining/refining rig to each asteroid feels a bit too high risk.
Disagree. You can just electromagnetic mass drive the finished good back to earth orbit for collection.
You can't "just" do anything. Landing a significant payload on an asteroid is barely do-able right now. We are a long way from building mining rigs and railguns up there; clamping on an engine and some extra propellant is much more viable in the near term - generously estimated at within the next 30 years.
The point is that if each return journey requires propellant, you need to restock. An EM rail gun can just use solar power for continuous return. Rail guns are a present day technology.
You will already need substantial solar power and batteries, that’s not in question.
You will already need substantial solar power and batteries, that’s not in question.
No-one is talking about multiple round trips to the asteroid. Moving the whole asteroid at once to a more mine-able location (the bottom of a gravity well, where people can actually use the material) is what I expect to be easier near term. Mass-driving from the asteroid to a target location is interesting too, but seems even more sci-fi. Frankly I don't expect to see either happen in my lifetime.
You're right, efficiency won't come first - but you're replying to a comment about efficient means. I'm 65plus, 30 yrs doesn't seem so very long to me.
Right. The bottom of a gravity well is a nuisance for anything other than human survival.
Or even physical catapult.
Only very few things worth having with an actual finite supply will remain. Land ownership on earth would be a big one.
As a great filter candidate, this transition could either allow for those massive technologically advancements, but it could just as well have us end up in another stone-age.
As a great filter candidate, this transition could either allow for those massive technologically advancements, but it could just as well have us end up in another stone-age.
There's no mystery to Mars, just letting its crust hang out there for all to see.
I agree. It’s quite scandalous.
I highly recommend anyone with any interest in space follow https://youtube.com/c/MarsGuy / he gives a weekly update on what the rovers find in great detail and it’s fascinating.
At the same time I continuously question if the findings they make wit these rovers continue to justify the multi billion dollar expense we make on these missions. I’d much rather we spend our limited resources on Venus and Europa, and actually starting to send interstellar probes than continuing to double down on Mars. It’s become a vanity project for billionaires anyway so let them figure out putting a man there. NASA can start focusing on the next step in exploration of space.
At the same time I continuously question if the findings they make wit these rovers continue to justify the multi billion dollar expense we make on these missions. I’d much rather we spend our limited resources on Venus and Europa, and actually starting to send interstellar probes than continuing to double down on Mars. It’s become a vanity project for billionaires anyway so let them figure out putting a man there. NASA can start focusing on the next step in exploration of space.
> It’s become a vanity project for billionaires anyway so let them figure out putting a man there.
That is one prominent billionaire's idea for stuff to do in the next decade yes... But he wasn't a major factor considered by NASA when the current projects were funded.
Otherwise I'd probably agree Mars might have gotten too much federal funding vs other projects in the last decade.
That is one prominent billionaire's idea for stuff to do in the next decade yes... But he wasn't a major factor considered by NASA when the current projects were funded.
Otherwise I'd probably agree Mars might have gotten too much federal funding vs other projects in the last decade.
I, for one, am eager to see any random billionaire go to Mars, provided they stay.
I would bet any amount of money none will.
I would bet any amount of money none will.
It's kind of funny to hear someone disappointed about a delay from 2028 to 2031. To my brain those both just fall into the same "long time away" bin.
[deleted]
NASA put out a press release as well. It has similar details and a link to the report itself. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-psyche-mission-moves-f...
> Important for these COVID-19-related findings was the lack of informal communication that the project team suffered in the absence of face-to-face interactions. In the past, JPL's success typically relied on senior members of projects and technical line organizations "walking the floor", dropping in for conversations at office doorways, or chatting in the cafeteria. Without these informal communication mechanisms, contextual clues and situational awareness were lost. Team members working the floor found it difficult to report problems up the chain over Webex, especially when attendees kept their cameras off."
> ... The lockdown conditions contributed significantly to the question of why Psyche and JPL leadership did not know of the severity of the problems with GNC and V&V until it was too late to correct course.
> ... The IRB recommends that, given these exceptional circumstances, the team should minimize remote work conditions.
JPL has been suffering a brain drain over the last few years, and it sounds like the remaining cadre of managers are not so competent. Remote work is a convenient scapegoat, but it is far more likely that the problem is an ossified chain of command and a lackluster set of communication tools (Webex, shudder).
> ... The lockdown conditions contributed significantly to the question of why Psyche and JPL leadership did not know of the severity of the problems with GNC and V&V until it was too late to correct course.
> ... The IRB recommends that, given these exceptional circumstances, the team should minimize remote work conditions.
JPL has been suffering a brain drain over the last few years, and it sounds like the remaining cadre of managers are not so competent. Remote work is a convenient scapegoat, but it is far more likely that the problem is an ossified chain of command and a lackluster set of communication tools (Webex, shudder).
I worked at NASA JSC for three years in the ISS cargo division; although I never interacted with the JPL teams, I did coordinate with a ton of people across SpaceX, Northop-Grumman, JAXA, ESA, Boeing, etc.
I simply cannot explain the level of organizational dysfunction in that institution. In many cases there were thoughtful and talented people in the job roles, but there were many blinding, glaring failures of basic information storage and availability across the entire org. My favorite example is having a hard time finding all of the requested cargo transactions for resupply flights in the cargo database because the "desired flight" field was a free-text entry instead of a drop-down menu connected to a central list of NASA flight title strings. I hammered on that issue for fifteen months straight and got absolutely nowhere with it, and I had a list of similar issues about seventy items long. If all of my issues had been addressed we probably could have reduced the number of people in the loop in cargo logistics by half.
The article is talking about leadership "walking the floor"--we had something similar happen, where I couldn't convince any of the major ISS divisions to fix their cargo data so we didn't have to interact face-to-face, but their higher-ups would call and email me to double check the status of a cargo request. They were "walking the floor" and "staying in touch", but only because they wouldn't (or couldn't) adopt any policies to make a streamlined system work. I don't know if the same thing is happening at JPL, but I have to assume that it is, given the pathological nature of the repeated communication failures I saw.
A well-organized institution should be able to provide clear visibility into their data and projects just through smart organization of their digital assets. If they don't have that basic competence, then they would be extra screwed by remote work.
I simply cannot explain the level of organizational dysfunction in that institution. In many cases there were thoughtful and talented people in the job roles, but there were many blinding, glaring failures of basic information storage and availability across the entire org. My favorite example is having a hard time finding all of the requested cargo transactions for resupply flights in the cargo database because the "desired flight" field was a free-text entry instead of a drop-down menu connected to a central list of NASA flight title strings. I hammered on that issue for fifteen months straight and got absolutely nowhere with it, and I had a list of similar issues about seventy items long. If all of my issues had been addressed we probably could have reduced the number of people in the loop in cargo logistics by half.
The article is talking about leadership "walking the floor"--we had something similar happen, where I couldn't convince any of the major ISS divisions to fix their cargo data so we didn't have to interact face-to-face, but their higher-ups would call and email me to double check the status of a cargo request. They were "walking the floor" and "staying in touch", but only because they wouldn't (or couldn't) adopt any policies to make a streamlined system work. I don't know if the same thing is happening at JPL, but I have to assume that it is, given the pathological nature of the repeated communication failures I saw.
A well-organized institution should be able to provide clear visibility into their data and projects just through smart organization of their digital assets. If they don't have that basic competence, then they would be extra screwed by remote work.
Agreed, speaking of remote work Voyager still going, that's fairly remote...that record must be platinum at this point
There is another org that works on "Moonshots" that is not dis-similar.
Smart is in no way an adequate replacement for having your shit together. It can temporarily mask it, long term, no way.
Smart is in no way an adequate replacement for having your shit together. It can temporarily mask it, long term, no way.
For the past decade I've worked for a company whose headquarters is 500 miles away. I have 3-6 video meetings a day with engineers at the headquarters (as well as all over the world).
Until the pandemic, I visited headquarters every few months to catch up with the teams. I found that in informal chats (in the halls, walking into someone's office, having lunch) I discovered so much that never came up during video calls. It's similar to, but worse than, formal in-person meetings with agendas; there's an activation energy people need to overcome to bring up something that may seem small but is actually critical to the project.
Someone in a video meetings with their camera off is even worse; you have almost no emotional connection with them, and it's natural for them to only "speak if spoken to".
Until the pandemic, I visited headquarters every few months to catch up with the teams. I found that in informal chats (in the halls, walking into someone's office, having lunch) I discovered so much that never came up during video calls. It's similar to, but worse than, formal in-person meetings with agendas; there's an activation energy people need to overcome to bring up something that may seem small but is actually critical to the project.
Someone in a video meetings with their camera off is even worse; you have almost no emotional connection with them, and it's natural for them to only "speak if spoken to".
> Remote work is a convenient scapegoat
It's the best thing bosses have going for them in terms of scapegoats.
Although you can't blame them for being uncomfortable with this level of change. Remote work mainstreaming, without the COVID excuse anymore, is a whole new experiment being tried for the first time widely in society.
It's the best thing bosses have going for them in terms of scapegoats.
Although you can't blame them for being uncomfortable with this level of change. Remote work mainstreaming, without the COVID excuse anymore, is a whole new experiment being tried for the first time widely in society.
WebEx does exactly the same thing as any of the other video chat clients. At least it did the last time I used it.
Agreed. Your link is the better link. "Put on blast" is wording that shouldn't really be used on hacker news for a technical subject.
Also here's the pdf link that's at the bottom of that page to the full set of comments along with NASA's responses: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psyche_...
Unfortunately it's a PDF of raw image scans.
Also here's the pdf link that's at the bottom of that page to the full set of comments along with NASA's responses: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psyche_...
Unfortunately it's a PDF of raw image scans.
Agreed about the wording. I understand adapting reporting to appeal to a wider, younger audience, but it also cheapens and lessens the importance of the reporting.
There's a long history in news of using a play on words for your story title to make it more catchy. I wonder if it's just that it's a less common term in your own experience that makes it more objectionable?
I could see Ars Technica making the same pun, and I wonder if they would get as much flak.
I could see Ars Technica making the same pun, and I wonder if they would get as much flak.
It's not just a less common term, it's a recently minted one, as in maybe 20 years ago. It's vernacular that made its way into spaces like twitter to get more widespread and mainstream adoption. I'm sure people who aren't part of those adoptive subcultures are frequently puzzled when they encounter the phrase, because it's grammatically obtuse.
Can that be made the official link?
I really don’t like the other site (we’re not supposed to complain about that kind of thing, so I won’t).
I really don’t like the other site (we’re not supposed to complain about that kind of thing, so I won’t).
Indeed. "Put on blast" is first of all slang and therefore anti-intellectual, ageist, and soon to become antiquated itself. Worse, it's ambiguous: A web search turns up alternate meanings, either public vilification, or publicizing of personal details (aka "doxxing).
[deleted]
> which is set to investigate a rare metal asteroid that could be worth a reported $10 quintillion dollars if mined.
World GDP is ~100T per year. I'm guessing that estimate was just the amount of rare earth metals times the current price, but the magnitude it ignored economic realities is comedic.
World GDP is ~100T per year. I'm guessing that estimate was just the amount of rare earth metals times the current price, but the magnitude it ignored economic realities is comedic.
The asteroid is 16 Psyche, which is a 220-km-diameter M-type asteroid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche doesn't say what metals it's supposed to be comprised of, but rare-earth metals are not very likely and not suggested by the article. A more likely set of "rare metals" is platinum-group metals.
16 Psyche is 2.3e19 kg, according to WP, so 10 quintillion dollars works out to 43¢ per kg. It's pretty plausible that any kind of metal would be worth at least 43¢ per kg, it wouldn't even have to be very rare. Even steel is worth abut that much. If you're going to use it on Earth you'd be better off mining iron ore on Earth, but you can't do that with platinum-group metals, and if you want to use steel for construction in space, it's a huge advantage if it's already there instead of having to be lifted out of a gravity well.
I don't think there's an obviously correct way to compare economic value across generations' worth of time. 100 years ago people didn't have antibiotics, so death from infected wounds was common, even wounds that would be minor today. But old-growth lumber was abundant.
16 Psyche is 2.3e19 kg, according to WP, so 10 quintillion dollars works out to 43¢ per kg. It's pretty plausible that any kind of metal would be worth at least 43¢ per kg, it wouldn't even have to be very rare. Even steel is worth abut that much. If you're going to use it on Earth you'd be better off mining iron ore on Earth, but you can't do that with platinum-group metals, and if you want to use steel for construction in space, it's a huge advantage if it's already there instead of having to be lifted out of a gravity well.
I don't think there's an obviously correct way to compare economic value across generations' worth of time. 100 years ago people didn't have antibiotics, so death from infected wounds was common, even wounds that would be minor today. But old-growth lumber was abundant.
[deleted]
Whilst a salient point, it wouldn't be as though they turn up one day with $10Qn of metals to sell on the market.
It might take decades, even centuries to return that to Earth, and of course how would they be able to do that, the amount of fuel required itself would mean that the price of that would be huge.
I doubt solar sails would be that viable, and the idea of the oceans going dry in order to produce the fuel to return metals would be a tad far fetched.
It might take decades, even centuries to return that to Earth, and of course how would they be able to do that, the amount of fuel required itself would mean that the price of that would be huge.
I doubt solar sails would be that viable, and the idea of the oceans going dry in order to produce the fuel to return metals would be a tad far fetched.
Although perhaps using the less valuable parts of the asteroid as reactive mass might be useful idea. That though would end up with billions of projectiles in random orbits around the Sun.
aren't there any "gravitational rivers" from that asteroids one could use to slowly have the mining cargos float to an area close to earth ?
That line actually made me think the whole thing was satire for a bit. I actually came back to the HN comments to see if people here were taking the article seriously.
The culture of ignoring clearly-voiced problems has killed so many projects and companies.
My anecdotal experience is that things just fall off the table if not constantly raised again and again.
It is ignored because something else came up and that one was forgotten.
It is ignored because something else came up and that one was forgotten.
It was forgotten because the people receiving the message do not understand. They don't have a solid mental model that they can use to calculate cause and effect. They are unable to gauge severity or risk.
They might not even be able to differentiate from risks and deliverables. Tasks falling off any list shows that the relative importance of the task is not known, only recency is.
They might not even be able to differentiate from risks and deliverables. Tasks falling off any list shows that the relative importance of the task is not known, only recency is.
And in the case of NASA: quite a few astronauts
There was no reason that the Challenger disaster could not have been prevented.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/470870426...
If I were Ebeling, I'd've punched my manager.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/470870426...
If I were Ebeling, I'd've punched my manager.
Solution - gotta give NASA and other government agencies money. That is the only solution
It’s largely a cultural problem, but money certainly factors in.
There isn’t a culture of trust, where people are encouraged to bring up problems and can instead be labeled as slowing a project down. There is also a culture of deliberately avoiding acknowledging issues in hopes they will just go away. This leads to a lack of decisiveness because nobody wants to stick their neck out to either say “no we don’t think that’s a credible risk” but also don’t want to invest resources in mitigating that risk.
There isn’t a culture of trust, where people are encouraged to bring up problems and can instead be labeled as slowing a project down. There is also a culture of deliberately avoiding acknowledging issues in hopes they will just go away. This leads to a lack of decisiveness because nobody wants to stick their neck out to either say “no we don’t think that’s a credible risk” but also don’t want to invest resources in mitigating that risk.
I'm curious which projects and companies you're thinking of. Would you mind sharing?
I can mainly think of companies and projects from my professional experience, and it wouldn't be my place to publicly speak about these things. But I believe that many engineers like me have worked on death march projects where their critical problems have been brought up with management and thoroughly ignored.
Still, to try and give you some examples, Google Glass was known to be a failed product early on due to technical and practical problems voiced by engineers. But there was a culture of optimism or wilful ignorance at Google about Glass, so the project continued until it died due to these problems. And there are some articles on Hacker News about it. Right now there are murmurs online that Meta engineers are very aware that the metaverse is not engaging and VR efforts should pivot elsewhere. Yet the management seems to ignore this, even at tremendous cost to the company value. The whole VR effort at Meta could die because of this.
The interesting aspect of this culture is that it's not a "hindsight is 20-20" situation. In complete contrast, it's that engineers bring up problems that will significantly harm a project or a company in the future, but are ignored.
Still, to try and give you some examples, Google Glass was known to be a failed product early on due to technical and practical problems voiced by engineers. But there was a culture of optimism or wilful ignorance at Google about Glass, so the project continued until it died due to these problems. And there are some articles on Hacker News about it. Right now there are murmurs online that Meta engineers are very aware that the metaverse is not engaging and VR efforts should pivot elsewhere. Yet the management seems to ignore this, even at tremendous cost to the company value. The whole VR effort at Meta could die because of this.
The interesting aspect of this culture is that it's not a "hindsight is 20-20" situation. In complete contrast, it's that engineers bring up problems that will significantly harm a project or a company in the future, but are ignored.
As of a few years ago I believe Google Glass was actually put to good use, by medical scribes. Not sure if that had changed or not. It seemed like the focus on consumers was the part that failed, not the technology.
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/google-glass-powered-m...
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/google-glass-powered-m...
That's a great counter-point. Still, I believe that the "moonshot" Google Glass project could have succeeded as well if they listened to internal feedback earlier.
I mean, Google Glass was crap and they did some dumb things there, but because they had a limited release, most people don't know how unusable it was, and it probably increases their cool high-tech image. Although, maybe it increases their out-of-touch image too (especially in the glasshole phase); but it doesn't contribute to killed by google, really.
Also, Google Watch is basically Google Glass on a wrist, so building it out wasn't a complete waste.
Also, Google Watch is basically Google Glass on a wrist, so building it out wasn't a complete waste.
Metaverse being “not-engaging” is not an engineering type of observation, rather some kind of psychology/marketing type of insight. I wouldn’t trust engineers telling me something is, or is not going to be engaging to the general public.
In my experience, this is one of the ways that valid problems are dismissed. Engineers (and people in other disciplines) dogfooding and building the product should be listened to when they bring up these issues. They have T-shaped skills and an understanding of how the software works, as well as whether it can meet consumer expectations. There should not be gatekeeping about who can have insights into the product and who can't.
I think that you hit the nail on the head with the word "trust" - in many companies there should be more trust from management that engineers understand the context within which they work, and could have very unique and valid insights into how their software and hardware will be received by the consumer.
I think that you hit the nail on the head with the word "trust" - in many companies there should be more trust from management that engineers understand the context within which they work, and could have very unique and valid insights into how their software and hardware will be received by the consumer.
B737-MAX. (It didn't kill the company, just a few hundred passengers, but I still think that qualifies.)
Probably easier to make a list of products that don’t suffer from this.
It would take a college class on the subject to do the topic justice, but the one that comes to mind readily for me is the Space shuttle O-ring disaster.
About the space shuttle o-ring disaster: what I feel being left out of the story is how often did previous warnings come up which turned out to be false?
The story as it is often told is that an engineer raised issue X, management dismissed it, issue X caused multiple deaths.
And when told like that it is obvious that management should not have ignored X. But what were the managements’ experience with warnings like that before?
Obviously they should have evaluated every warning on their merrits, but if the organisation was “crying wolf” all the time, one can imagine that can influence the decision making.
The story as it is often told is that an engineer raised issue X, management dismissed it, issue X caused multiple deaths.
And when told like that it is obvious that management should not have ignored X. But what were the managements’ experience with warnings like that before?
Obviously they should have evaluated every warning on their merrits, but if the organisation was “crying wolf” all the time, one can imagine that can influence the decision making.
Read Richard Feynman's addendum on the Challenger disaster. It answers everything you want to know.
Columbia insulation damage as well. I'm not as familiar with the results of investigations with Columbia though to know if there was advice being ignored there too.
I don’t think there were the comparable warnings like Challenger. They actually struggled to recreate the impact in the lab afterwards. Talking to someone working on it, when they did finally recreate the effect, it was using parameters outside the test scope. From that perspective, it sounds very much like it was an unknown. * You can find the investigation report online [1]
* yes, they knew of the foam shedding, and knew it was out of spec. But they didn’t realize it could puncture the tiles in that manner.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html
* yes, they knew of the foam shedding, and knew it was out of spec. But they didn’t realize it could puncture the tiles in that manner.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html
Basically, they assumed that because all the damage they saw wasn't a threat to the orbiter that it couldn't be a threat to the orbiter. The orbiters could survive holes in the heat shield in most places so long as they weren't too numerous, but there were some key spots that would result in a loss.
They saw hundreds of spots of damage and decided it was just a nuisance, they never considered that there could be spots that wouldn't just be a nuisance. Beancounters unwilling to acknowledge a problem until it was decisively proven--and the only proof was a loss of the orbiter.
They saw hundreds of spots of damage and decided it was just a nuisance, they never considered that there could be spots that wouldn't just be a nuisance. Beancounters unwilling to acknowledge a problem until it was decisively proven--and the only proof was a loss of the orbiter.
Kinda, but that’s not the full story. They didn’t realize the foam was physically capable of producing that damage. For one, the deltaV was higher than previous incidents because of when it occurred in the flight profile. And secondly, the foam demonstrated unknown characteristics at those speeds. They didn’t find that out until they tested the case afterwards and, since they couldn’t reproduce the effect, they basically said “let’s turn it up to 11 for shits and giggles and see what happens.” And voilà, the foam suddenly acted in an unexpected way that produced more damage.
It wasn’t really a “beancounter” issue. It came from the fact that we have imperfect models of physical systems and sometimes we encounter issues outside the boundaries of those model assumptions.
It wasn’t really a “beancounter” issue. It came from the fact that we have imperfect models of physical systems and sometimes we encounter issues outside the boundaries of those model assumptions.
I don’t have any insight about the delay but this year I read A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman, a memoir of the project manager behind the original proposal for this mission. While not exclusively about Psyche it was a great book with an interesting behind-the-scenes into the NASA mission selection process. It got me excited for the mission and sad about the delay.
Scifi story: private interests bribed management at JPL to scuttle the mission so they could send a secret mission to collect the loot for themselves... or protect their precious metal cartel from devaluation.
This is already the plot of - spoilers - Don't Look Up.
I watched it, and either my memory sucks, or that wasn't the plot.
From Wikipedia:
> When news of Orlean's sex scandal with her Supreme Court nominee Sheriff Conlon is exposed, she distracts from the bad publicity by finally confirming the threat and announcing a project to strike and divert the comet using nuclear weapons.
>The mission successfully launches, but Orlean abruptly aborts it when Peter Isherwell, the billionaire CEO of BASH Cellular and another top donor, discovers that the comet contains trillions of dollars worth of rare-earth elements. The White House agrees to commercially exploit the comet by fragmenting and recovering it from the ocean, using technology proposed by BASH in a scheme that has not undergone peer review.
>Orlean cuts Russia, India, and China out of the comet-mining deal, so they prepare a joint effort to deflect the comet, only for their spacecraft to explode. BASH's attempt at breaking the comet apart also goes awry and everyone realizes that humanity is doomed.
> When news of Orlean's sex scandal with her Supreme Court nominee Sheriff Conlon is exposed, she distracts from the bad publicity by finally confirming the threat and announcing a project to strike and divert the comet using nuclear weapons.
>The mission successfully launches, but Orlean abruptly aborts it when Peter Isherwell, the billionaire CEO of BASH Cellular and another top donor, discovers that the comet contains trillions of dollars worth of rare-earth elements. The White House agrees to commercially exploit the comet by fragmenting and recovering it from the ocean, using technology proposed by BASH in a scheme that has not undergone peer review.
>Orlean cuts Russia, India, and China out of the comet-mining deal, so they prepare a joint effort to deflect the comet, only for their spacecraft to explode. BASH's attempt at breaking the comet apart also goes awry and everyone realizes that humanity is doomed.
It was a major plot driver, but not the whole plot. You probably forgot it because the movie itself was forgettable.
The plot and writing was low-effort and lazy.
“Put on blast”?
Never heard this idiom.
Never heard this idiom.
put me on blast on MTV
"Yeah, he's cute, but I think he's married to Kim, hee-hee!"
From an eminem song, from ~the year 2000. That's the only place I'd heard it before
I think it was from urban slang in the 90s.
An informal definition of "blast" is a severe verbal reprimand, and it is unlikely you've never heard it used that way because it originates in the US in the late 19th century. "Put on blast" means to embarrass publicly by admonishing, and also originates in the US, but is much more recent. Compare to "put on full blast," (sound familiar?) which has a different but related meaning, but like all these uses originate from Old English blæst "a blowing, a breeze, puff of wind," and later, blast furnace, the idea of forcing air to increase combustion for smelting iron.
Another sign of getting old is it's not just the whippersnappers using slang I don't understand, now it's showing up it news headlines too.
Also, current slang in headlines seems like an odd choice anyway. I get there's a not-great pun there and all, but the article doesn't seem like it's written for an audience that already knows what "on blast" means.
Also, current slang in headlines seems like an odd choice anyway. I get there's a not-great pun there and all, but the article doesn't seem like it's written for an audience that already knows what "on blast" means.
You're > 22 years out of date on that one then, a google search showed 'on blast' being used since at least the year 2000
Common American (and online) slang meaning calling out someone. I believe it originates from Chicago or the Midwest but it got popularized on social media like a lot of other slang in the 2010s and now is pretty much used everywhere especially among Gen Z.
As a Gen Z, TIL "put on blast" is not just a normal common phrase
A bit obscure for the US, but fits well as a pun when the topic is NASA and JPL.
I think it comes from british slang where to blast someone means to exclaim annoyance at them. May have heard the exclamation like "oh blast it" when something goes wrong.
Thanks. I’ve never heard this in the states.
I've only ever heard it in the episode "I will put your kids on blast" of the podcast Harmontown:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Harmontown/comments/80z0w6/episode_...
https://old.reddit.com/r/Harmontown/comments/80z0w6/episode_...
Don't watch Family Guy then? "Blast!" is one of Stewie's favorite expletives.
geuis(3)
Opinion: NASA puts JPL on Blast, maybe a more proactive approach should be putting themselves on blast for not having the ability to take responsibility for joint project failures, enough with blame games, this is suppose to be a collaborative endeavor to explore and advance our collective knowledge. We f'd it up as a partner with beurocractic mismanagement, time to own our own mistakes and learn from them instead of finger pointing all the time. Reminds me of that time we decided to code imperial and metric into a system that accidentally and successfully tested how to plow a large amount of money into the surface of Mars. Let's all do better together.
Some context - Laurie Leshin, the director of the JPL, recently joined the lab after resigning from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some say she resigned as suicides rocked the school and complaints about mismanagement flooded in [1].
I'm curious if there's any sort of pattern here, and how much of the blame can fall on the director.
[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/03/multiple-suic...
I'm curious if there's any sort of pattern here, and how much of the blame can fall on the director.
[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/03/multiple-suic...
Hard to put much blame on her I think. She only joined JPL this year. Psyche was selected back in 2017.
The possibility that the Psyche asteroid might be the ancient core of a long lost solar system planet is very cool. We won't know until it's visited, so the delay is unfortunate.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psyche_...
I was impressed with the report, it seemed comprehensive. I think all of the answers are in there if you read carefully and read a little into what is said.
The depletion and lack of availability of experienced technical personnel is repeatedly cited as the leading cause of the failure to develop quality software on schedule. The paper's authors don't explicitly discuss the possibility that the issues might not just be administrative problems, but that there could also be technical and system design issues with the project. On a superficial level, the report's recommendations are evaluating and solving problems in administrative ways: hire more people, improve communication, reduce remote work, improve retention (hard to do those last two at the same time).
If the overall lack of experienced technical personnel were such an issue, why are the project failures on the software side, with zero issues reported on the mechanical side?
From a system design perspective, a key issue is running into a problem and deciding to "deal with it with the software". This is done without thinking through the issue, effectively kicking the can down the road. Problem solving is postponed. Once the software is being written, it's too late to solve the problem at a system design level.
Another way to see it is that deep structural system design flaws, or any other reason to suspect that the project would fail, could have prompted an exodus of experienced personnel that saw project failure coming early on in the project. The report doesn't explicitly evaluate the system design, but has a good overview of the project fundamentals. One hint is the slide talking about how they shouldn't be trying to integrate a third-party commercial orbiter designed for Earth operations for their deep-space operation. That would be an example of a top-down system design flaw, where it would be (and probably was for many) easier to just get another job or transfer to a different department than to try to fix the holes.
One of the most telling comments is calling for a more rigorous annual review of the JPL Director's performance, right there in the report. I cannot believe they did that, talk about speaking truth to power. Good for them! Then the JPL director's signature is on the document, right at the top. It's an unfortunate situation, I'm sure they all know exactly what convening a 15-person council and releasing a public report will do to project and organizational morale.
Here are my suggestions: 1. Project leaders (and organization leaders) should able to convince everyone around them that success will be achieved, see "Reality Distortion Field" 2. Complex and dynamic functionality needs to be replaced where possible with simple and static functionality. 3. It sounds like there are cultural issues coming from the top (and unfortunately, probably from above the top). 4. Technicians and leaders should be competent first and experienced or senior second. 5. If no one competent and experienced with a Reality Distortion Field wants to touch a project, then probably better to just cancel it. 6. On any project aspect, individual contributors would work best with clearly defined requirements and without distractions. Writing the requirements properly is probably most of the work.
I was impressed with the report, it seemed comprehensive. I think all of the answers are in there if you read carefully and read a little into what is said.
The depletion and lack of availability of experienced technical personnel is repeatedly cited as the leading cause of the failure to develop quality software on schedule. The paper's authors don't explicitly discuss the possibility that the issues might not just be administrative problems, but that there could also be technical and system design issues with the project. On a superficial level, the report's recommendations are evaluating and solving problems in administrative ways: hire more people, improve communication, reduce remote work, improve retention (hard to do those last two at the same time).
If the overall lack of experienced technical personnel were such an issue, why are the project failures on the software side, with zero issues reported on the mechanical side?
From a system design perspective, a key issue is running into a problem and deciding to "deal with it with the software". This is done without thinking through the issue, effectively kicking the can down the road. Problem solving is postponed. Once the software is being written, it's too late to solve the problem at a system design level.
Another way to see it is that deep structural system design flaws, or any other reason to suspect that the project would fail, could have prompted an exodus of experienced personnel that saw project failure coming early on in the project. The report doesn't explicitly evaluate the system design, but has a good overview of the project fundamentals. One hint is the slide talking about how they shouldn't be trying to integrate a third-party commercial orbiter designed for Earth operations for their deep-space operation. That would be an example of a top-down system design flaw, where it would be (and probably was for many) easier to just get another job or transfer to a different department than to try to fix the holes.
One of the most telling comments is calling for a more rigorous annual review of the JPL Director's performance, right there in the report. I cannot believe they did that, talk about speaking truth to power. Good for them! Then the JPL director's signature is on the document, right at the top. It's an unfortunate situation, I'm sure they all know exactly what convening a 15-person council and releasing a public report will do to project and organizational morale.
Here are my suggestions: 1. Project leaders (and organization leaders) should able to convince everyone around them that success will be achieved, see "Reality Distortion Field" 2. Complex and dynamic functionality needs to be replaced where possible with simple and static functionality. 3. It sounds like there are cultural issues coming from the top (and unfortunately, probably from above the top). 4. Technicians and leaders should be competent first and experienced or senior second. 5. If no one competent and experienced with a Reality Distortion Field wants to touch a project, then probably better to just cancel it. 6. On any project aspect, individual contributors would work best with clearly defined requirements and without distractions. Writing the requirements properly is probably most of the work.
> If the overall lack of experienced technical personnel were such an issue, why are the project failures on the software side, with zero issues reported on the mechanical side?
Slide 38 explicitly lists staffing challenges in GNC (guidance, navigation, and control), FSW (flight software), avionics, and systems engineer.
Slide 41 also talks about external factors: "...this has required the experienced cadre to be spread thin... the rise of the commercial space industry in recent years has resulted in competition for experienced personnel, particularly in the systems engineering, GNC, and FSW areas."
Slide 38 explicitly lists staffing challenges in GNC (guidance, navigation, and control), FSW (flight software), avionics, and systems engineer.
Slide 41 also talks about external factors: "...this has required the experienced cadre to be spread thin... the rise of the commercial space industry in recent years has resulted in competition for experienced personnel, particularly in the systems engineering, GNC, and FSW areas."
Different NASA centers have very different cultures, with their pros and cons. JPL is known to have a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.
This is kind of a weird take. I used to work at JPL but I didn't stay due to it not being the right cultural fit for me.
With that said, my perspective as a former NASA insider is that JPL is known for the exact opposite, underperforming and overdelivering.
I mean, they have a nearly perfect track record of mission success (sorry Beagle) and when the missions do succeed they often persist for many times over the original lifetime requirement.
Additionally, and yes this is a vast oversimplification, if you just look generally at space exploration missions, they are far more prolific than any other NASA center.
With that said, my perspective as a former NASA insider is that JPL is known for the exact opposite, underperforming and overdelivering.
I mean, they have a nearly perfect track record of mission success (sorry Beagle) and when the missions do succeed they often persist for many times over the original lifetime requirement.
Additionally, and yes this is a vast oversimplification, if you just look generally at space exploration missions, they are far more prolific than any other NASA center.
> This is kind of a weird take. I used to work at JPL but I didn't stay due to it not being the right cultural fit for me.
Any war stories you want to share?
Any war stories you want to share?
Nothing particularly interesting. I was very junior during my time there, working modeling and simulation tools for spacecraft that had already been up for over a decade.
I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.
I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.
> I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.
I remember this well, I saw the footage of the footage they shot during the event on the lawn at CalTech as it happened in a presentation I attended with one of the members of the program at CU Boulder a few days/weeks after the 'end of mission.'
It looked incredibly emotive, did you decide to leave JPL for private Industry?
I can't imagine you wanted to stay in the public sector (NASA) if that is how you felt about it; I say that despite having conflicting views from two who worked at the AIMS program: Josiah Zayner (Biohacker) was disgruntled, whereas Shannon Rupert (Director of MDRS) has continued her work with both Mars Society and NASA.
I remember this well, I saw the footage of the footage they shot during the event on the lawn at CalTech as it happened in a presentation I attended with one of the members of the program at CU Boulder a few days/weeks after the 'end of mission.'
It looked incredibly emotive, did you decide to leave JPL for private Industry?
I can't imagine you wanted to stay in the public sector (NASA) if that is how you felt about it; I say that despite having conflicting views from two who worked at the AIMS program: Josiah Zayner (Biohacker) was disgruntled, whereas Shannon Rupert (Director of MDRS) has continued her work with both Mars Society and NASA.
I answered more in depth about why I left above, but basically the work environment felt a little too academic and a little too static for my liking Aerospace is my passion, so I’m still in that world. But just somewhere in private industry where things change a little more rapidly.
What about the culture made it not a good fit?
This is all my personal experience working there for two years as an extremely junior engineer more than five years ago, so take with a grain of salt.
JPL’s culture is very academic in nature. I mean JPL is literally an arm of Caltech that contracts exclusively to NASA and a limited set of other federal bodies. My experience was that there wasn’t a huge focus there on career growth. Many people there seemed to be happy to spend decades doing basically the same job. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to work. A lot of incredible technical talent and extremely interesting people work there just because it’s JPL. The campus is gorgeous, Pasadena is an insanely nice place to live. Downside is JPL salaries are on the low end even for aerospace and Pasadena is expensive.
Personally I just wanted a more dynamic work environment.
JPL’s culture is very academic in nature. I mean JPL is literally an arm of Caltech that contracts exclusively to NASA and a limited set of other federal bodies. My experience was that there wasn’t a huge focus there on career growth. Many people there seemed to be happy to spend decades doing basically the same job. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to work. A lot of incredible technical talent and extremely interesting people work there just because it’s JPL. The campus is gorgeous, Pasadena is an insanely nice place to live. Downside is JPL salaries are on the low end even for aerospace and Pasadena is expensive.
Personally I just wanted a more dynamic work environment.
I used to work at JPL and I have been a vocal critic of theirs at times but I think you are completely off the mark here. Most of the time JPL delivers. (It's actually pretty amazing when you have seen how the sausage gets made.)
Surprising that Musk doesn't have a self-funded project to check out that asteroid and bring samples back. Looks profitable.
Wouldn't be. The "$ quintillion" figure is just clickbait.
Ore on Earth is worth a lot more, and is right here, ready to be dug up.
Ore on Earth is worth a lot more, and is right here, ready to be dug up.
> Wouldn't be. The "$ quintillion" figure is just clickbait.
Source? At this point we can't know for sure, which this mission is supposed to determine. But we know its size, and estimating its composition puts it into trillion or quadrillion dollar territory, which is still a crazy amount.
And we're talking about a _single_ asteroid. The possible value found in the asteroid belt is—literally—astronomical.
> Ore on Earth is worth a lot more, and is right here, ready to be dug up.
Not quite. Ore on Earth is limited, and increasingly difficult to mine, requiring costly processing, deep sea expeditions, and producing toxic side effects for the environment. It's also politically problematic, as countries control access and exportation.
Asteroid mining would be much more expensive, but the ROI could potentially be much more lucrative. Once the space operation is setup, costs would eventually come down, and it opens up many further space exploration opportunities.
SpaceX is in a unique position to be one of the first companies to launch such missions, that I'm also surprised that Musk is not jumping at the opportunity.
It would still be a political challenge, and it creates new conflict arenas, but this is inescapable human nature.
Asteroid mining is inevitable and we'll get there eventually. Beltalowda!
Source? At this point we can't know for sure, which this mission is supposed to determine. But we know its size, and estimating its composition puts it into trillion or quadrillion dollar territory, which is still a crazy amount.
And we're talking about a _single_ asteroid. The possible value found in the asteroid belt is—literally—astronomical.
> Ore on Earth is worth a lot more, and is right here, ready to be dug up.
Not quite. Ore on Earth is limited, and increasingly difficult to mine, requiring costly processing, deep sea expeditions, and producing toxic side effects for the environment. It's also politically problematic, as countries control access and exportation.
Asteroid mining would be much more expensive, but the ROI could potentially be much more lucrative. Once the space operation is setup, costs would eventually come down, and it opens up many further space exploration opportunities.
SpaceX is in a unique position to be one of the first companies to launch such missions, that I'm also surprised that Musk is not jumping at the opportunity.
It would still be a political challenge, and it creates new conflict arenas, but this is inescapable human nature.
Asteroid mining is inevitable and we'll get there eventually. Beltalowda!
It is odd to mention expense for terrestrial mining in this context.
Asteroid material will become important once orbital construction has seriously taken off, after Musk is long dead. In the meantime, the only valuable exports will be the engines that got supplies out there. With their bells cut off.
Asteroid material will become important once orbital construction has seriously taken off, after Musk is long dead. In the meantime, the only valuable exports will be the engines that got supplies out there. With their bells cut off.
> It is odd to mention expense for terrestrial mining in this context.
Only to point out that it's not "worth a lot more", nor that it's "ready to be dug up".
> Asteroid material will become important once orbital construction has seriously taken off, after Musk is long dead.
Possibly, but Mars exploration is an even longer-term bet, which has little to no financial benefits.
Considering Musk has experience in boring, space, and starting outlandish ventures, asteroid mining seems like a good fit. It could be a lucrative shorter-term project, that could fund his Mars and beyond exploration goals. It might even be achievable within his lifetime, by focusing on near-Earth objects.
Granted, this is all speculation from a layperson, but I'm curious if this has ever been considered.
Only to point out that it's not "worth a lot more", nor that it's "ready to be dug up".
> Asteroid material will become important once orbital construction has seriously taken off, after Musk is long dead.
Possibly, but Mars exploration is an even longer-term bet, which has little to no financial benefits.
Considering Musk has experience in boring, space, and starting outlandish ventures, asteroid mining seems like a good fit. It could be a lucrative shorter-term project, that could fund his Mars and beyond exploration goals. It might even be achievable within his lifetime, by focusing on near-Earth objects.
Granted, this is all speculation from a layperson, but I'm curious if this has ever been considered.
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There is a limited market for stuff. If you manage to massively increase the supply the price will go down.
Surely the pioneers in this business would be well aware of that fact, and would presumably control the supply. Although the goal is ultimately to lower prices and make these elements ubiquitous, the transition wouldn't happen overnight. It's likely that logistical limits in transporting the material back to Earth would be enough to avoid crashing the markets.
Not surprising at all. SpaceX has no experience building and delivering a functioning payload beyond the orbit of the Earth.
- no effort
- no responsibility
- overpaid with free money
The society you deserve..
This team of former NASA employees are a relic of the past unfortunately, they should investigate other companies too, including Microsoft, that would be fun :)
- no responsibility
- overpaid with free money
The society you deserve..
This team of former NASA employees are a relic of the past unfortunately, they should investigate other companies too, including Microsoft, that would be fun :)
Well the review board found that senior executives failed in their responsibilities and had no project insight (but remain today), so on that part you are correct, but they also found that the actual engineers were understaffed and underpaid in face of aggressive hiring from space startups. The solution they propose, of course, is to cancel remote work, the root of all problems when the worker bees won't budge.
That is bias on your part. The review also found that lack of informal communication was a factor and recommended minimizing remote and hybrid work.
Pages 32, 33
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psyche_...
Pages 32, 33
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/psyche_...
but who's job is it to make sure that communication is happening, again; and to structure the workplace or culture so that happens? Mostly the bosses.
that part definitely stood out to me as well. I mean, clearly there are some parts of spacecraft / mission design that are best done in person, but the recommendations of the IRB definitely won't help the staffing issues.
That's extremely disappointing. Venus is easily the 2nd most interesting planet "close" to us besides Mars. I was really looking forward to that one.
> From the standpoint of total mass delivered to Venus, the best launch opportunities occur in 2029 and 2031.
It's too bad Russia's ambitious space programs are mosty vaporware. They pinoeered Venus exploration and have their own (pretend) Venus program that AFAIK isn't going anywhere.
> a proposed Russian space mission to Venus that would include an orbiter and a lander to be launched in 2029.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera-D?wprov=sfti1