Space Exploration II: Always Looking up

[MichVandal]

I should add that my perspective is a former engineer in an automotive company- one that constantly was being sued for many things, and it wasn’t often one heard about whistleblowers. So for an Elmo company, yea.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

While I don’t understand the specifics of space flight, the big difference is that with patience and testing, multiple companies worked together to succeed in less time vs one company has barely gotten into space reusing a lot of their own stuff. A company who sold the country a bill of goods that is almost a decade late and certainly will be by the time they finish, if they ever do.

Yeah, but the important people got rich. That's all that's mattered. Humanity is only a profit game.

 

[LynahFan]

My dad, to be exact.

But I don't have any legacy issues of my own, no siree. Still plenty of time to win a Nobel Prize...

And my uncle and namesake - he was an intern/co-op from Cornell ('65) when when he helped design the "orange foil" thermal insulation that would be used on the lander.

 

[LynahFan]

I have no reason to doubt SpaceX is a full-on con at the mahogany row / finance level. But the engineers and technical staff are a different breed of cat. And if they were a shit show you'd get well-informed and highly credible people peeling off and whistle blowing.

I dunno - engineers are not immune to twisting their views into Gordian knots to avoid cognitive dissonance. After working 80-hour weeks for 3 years straight, an awful lot of people would have a hard time admitting that they were duped into working on a shit show, after it was something that they had so completely devoted their lives to.

You know....like a cult.

 

[Kepler]

Interesting take. A lot have left and started their own company. But it seems that there has been a tight NDA preventing anyone from learning how they are blowing our dollars up.

Especially since many of their design decisions are pretty odd. Like landing such a massive craft on the moon when physics hasn’t changed.

No NDA can stop you from reporting a crime. That is unenforceable.

Note: I don't know this for a fact, I am assuming it, but maybe the corruption is truly that ingrained now.

Edit: There is a doctrine known as "Void Against Public Policy" which protects just this. However, it's only for criminal acts, not stuff covered under civil litigation. I guess there are carve outs for civil litigation but they are explicitly statutory. If we have a lawyer I'll let them pick it up.

 

[Kepler]

I dunno - engineers are not immune to twisting their views into Gordian knots to avoid cognitive dissonance. After working 80-hour weeks for 3 years straight, an awful lot of people would have a hard time admitting that they were duped into working on a shit show, after it was something that they had so completely devoted their lives to.

You know....like a cult.

I choose to believe there is integrity in science, and some of it slops over into engineering.

 

[MichVandal]

No NDA can stop you from reporting a crime. That is unenforceable.

Note: I don't know this for a fact, I am assuming it, but maybe the corruption is truly that ingrained now.

Edit: There is a doctrine known as "Void Against Public Policy" which protects just this. However, it's only for criminal acts, not stuff covered under civil litigation. I guess there are carve outs for civil litigation but they are explicitly statutory. If we have a lawyer I'll let them pick it up.

I don't think being stupid and making dumb design and development decisions is criminal. And wasting tax payer money is done to become a billionaire.