Blue Origin thread.

[Rakaydos]

1 minute ago, Jacke said:

What @wumpus and @tater said.  I've read a lot on what I lived through: the Space Race in the 1960's.  What you only get by reading enough is that was built on a lot of budgets and a lot of effort from the staff that broke lives and marriages.

Just because that level of effort now is demanded by many businesses doesn't make it right.

Which is why SpaceX preferentially hires those with no lives to break, no marriages to ruin. Let them give the best years of their life to an inspirational cause, and let them sort out their social situation when they're ready to slow down.

[Jacke]

5 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Which is why SpaceX preferentially hires those with no lives to break, no marriages to ruin. Let them give the best years of their life to an inspirational cause, and let them sort out their social situation when they're ready to slow down.

There are always lives to break and often marriages too.  Poor and abusive leadership is always wrong.  Not to mention that's where things go wrong.

What's out there is worse than what the military asks of its soldiers and certainly doesn't provide the support and compensation that the military does.

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Poor and abusive leadership is always wrong.

I agree, and this is absolutely not the case, SpaceX has a very good employee approval rating as well asl low rate of accidents. It simply reduces to having 12 hour shifts doing at least 7 shifts every 2 weeks, remaining open 24/7

[tater]

A friend put it to me this way. There are 168 hours a week, which is 4.2 work weeks of 40 hours. With some slop, call it 4 weeks per week. A company can do 10 years worth of work in 2.5 years if they work 24/7.

NG will have taken BO about 10 years to complete. Would have taken 2.5 with 24 hours of work—that's the time from Starhopper being spotted to today at Boca Chica.

 

3 hours ago, Jacke said:

There are always lives to break and often marriages too.  Poor and abusive leadership is always wrong.  Not to mention that's where things go wrong.

Working for someone is a choice. Don't like company A? Don't work for them.

 

3 hours ago, Jacke said:

What's out there is worse than what the military asks of its soldiers and certainly doesn't provide the support and compensation that the military does.

Riiiight. See above.

FWIW, if I was working on actually fabricating rockets at Boca Chica, I think I would prefer the night shift. Here in the SW it's HOT in the sunlight, and in coastal TX, humid as well. The difference between 80-something degrees and sunny, and the same temp cloudy or at night is profound... particularly working in a hall of mirrors.

It's not like the workers are working 168 hours a week, after all, the total number of hours worked to accomplish the task is the same, they just hire 4X as many people, and do it in 1/4 the time (in 3 shifts a day)

 

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by tater

[Jacke]

4 hours ago, Jacke said:

There are always lives to break and often marriages too.  Poor and abusive leadership is always wrong.  Not to mention that's where things go wrong.

1 hour ago, tater said:

Working for someone is a choice. Don't like company A? Don't work for them.

So wrongs are okay as long as there's someone doing it right?  Hopefully everyone knows and can pick not-A.

Just because someone should be very careful to make sure it's not a bad company to work for doesn't change that bad companies are wrong.  What to do about that wrong is complex and not easy--except personally avoiding them.

 

4 hours ago, Jacke said:

What's out there is worse than what the military asks of its soldiers and certainly doesn't provide the support and compensation that the military does.

1 hour ago, tater said:

Riiiight. See above.

At least the military states that it takes care of its members.  And often achieves that.  And usually despite the flaws ends up being better than virtually all private corporations.

[tater]

16 minutes ago, Jacke said:

So wrongs are okay as long as there's someone doing it right?  Hopefully everyone knows and can pick not-A.

Just because someone should be very careful to make sure it's not a bad company to work for doesn't change that bad companies are wrong.  What to do about that wrong is complex and not easy--except personally avoiding them.

1. People can check sites that review employers, this is 2021, not 1721.

2. Depending on the job, they know what they are getting into. Many of the fabricators on site at Starbase were referred by friends already working there. Welding work in that region is not for the feint of heart, oil rigs, refineries, etc. This is not an issue. For engineers? They know exactly what they are signing up for. A friend knows a guy at the lab here (Sandia) who applied at SpaceX first. He said the interview was someone telling him to write a program to do whatever it was. Right then and there. He said he did it, but immediately knew this wasn't the job for him, it was gonna be too high stress.

I would say anyone choosing (and yes, it is 100% a choice) to work for SpaceX at the professional level knows exactly what they are getting in for, and do it because of that. If you want to build a spacefaring future, and you'd like that future to start soon, and not maybe sorta start some decades n the future before you die—you work for SpaceX (else work for BO/etc, and hope SpaceX succeeds so you can at least experience it vicariously).

 

16 minutes ago, Jacke said:

At least the military states that it takes care of its members.  And often achieves that.  And usually despite the flaws ends up being better than virtually all private corporations.

By all metrics of human wellbeing, we're better off than any time in history. The modern business world is largely responsible for that (it's literally the only reason many can even have this conversation, used to be the only people having online communications were the military (officers, mostly, and admin), tech companies, and universities (science and engineering depts only).

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, tater said:

He said the interview was someone telling him to write a program to do whatever it was. Right then and there. He said he did it, but immediately knew this wasn't the job for him, it was gonna be too high stress.

This is a well-known old-school interview technique, and it's generally considered to be ineffective nonsense. You should hire people for their skills, knowledge, potential, and personality -- not because they were able to solve some kind of 10-minute test problem. A lot of old "theory X" managers loved to pull this sort of stunt. It establishes dominance right there in the interview.

[tater]

I suppose the other side is that SpaceX effectively trains a whole bunch of 20-somethings, who burn out or realize they need a life, then go start other companies, or work from established outfits with a calmer work environment. Lauren (the very pretty woman who did a bunch of the SpaceX livestreams) is now running the BO HLS team I think. best world would be Starship works, and loads of SpaceX people that leave start thinking about things that USE low cost access to space, instead of everyone pushing for launch competition.

[Rakaydos]

7 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

This is a well-known old-school interview technique, and it's generally considered to be ineffective nonsense. You should hire people for their skills, knowledge, potential, and personality -- not because they were able to solve some kind of 10-minute test problem. A lot of old "theory X" managers loved to pull this sort of stunt. It establishes dominance right there in the interview.

Who said it was a test problem? given SpaceX's agile approach, it could well have been an actual problem they encountered that needed to be solved on a short deadline. In this case, "hiring for their skills" includes the ability to work under that kind of time crunch, because SpaceX actually tries to move fast enough that it matters.

[mikegarrison]

24 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Who said it was a test problem? given SpaceX's agile approach, it could well have been an actual problem they encountered that needed to be solved on a short deadline. In this case, "hiring for their skills" includes the ability to work under that kind of time crunch, because SpaceX actually tries to move fast enough that it matters.

That's nonsense, and hopefully you know it.

[sh1pman]

4 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Who said it was a test problem? given SpaceX's agile approach, it could well have been an actual problem they encountered that needed to be solved on a short deadline. In this case, "hiring for their skills" includes the ability to work under that kind of time crunch, because SpaceX actually tries to move fast enough that it matters.

Is that a “skill”, working in crunch conditions? IMO, stress tolerance is more of a personality trait than a skill. In my experience, regardless of skill level and expertise, some people will start freaking out and having mental breaks, while others will be perfectly chill and composed, there’s no training that can fix that.

And if SpaceX has 3 shifts working 24/7, that’s already pretty darn fast, without the need for putting extra stress on the people with harsh deadlines.

[tater]

It was a friend of a friend, so I don't know the specifics, I just know that the guy now works for the national lab, and decided that SpaceX wasn't gonna be his sort of workplace.

[sevenperforce]

4 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Who said it was a test problem? given SpaceX's agile approach, it could well have been an actual problem they encountered that needed to be solved on a short deadline. In this case, "hiring for their skills" includes the ability to work under that kind of time crunch, because SpaceX actually tries to move fast enough that it matters.

That would actually be illegal, believe it or not. You cannot use work product gained from the interview process without paying for it.

It’s unlikely that someone would do an “on the spot” challenge like this using actual work, but it does come up, more often in the context of more significant projects. You might be asked to prepare a brief or a report or code block as part of the selection process for the job. If that ever happens, do it, but if you DON’T get the job then you should absolutely send them an invoice for your time. Billed at your contractor rate (which should be 70-80% higher than your hourly rate).

12 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

This is a well-known old-school interview technique, and it's generally considered to be ineffective nonsense. You should hire people for their skills, knowledge, potential, and personality -- not because they were able to solve some kind of 10-minute test problem. A lot of old "theory X" managers loved to pull this sort of stunt. It establishes dominance right there in the interview.

The only time this happened to me was when I was interviewing for an engineer position and I had not done any engineering work since graduating. The team lead handed me a dry erase marker and asked me if I could draw the diagrams and write out the equations for a simple electromagnet.

I thought that was an acceptable ask because they were just making sure I had retained enough technical knowledge to be useful. Which I had. 

[tater]

Doh!

Edited August 3, 2021 by tater

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Despite the colour of the capsule, I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be in the Blue Origin thread

[RCgothic]

"hardware rich" development program actually became anything but.

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, RCgothic said:

"hardware rich" development program actually became anything but.

 

The paperwork mass will exceed engine mass.

Ouch

 

{Thanks for the article!} 

[Meecrob]

On 8/5/2021 at 9:41 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The paperwork mass will exceed engine mass.

Ouch

 

{Thanks for the article!} 

The joke in aerospace is: "its certified when the weight of the paperwork equals the gross weight of the vehicle"

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Meecrob

[Beccab]

14 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

The joke in aerospace is: "its certified when the weight of the paperwork equals the gross weight of the vehicle"

 

To try to get closer to that objective BO has been adding a lot of colourful infographics to the papers

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 minutes ago, Beccab said:

To try to get closer to that objective BO has been adding a lot of colourful infographics to the papers

Colored ink is three times as heavy. 

[Meecrob]

25 minutes ago, Beccab said:

To try to get closer to that objective BO has been adding a lot of colourful infographics to the papers

 

24 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Colored ink is three times as heavy. 

Haha I bet their application is on glossy cardstock too! Oh I should shut up, its not like I own a rocket company, but honestly, we all totally get the "Gradatim" part by now, guys, lets see something cool!

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, Meecrob said:

 

Haha I bet their application is on glossy cardstock too! Oh I should shut up, its not like I own a rocket company, but honestly, we all totally get the "Gradatim" part by now, guys, lets see something cool!

Well, maybe it was us who misinterpreted the "ferociter". Perhaps it actually meant "be angry [at every other company [and NASA [and GAO]]]"

[Meecrob]

8 hours ago, Beccab said:

Well, maybe it was us who misinterpreted the "ferociter". Perhaps it actually meant "be angry [at every other company [and NASA [and GAO]]]"

Haha yeah! Internally the company goal is to be a total jerk! "disrupters"

[tater]

 

LOL. They really are pathetic.

Just build the bloody thing, Jeff, show everyone wrong by landing on the Moon.

My wish to be a BO fanboy is decreasing by the day.

[cubinator]

Does Jeff Who not understand that he has enough money to build the moon rocket? Should somebody go explain it to him?