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Vanamonde

By Vanamonde
in Science & Spaceflight

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RyanRising

RyanRising

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 8/20/2021 at 10:24 PM, mikegarrison said:

People leaving a company after it loses a major contract award is quite typical.

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Sure, but wouldn't you expect them to have jobs related to that contract? Only one or two of these people appear to have had anything to do with HLS - the job titles mentioned in the article are:

  • New Shepard senior vice president
  • chief of mission assurance
  • national security sales director
  • New Glenn senior director
  • New Glenn senior finance manager
  • senior manager of production testing
  • New Shepard technical project manager
  • senior propulsion design engineer
  • senior HLS human factors engineer (clearly HLS related)
  • BE-4 controller lead integration and testing engineer
  • New Shepard lead avionics software engineer
  • BE-7 avionics hardware engineer (possibly HLS related? That was one of the applications for those)
  • propulsion engineer
  • rocket engine development engineer

Now, a few more of those could have been tied to HLS and just didn't mention relevant components in the titles, but a substantial number of them are definitely unrelated - as much as two positions in the same aerospace company can be at least, that is.

Edited by RyanRising
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StrandedonEarth

StrandedonEarth

Posted
Posted
  On 8/20/2021 at 10:56 PM, RyanRising said:

Sure, but wouldn't you expect them to have jobs related to that contract? Only one or two of these people appear to have had anything to do with HLS - the job titles mentioned in the article are:

  • New Shepard senior vice president
  • chief of mission assurance
  • national security sales director
  • New Glenn senior director
  • New Glenn senior finance manager
  • senior manager of production testing
  • New Shepard technical project manager
  • senior propulsion design engineer
  • senior HLS human factors engineer (clearly HLS related)
  • BE-4 controller lead integration and testing engineer
  • New Shepard lead avionics software engineer
  • BE-7 avionics hardware engineer (possibly HLS related? That was one of the applications for those)
  • propulsion engineer
  • rocket engine development engineer

Now, a few more of those could have been tied to HLS and just didn't mention relevant components in the titles, but a substantial number of them are definitely unrelated - as much as two positions in the same aerospace company can be at least, that is.

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They all resigned? When it comes to the propulsion engineers, I wonder how many were given a choice between resigning and being fired, given the apparent state of BE-4 development….

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RyanRising

RyanRising

Posted
Posted
  On 8/20/2021 at 11:20 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

They all resigned? When it comes to the propulsion engineers, I wonder how many were given a choice between resigning and being fired, given the apparent state of BE-4 development….

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Doesn't say what terms they left on, just that they did leave. Haven't seen anything that would suggest the engineers are at fault for BE-4, though.

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JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted
  On 8/20/2021 at 11:25 PM, RyanRising said:

Doesn't say what terms they left on, just that they did leave. Haven't seen anything that would suggest the engineers are at fault for BE-4, though.

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Ahem... While people love to beat up management - isn't part of the issue with the BE-4 an engineering problem that needs solving? 

I get that 'parts rich' is a management decision... But CAD does not slow down because you don't have titanium in the warehouse 

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RyanRising

RyanRising

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 8/21/2021 at 12:25 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Ahem... While people love to beat up management - isn't part of the issue with the BE-4 an engineering problem that needs solving? 

I get that 'parts rich' is a management decision... But CAD does not slow down because you don't have titanium in the warehouse 

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Maybe I was a bit presumptuous in assuming the problems with BE-4 followed the pattern we’ve seen with other BO stuff. But I’m not aware of any currently outstanding BE-4 engineering issues. My memory’s fuzzy on this, but I believe there were said to be issues with the turbines overheating and with the igniter, both of which were also solved a while ago. If you know about any current issues, or if I'm wrong about those, I’d like to hear  - I’m not too great at fishing this sort of stuff out. 

Edited by RyanRising
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Shpaget

Shpaget

Posted
Posted

I realize that a good deal of these are management and lead roles, but still, you should take into account that BO has 3500 employees. One should expect multiple resignations/firings each week, or even day, just as part of a normal bussiness cycle.

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Cuky

Cuky

Posted
Posted
  On 8/21/2021 at 6:23 AM, Shpaget said:

I realize that a good deal of these are management and lead roles, but still, you should take into account that BO has 3500 employees. One should expect multiple resignations/firings each week, or even day, just as part of a normal bussiness cycle.

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True. But you don't expect people on senior and lead positions to leave practically at the same time.

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mikegarrison

mikegarrison

Posted
Posted
  On 8/21/2021 at 1:06 PM, tater said:
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Which is, I point out, pretty much what I said. If you signed on to do a lunar landing system but now the company isn't going to do one, maybe you leave. And the company probably doesn't mind, because all of a sudden they have more headcount than they have workstatement.

I'm not saying this always happens or applies to everyone involved, but it's simply not surprising to see people chasing the work after a major contract decision.

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tater

tater

Posted
Posted
  On 8/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, mikegarrison said:

Which is, I point out, pretty much what I said. If you signed on to do a lunar landing system but now the company isn't going to do one, maybe you leave. And the company probably doesn't mind, because all of a sudden they have more headcount than they have workstatement.

I'm not saying this always happens or applies to everyone involved, but it's simply not surprising to see people chasing the work after a major contract decision.

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Exactly right. That said, with BO still pursuing their lander in the courts, some of those people must feel that the end result will be the same (no lander program). None the less, many of the people who left were not HLS people, but NG people.

People move around all the time, I think that the focus on BO in this case has a lot to do with the way they interact with the public in general (not well), the lawsuit after GAO denied them, and the hamfisted infographics. I posted the fact the Lauren Lyons left SpaceX for BO in the appropriate thread many months ago, and no one batted an eye—no "SpaceX must be falling apart!" posts. That said, a few years ago when SpaceX downsized the number of employees, there were many posts about doom and gloom (and of course many defenders)... In the actual world, employees change employers periodically :D

No idea if there is a bad pattern at BO or not.

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RCgothic

RCgothic

Posted
Posted (edited)

First good news for blue in a while:

If this is equivalent to starhopper they're two years behind the curve. Which is a better situation to be in than most.

 

Edit: lol, tater. Knew I should have just posted the links and edited in the commentary later!

Edited by RCgothic
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Beccab

Beccab

Posted
Posted
  On 8/24/2021 at 6:03 PM, RCgothic said:

If this is equivalent to starhopper they're two years behind the curve. Which is a better situation to be in than most.

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I highly doubt it is anywhere close to something that can fly or even attach to an engine, it's almost definitely at pre-starhopper levels. Still not bad news, which is a huge improvement for Blue compared to the last... years?

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Beccab

Beccab

Posted
Posted
  On 8/24/2021 at 6:28 PM, tater said:

The messaging to ULA is great—"we avoid the CEO and go "ferrociter" when we need to have a $#@!-measuring contest with Musk, but not for your engines."

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Seriously, with ULA they have a delay of 4 years over an engine that should have been completed after 1 year and here they speed up

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tater

tater

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

  On 8/24/2021 at 6:32 PM, Beccab said:

Seriously, with ULA they have a delay of 4 years over an engine that should have been completed after 1 year and here they speed up

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Bridenstine signaled to Musk that it looked like they were most concerned about SS (when I think at the time only maybe 5% of SpaceX was working on it, without any Crew Dragon overlap), and what did Musk do? He made sure it was clear to all that SpaceX was working 24/7 on Crew Dragon. Banging out tests incredibly fast, making sure NASA was happy.

BO needed to do that with ULA a while ago.

All that said, I want 2 reusable upper stages, please.

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CatastrophicFailure

CatastrophicFailure

Posted
Posted
  On 8/24/2021 at 6:32 PM, Beccab said:

Seriously, with ULA they have a delay of 4 years over an engine that should have been completed after 1 year and here they speed up

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This keeps up and Tory is gonna show up at Jeff Who's door with a lasso and a branding iron, mark my words. -_-

Where are my engines, Jeff?

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tater

tater

Posted
Posted
  On 8/24/2021 at 7:07 PM, Elthy said:

There is one thing ULA could do to realy make Jeff boil: Openly consider asking SpaceX for raptor engines. Thats not realy feasible, but on paper they would work.

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It would be a little like saying Artemis is open to non_SLS options (which Bridenstine did).

Lights a fire under the people slacking off.

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