NASA launches safety investigation of SpaceX and Boeing

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I think that the most interesting thing is that Boeing is being investigated as well as SpaceX.

EDIT: just saw this:

Personally, I think that this may actually be better in the long run for SpaceX. It is probably a nuisance, and the negative press isn't great, but I think that if there is one area where SpaceX is not great, it's safety. Safety vs. speed and innovation is probably a trade-off, and so I suspect that their safety culture is not as good, in some ways, as NASA's.  And it is definitely better for SpaceX to discover problems on the ground.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[Superfluous J]

I'd be more concerned if a brand new entry into the rocket building industry did NOT get scrutiny before spending my tax dollars sending human lives up into space on their product.

[KSK]

42 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'd be more concerned if a brand new entry into the rocket building industry did NOT get scrutiny before spending my tax dollars sending human lives up into space on their product.

Scrutinise the product - yes. Scrutinise the contract to make sure the taxpayer isn’t being stiffed - totally. Scrutinise processes for testing and quality assurance to make sure those tax dollars are buying a safe (within the boundaries of sanity) rocketship - absotively posilutely.

Scrutinise ‘workplace culture’ - that’s a total waste of time and money that frankly smacks of ‘we can’t hobble them with technical hoops to jump through so let’s throw this mulch at them and see if *that* sticks. And if their restrooms aren’t spit-shined to military specifications or their works canteen is painted an unpatriotic shade of beige, well so help them.’

It shows a distinct lack of trust in, and very poor relationship management with, contractors in my opinion.

If Jimbob on No 2 welding rig at Boeing has a couple of beers at lunch and sticks a hole through the fuel tank that afternoon - that’s for Boeing to sort out. Oh - and isn’t it nice that the taxpayer ain’t picking up the tab for Jimbob’s stupidity? Likewise if Frank on No 4 pipe bender at SpaceX partakes of a Camberwell Carrot one evening, comes to work the next day and makes a pretzel out of the LOX plumbing on the first three Merlins of his shift. Provided those pretzelled engines never make it anywhere near a finished product then, so far as NASA is concerned, that should be that.

Edited November 21, 2018 by KSK

[Green Baron]

Little is more important than the "culture", corporate identity, ... of a company, especially when it comes to such complex processes as building and running a spaceship. Many failures where attributed to cultural deficits (e.g. Columbia). The hole in MS-09 goes in the same direction. Not speaking of all the mishaps and errors in earthly industry.

I have the feeling that NASA is just doing its job with this one, to ensure that others don't copy earlier mistakes (invent new ones instead ;-)). Supervision and all that. A lethal accident on the first outsourced manned flights would be really bad and throw back things by years, maybe a decade.

As to Musk's openly shown lack of discipline, apparently stuck in or regressed to a phase of life i left with age 22, that might have played a role. He doesn't look good at all on the last pictures i saw. If that behaviour leaves a mark on his employees SpaceX should better be excluded until somebody with a sense of responsibility takes over, if that hasn't happened yet. We want successful missions, don't we ;-) So imo that should have played a role in NASA's decision, but idk.

"A fish rots from the head down". Simple statement, but true in many cases, especially companies.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Green Baron

[Xd the great]

18 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Little is more important than the "culture", corporate identity, ... of a company, especially when it comes to such complex processes as building and running a spaceship. Many failures where attributed to cultural deficits (e.g. Columbia). The hole in MS-09 goes in the same direction. Not 

As to Musk's openly shown lack of discipline, apparently stuck in or regressed to a phase of life i left with age 22, that might have played a role. He doesn't look good at all on the last pictures i saw. If that behaviour leaves a mark on his employees SpaceX should better be excluded until somebody with a sense of responsibility takes over, if that hasn't happened yet. We want successful missions, don't we ;-) So imo that should have played a role in NASA's decision, but idk.

 

That is what shotwell is for. Counteracting Musks insane ideas.

[DDE]

Wait, someone is still oppossed to Commercial Crew?

I mean, other than Trampoline Rogozin.

[Kerbal7]

So smoking dope on video that's going to be shown to millions and millions of people calls into question your leadership ability? 

 

Who could have known? 

[tater]

8 hours ago, YNM said:

Well, you still go and drive your car around. (I'm not going to mention how most N. American cars are... very... 'minimal'.)

The point is that they have set an arbitrary standard of safety, 1:270 for a LOC incident, yet they utterly ignore the safety of the only game in town right now, even when concerning things have happened in the last few months. I'm personally fine with Soyuz, I think anything with a LES is going to be pretty safe---which applies to Starliner and Crew Dragon as well. Embrace the danger, if you will. It's irrational to have a double-standard. Concern that the head of a company did something dumb on a podcast, but do they know how many Soyuz workers drink vodka with lunch? (meaning are they certain it's not greater than zero)

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Kerbal7 said:

So smoking dope on video that's going to be shown to millions and millions of people calls into question your leadership ability? 

It doesn't count, he didn't take a pull.

 

[Green Baron]

It is not at NASA to set Russian standards. In the moment there is no choice other than to use Soyuz or the aforementioned trampoline. And we don't have to repeat that Soyuz saved the cosmonaut's lives even on a main structural failure.

But, if i am not mistaken, it is at NASA to assure a safety level of their contractors. They were quite lax with SpaceX on past failures, letting them go even without finishing investigations. Heck, usually companies trying to obtain public contracts or ones with other big partners have to pass compliance tests under the rules of ISO 9001 every now and then. I don't see any reason for concern here ?

Edited November 21, 2018 by Green Baron

[tater]

14 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

It is not at NASA to set Russian standards. In the moment there is no choice other than to use Soyuz or the aforementioned trampoline. And we don't have to repeat that Soyuz saved the cosmonaut's lives even on a main structural failure.

But, if i am not mistaken, it is at NASA to assure a safety level of their contractors. They were quite lax with SpaceX on past failures, letting them go even without finishing investigations. Heck, usually companies trying to obtain public contracts or ones with other big partners have to pass compliance tests under the rules of ISO 9001 every now and then. I don't see any reason for concern here ?

This investigation is nonsense, and 100% political.

It's not up to NASA WRT Soyuz, but it's important to note that any delay in commercial crew pushes more astronauts onto Soyuz, which is no safer than Shuttle, statistically. Even if they think the crew risk is twice as high as NASA wants (1:135), that's still twice as safe as Soyuz of Shuttle have demonstrated themselves to be. Like I said, I'm not concerned about Soyuz, or either crew vehicle (assuming maxq abort test works fine). I think given LES systems, LOC is almost entirely a reentry or catastrophic failure in orbit risk.

[FleshJeb]

9 hours ago, KSK said:

Scrutinise ‘workplace culture’ - that’s a total waste of time and money that frankly smacks of ‘we can’t hobble them with technical hoops to jump through so let’s throw this mulch at them and see if *that* sticks. And if their restrooms aren’t spit-shined to military specifications or their works canteen is painted an unpatriotic shade of beige, well so help them.’

Examples of Workplace Culture in action:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster#Flight_risk_management
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report#"An_accident_rooted_in_history"

As fun and satisfying as it is to be a reactionary (because I engage in it sometimes myself), you should at least bother to educate yourself on your subject before debating it.

Edited November 21, 2018 by FleshJeb
FleshJeb is an ass.

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

Unfortunately this does smell of a political maneuver, rather than a legitimate concern. Now, it has been previously established that safety is not SpaceXs forté, and it “may” happen that legitimate production issues are discovered. However, simply saying that this is an investigation of, among other things, “corporate culture” simply does not sound proper. Though I certainly don’t advocate Elon Musks recent forays into drug use in public, they are certainly not as big a matter of concern as, err...holes in the Soyuz? So although on paper, there is nothing wrong with the little “investigation”, conditionally, it is rather clear that it is a big lump of...bogus.

[KSK]

1 hour ago, FleshJeb said:

Examples of Workplace Culture in action:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster#Flight_risk_management
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report#"An_accident_rooted_in_history"

As fun and satisfying as it is to be a reactionary (because I engage in it sometimes myself), you should at least bother to educate yourself on your subject before debating it.

Not entirely sure how CRM fits into the conversation but okay. I'm well aware of both of your other links and you'll note from my post that I had no problems with contractors products being scrutinized for safety testing and quality assurance. And yes - if workplace culture is affecting either of those, then that's a legitimate concern and the contractors should be called out on it.

This review though, at least from that Seattle Times article, looks like a crock. 

"NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs declined to comment on what prompted the review. But in a statement, he said it would “ensure the companies are meeting NASA’s requirements for workplace safety, including the adherence to a drug-free environment.” "

Ignoring the 'drug-free environment' bit, because that could just be media spin, if you're going public with a review then you should go public on the reasons for that review. Transparency should work both ways.

"Gerstenmaier said the review would focus not on the technical details of developing rockets and spacecraft, but rather the companies’ safety culture — encompassing everything from the number of hours employees work to drug policies, leadership and management styles and whether employees’ safety concerns are taken seriously.

“Is the culture reflective of an environment that builds quality spacecraft,” Gerstenmaier said."

Pray tell, how does one define a culture that builds quality spacecraft? If said spacecraft are meeting NASA's man-rating requirements then, by definition, they have to be quality spacecraft, unless said man-rating requirements are just a load of hooey. 

“As an agency we’re not just leading ourselves, but our contractors as well."

And there's the problem right there. As I understand it, the whole point of Commercial Crew was to try and get away from that mindset. Give your contractors a clear specification and set of safety requirements to work to and let them get on with it. 

Edit:  The article is also very SpaceX-centric. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not defending SpaceX here - this is a crock whichever company you're talking about.

Edited November 21, 2018 by KSK

[mikegarrison]

16 minutes ago, KSK said:

Pray tell, how does one define a culture that builds quality spacecraft? If said spacecraft are meeting NASA's man-rating requirements then, by definition, they have to be quality spacecraft, unless said man-rating requirements are just a load of hooey.

It's not that simple. There really is such a thing as a safety culture, and most traditional aerospace companies are steeped in it. They know people aren't perfect, so they try to establish peer pressure to make sure that whatever else you do, you don't f*** around with the safety of the product.

[KSK]

19 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It's not that simple. There really is such a thing as a safety culture, and most traditional aerospace companies are steeped in it. They know people aren't perfect, so they try to establish peer pressure to make sure that whatever else you do, you don't f*** around with the safety of the product.

Okay, I can get that. Genuine question then, to somebody who's opinion I respect - how do you gauge that?

I'm working on the (possibly naive) assumption that if a company is putting out a good product, which meets the requisite safety standards, then that implies a good working culture behind that product. Or, at least a fault tolerant working culture. Maybe that company does have a long hours culture for example but if it's putting out a good product then surely it's also got procedures in place to mitigate any adverse effects of those long hours?

Especially in aerospace where I can well imagine that those safety standards are rigorous. And - I may as well say it - especially with SpaceX, where they do have a decent track record in launching, recovering and relaunching, boosters. Enough of a track record where it's no longer looking like a one-off or a fluke but something with decent procedures and working practices behind it. 

Educate me here. I'm being reactionary for sure but I'd prefer not to be reactionary and flat-wrong with it.

Edit. Never mind. The Shuttle was a quality product - right up to the point where it wasn't. I need more sleep.

Edited November 21, 2018 by KSK

[DDE]

8 minutes ago, KSK said:

Genuine question then, to somebody who's opinion I respect - how do you gauge that?

Most of the work I see involves barrages of questionnaires, questions with inobvious answers, and large sample sizes.

But it can be jast as crushing to ask “You see a loose wire, whadda ya do?”

Caveat: I work with banking, but operational risk management is not dissimilar.

[FleshJeb]

@KSK My apologies, I flew off the handle. (Not an uncommon occurrence) I also need sleep. I will edit.

I've done a fair amount of reading on failure modes in the past. Also highly pertinent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Having just re-read that, I see that it highlights CRM (which is fundamentally a "cultural" choice) as "additional layers of cheese".

53 minutes ago, KSK said:

I'm working on the (possibly naive) assumption that if a company is putting out a good product, which meets the requisite safety standards, then that implies a good working culture behind that product. Or, at least a fault tolerant working culture. Maybe that company does have a long hours culture for example but if it's putting out a good product then surely it's also got procedures in place to mitigate any adverse effects of those long hours?

The assumption being that the safety standards are even rational. Which we know (per Feynman) was decidedly not the case with the Challenger O-rings. (As you acknowledged in your edit).

Even if the standards are darn good, they're just another layer of cheese--There always exists the potential for unforeseen holes. Part of a strong workplace culture is that if somebody DOES have a nagging concern about a problem that hasn't bitten the company YET, they have an avenue to bring it up where they'll be actually listened to.

In my professional life as a surveyor I have two concerns that sit at the top of my mind all day long:

• Reducing or mitigating errors and blunders in measurement.
• Reducing the odds of my coworkers getting injured or killed.

I'll admit that we've had plenty of failures and near misses in those two departments. But, we talk about them, we stop and listen when someone has a "funny feeling", and we learn how to plug the holes.

[Mr. Peabody]

I've often thought that government agencies are too quick to jump the gun and launch an "investigation." Seems unnecessary.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

Okay, I can get that. Genuine question then, to somebody who's opinion I respect - how do you gauge that?

Not easy. You have to really spend some time inside the group to get a handle on the group culture. For instance, everybody knows they aren't supposed to cover up mistakes -- but it takes time to find out if people really absorb that into their behaviors.

[Mikki]

... I just returned from raking my backyard (21430 acres woodland) 

 So, NASA Gov lobbys spies on private companys...? Okay, nothing new. We call this envy.

A `murican "lifeinsurance in greenbacks" versus russian humanity and titanium capsule? You are kidding me.

I`d allways choose the soyuz, i would even pay for it- with my life. For free.

No such thing like safety and true humanity in `murica, sorry.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

Not that I don't think the investigation is dubious - but folks aren't reading the article or paying attention.  They aren't investigating SpaceX and ULA - they're investigating SpaceX and Boeing.  The target here is the Commercial Crew Program, which doesn't have a launch record.

It's reasonable to say that the respective CC programs are extensions of their company's prior aerospace experience. Which in the case of Boeing, goes way back,  and is also shared from its partnership in ULA. These guys know how to build spacecraft. And while SpaceX has a couple of more recent black marks, they've gone from laughing stock nearly dominating the market in a very short time. That, in itself, is gonna skew the slider on the risk scale just a bit, but it can also be argued that, from their previous bad moments, they're even more cognizant in there here-and-now of what's a stake and what the consequences would be of another mishap.

Naw, this is just politics, pure and simple. The big, green elephant in the room is that Musk did something that, while perfectly legal at the time and place, and increasingly more accepted as "normal," ruffled some feathers. Would this investigation still be going down if Musk had simply had a drink? Somehow I doubt that.

[KSK]

25 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

 

@KSK My apologies, I flew off the handle. (Not an uncommon occurrence) I also need sleep. I will edit.

I've done a fair amount of reading on failure modes in the past. Also highly pertinent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Having just re-read that, I see that it highlights CRM (which is fundamentally a "cultural" choice) as "additional layers of cheese".

Yeah me too (flying off the handle that is). Apology more than accepted and thanks in return for de-escalating this. Cheers for the link too - I think 'the Swiss Cheese model' rolls off the tongue far more easily than 'the cumulative act effect'.  

Also thanks to @mikegarrison and @DDE for stepping in with the serious answers.

[tater]

It's my understanding from seeing some interviews with people who work inside SpaceX that their people are encouraged to fix anything they think is broken, or less than ideal. One of the rocket engine guys said that (an AMA, youtube?) one reason they have so many revs on things is that they see something that could be done better, and they change it (letting their bosses know, obviously). WRT safety, that seems like exactly the culture you'd want. "This doesn't look good enough to ensure crew safety, we should do X." easily fits within that culture (vs a fear of annoying your superior).

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

It's reasonable to say that the respective CC programs are extensions of their company's prior aerospace experience.

True.  But it's also reasonable to point out when posters are grasping at straws, hand waving, and ignoring elephants in the room.  It's also reasonable to bring discussions out of the clouds of the tangentially relevant and onto the factual and actually relevant.
 

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Naw, this is just politics, pure and simple. The big, green elephant in the room is that Musk did something that, while perfectly legal at the time and place, and increasingly more accepted as "normal," ruffled some feathers. Would this investigation still be going down if Musk had simply had a drink? Somehow I doubt that.

This isn't about Musk smoking pot.  (Any excuse would have done, even being a little tipsy.)  Nor is it about safety.  (Safety is already well covered in the contracts and the human rating process.)  Those are just fig leaves for the real reason - which is the "P"-bomb that we're forbidden to use on the forums.  Commercial Crew is...  not universally popular among legislators, and let's leave it at that.