this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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306
NASA inspector general gives damning assessment of Boeing's quality control (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 89 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The report included several recommendations, including levying “financial penalties for Boeing’s noncompliance with quality control standards.” The inspector general said, however, that NASA decided not to introduce any kind of financial discipline.

Goddamnit.

The new report said the SLS Block 1B version is likely to cost $5.7 billion by the time it launches.

The assessment is the latest setback for NASA's return-to-the-moon program, which has been beset by holdups and budget overruns. NASA has spent more than $42 billion over more than a decade on its Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

Last year, NASA’s inspector general estimated that each Artemis launch would cost $4.2 billion.

Hot take: The government should not give Boeing any more money with which to do stock buybacks, instead of hiring qualified people, and performing the best QA possible.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 months ago (2 children)

NASA should start manufacturing things themselves.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (1 children)

state owned production?? what's next: doing things not for shareholder profit?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

You gotta transfer all wealth to the most kleptocratic incompetent capitalists otherwise literal communism.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (2 children)

In the entire history of NASA, they’ve never manufactured any boosters for themselves. Redstone was from the army. Titan, also military. Saturn I and V were designed by NASA but contracted to big aircraft manufacturers as contractors. Shuttle was Boeing / Rockwell for the orbiter, ATK for the boosters. SLS is basically all the Shuttle contractors, again. (That was the point.)

I hear what you’re saying. But NASA would need to spin up an entire company from scratch to build their own rockets. That’s not what their mandate is, and it’s not what they’re good at.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The difference is that NASA was really on top of them. There are entire manuals and documentaries not just on how they did Apollo, but also on how they organised it, and how they ran every process.

And they chucked all of that away for some of the most insane hodgepodge improvised bullshit imaginable. The entire SLS/HLS split is ridiculous, and serves no propose other than giving companies more money for little gain.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

A lot of the Apollo work also got done in basically one administration (Johnson largely continued JFK’s policies). As soon as Nixon was in charge, NASA got gutted, and then they only had the resources for shuttle. Later Apollo missions got cancelled because Nixon thought the money was better spent killing more Vietnamese people.

Switching administrations means vastly changing policies, if for no other reason than the new boss hates the old boss. SLS “succeeded” (got hardware made and launched, at least) where Constellation failed partly because they buttered everyone’s bread in the right way.

HLS is dumb. SLS is dumb. But similarly to Commercial Cargo and Crew, it survived administration changes partly because NASA wasn’t directly at the helm, so the new guys didn’t just hit the big red stop button.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Is the US an oligarchy now? It certainly feels like it is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Just mooting it would send a shot across the bow. And it would get the ball rolling if the private industry didn't reform it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't give them any money at all. Private businesses literally should not exist.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Private businesses are not the problem, corporations are.

Venture Capitalism is the problem. When a private business beholdens itself to a stock-price, that stock price becomes the ONLY thing that matters. You keep that stock rising no...matter...what.

Have to use cheap labour? Fuck you...stock price.

Quality Control cuts corners? Fuck you...stock price.

Employees can't afford groceries? Fuck you...stock price.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The best way to solve this though is through control of the means of production. Can't have this if the business is owned by the state.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Or worker co-ops. If workers own their own companies then that would solve 90% of the problems of late stage capitalism

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

That too, yeah

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Corruption and perverse incentives are problems that apply to government bureaucracies as well as to companies. Not to say that it can't be done that way successfully, but the failures of the Soviet space program for instance seem to be a clear indication that it isn't a silver bullet in this case. Whatever the underlying economic system there are big organizational challenges to overcome.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Merger was a mistake.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

100% correct, joining a purposeful, safety-driven company from the pnw with a yeehaw govt-profits military contractor whose products were subpar was always going to be a harmful merger.

So many people in long beach CA lost their jobs due to managerial idiots who decided a headquarters in Chicago would be appropriate for a company whose production base was mainly in the Seattle area.

The resultant quality speaks for itself.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

But, money. :mr-krabs:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Every large merger is a huge mistake in the long run. Every company should be locally owned and locally managed, ideally as some type of worker's co-op.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago

Maybe do these assessments prior to awarding multi-billion dollar contracts.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Boeing will be a memory fairly soon.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Too big to fail, only so many aerospace companies and a LOT of US jobs riding on them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Then nationalize it?

If they're too incompetent to exist within the bounds of the free market, but too important to the national interest to fail? You can't have your feet in two canoes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I'm not telling you what I think should happen. I'm just telling you, what in reality, is going to happen. Companies like Boeing are heavily protected by Congress. They have a lot of representatives and senators in their pockets due to the placement of their facilities.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Too big to fail

That phrase is a clear acknowledgement that the company has become a danger to our national interest. Therefore any company that is "too big to fail" should be broken up into smaller companies whose failure isn't dangerous.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Yeah, when I use it I'm not granting a compliment. You won't find too many people in Congress with both the power and will to go after them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Bloeing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Boeing is the sound they made when they got bailed out from sticky situation by the government.