Scrappy or crappy? Critique by former SpaceX lead engineer

[chopsticks]

So most of the "defense" is simply the observation that while you may have foresaw a certain problem, but until you can show that you can also un-forsee non-problems, you don't have an actionable contribution to make.  You're just Monday morning quarterbacking.

All anyone can ever do is judge the entire program based on results, or offer meaningful commentary about individual decisions - but you can't judge the program based on cherry-picked failures.

See, this is exactly the problem I'm referring to. I'm not judging the whole program based on cherry picked failures. But that's how you take it and rush to the defence. All I'm doing is pointing out some flaws, that's it. So what if there's no actionable contribution to make? Do you always say positive things about absolutely everything that you have no control over? That's a bit absurd, is it not?

[meekGee]

So most of the "defense" is simply the observation that while you may have foresaw a certain problem, but until you can show that you can also un-forsee non-problems, you don't have an actionable contribution to make.  You're just Monday morning quarterbacking.

All anyone can ever do is judge the entire program based on results, or offer meaningful commentary about individual decisions - but you can't judge the program based on cherry-picked failures.

See, this is exactly the problem I'm referring to. I'm not judging the whole program based on cherry picked failures. But that's how you take it and rush to the defence. All I'm doing is pointing out some flaws, that's it. So what if there's no actionable contribution to make? Do you always say positive things about absolutely everything that you have no control over? That's a bit absurd, is it not?

Maybe that's what you're trying to convey, but that's not what's coming out.

I mean, look at the list of examples you came up with...

Anyone saying the concrete design was marginal or insufficient is fine by my book.

Anyone saying after the fact that SpaceX is making many choices that any expert (or the poster) would tell them were wrong - that's basically confirmation bias.

You take the things that didn't work and find evidence that some people warned them and they didn't heed expert advice etc.  That's the weak part.

Many people told them "it'll never work" on almost anything they tried. So that criticism is not valid, and it's got nothing to do with being reflexively defensive.

[redneck]

Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two. That pretty much explains what we see with SpaceX, and I think people keep forgetting how SpaceX trades "Good" for "Fast" and "Cheap".

Do I have to remind everyone that the SLS program has consumed over $20B, taken far longer, and is only slightly ahead of the progress the Starship program has made? In fact the SLS program is a good example of while you can only get a maximum of two choices from Good, Fast, Cheap, you can certainly get less than two... 

Perhaps personality has something to do with it. I find overly optimistic people annoying.

I'll disagree with a couple of your observations.

I prefer the Henry Spencer variant "Good, Fast, Cheap, same old management" pick any three. Likely most of us have worked in situations with management being an obstacle to performance. AND at companies where problems seemed to be infrequent and handled quickly with low friction. The second type outperforming the first by wide margins. I have seen three to one ratios in fairly simple projects. Complex ones can be far worse. So my disagreement is that one of the three in the triangle absolutely must give way to accomplish the others. Facon9 vs everything before.

Second is that SLS is ahead. It hit first successful test flight. Beyond that, how long before it flies a true mission that is not simply naval gazing its' own performance? And while waiting on that, how many test flights will Starship have, AND how many operational missions?

I don't believe the above contradicts my opinion that SpaceX is working through an unforced error of going too big on the first trip out of the methane/Raptor/stainless/RLV upper gate. IMO a smaller methane Raptor based precursor could be in revenue service already while retiring many of the remaining development and operational questions.

[chopsticks]

So most of the "defense" is simply the observation that while you may have foresaw a certain problem, but until you can show that you can also un-forsee non-problems, you don't have an actionable contribution to make.  You're just Monday morning quarterbacking.

All anyone can ever do is judge the entire program based on results, or offer meaningful commentary about individual decisions - but you can't judge the program based on cherry-picked failures.

See, this is exactly the problem I'm referring to. I'm not judging the whole program based on cherry picked failures. But that's how you take it and rush to the defence. All I'm doing is pointing out some flaws, that's it. So what if there's no actionable contribution to make? Do you always say positive things about absolutely everything that you have no control over? That's a bit absurd, is it not?

Maybe that's what you're trying to convey, but that's not what's coming out.

I mean, look at the list of examples you came up with...

Anyone saying the concrete design was marginal or insufficient is fine by my book.

Anyone saying after the fact that SpaceX is making many choices that any expert (or the poster) would tell them were wrong - that's basically confirmation bias.

You take the things that didn't work and find evidence that some people warned them and they didn't heed expert advice etc.  That's the weak part.

As far as confirmation bias goes - is that always a bad thing? For example, if someone predicted that there would be a lot of pad damage at full thrust and are thus proven right, is that somehow a bad thing? I think we have a hard time separating things like these sorts of predictions or assertions vs jumping to conclusions "SpaceX is doomed, etc." Confirmation bias can work the other way too, in a positive way. We all have opinions on things and if our opinion is validated by the results, we like it, whatever it is.

I don't think it's helpful to make doom and gloom statements and projecting things, but I don't see anything wrong with pointing out improvements that can be made, or mistakes made, etc. It doesn't mean you're a hater.

Many people told them "it'll never work" on almost anything they tried. So that criticism is not valid, and it's got nothing to do with being reflexively defensive.

But you're leaving out the things that SpaceX tried and what didn't work. Like carbon fiber tanks for SS, parachute recovery with F9, catching the fairings with a big net, etc. The thing is, we forget those things because they moved past them and found a better solution. However, in the moment, I think it's find to point out that they may not be on the right track with something and that doesn't mean that you're a hater or a concern troll or any other insults people like throw out here as soon as you express your opinion.

Personally, I've been thinking for awhile now that they needed steel underneath the booster to protect the concrete and guess what, they're actually doing it.

[meekGee]

So most of the "defense" is simply the observation that while you may have foresaw a certain problem, but until you can show that you can also un-forsee non-problems, you don't have an actionable contribution to make.  You're just Monday morning quarterbacking.

All anyone can ever do is judge the entire program based on results, or offer meaningful commentary about individual decisions - but you can't judge the program based on cherry-picked failures.

See, this is exactly the problem I'm referring to. I'm not judging the whole program based on cherry picked failures. But that's how you take it and rush to the defence. All I'm doing is pointing out some flaws, that's it. So what if there's no actionable contribution to make? Do you always say positive things about absolutely everything that you have no control over? That's a bit absurd, is it not?

Maybe that's what you're trying to convey, but that's not what's coming out.

I mean, look at the list of examples you came up with...

Anyone saying the concrete design was marginal or insufficient is fine by my book.

Anyone saying after the fact that SpaceX is making many choices that any expert (or the poster) would tell them were wrong - that's basically confirmation bias.

You take the things that didn't work and find evidence that some people warned them and they didn't heed expert advice etc.  That's the weak part.

As far as confirmation bias goes - is that always a bad thing? For example, if someone predicted that there would be a lot of pad damage at full thrust and are thus proven right, is that somehow a bad thing? I think we have a hard time separating things like these sorts of predictions or assertions vs jumping to conclusions "SpaceX is doomed, etc." Confirmation bias can work the other way too, in a positive way. We all have opinions on things and if our opinion is validated by the results, we like it, whatever it is.

I don't think it's helpful to make doom and gloom statements and projecting things, but I don't see anything wrong with pointing out improvements that can be made, or mistakes made, etc. It doesn't mean you're a hater.

Many people told them "it'll never work" on almost anything they tried. So that criticism is not valid, and it's got nothing to do with being reflexively defensive.

But you're leaving out the things that SpaceX tried and what didn't work. Like carbon fiber tanks for SS, parachute recovery with F9, catching the fairings with a big net, etc. The thing is, we forget those things because they moved past them and found a better solution. However, in the moment, I think it's find to point out that they may not be on the right track with something and that doesn't mean that you're a hater or a concern troll or any other insults people like throw out here as soon as you express your opinion.

Personally, I've been thinking for awhile now that they needed steel underneath the booster to protect the concrete and guess what, they're actually doing it.

Many of us looked at the bare concrete sideways.

And of course it's acknowledged some of SpaceX's attempts to find out whether something is really necessary showed that it very much was.

But during years of following SpaceX they've done many things that I looked sideways at, and that proved to be successful.

There was an equal amount of expert opinions that building rockets using shipyard techniques was a fool's errand.

So you tell me how you know in advance which of the obviously stupid ideas is going to fail and which will succeed.

When someone has that dialed, they can start generalizing about the wisdom of doing things that are "obviously dumb".

[mn]

SpaceX will try things that seem impossible as long as they don't violate the laws of physics and they sometimes find a way to do it and sometimes find that even though it is possible it is too difficult and not worth the continued effort. (and then they often find a different solution so they don't have to keep chasing the thing that is proving too difficult)

Somehow building a tank farm that violates regulations doesn't fit this paradigm. I'd love someone to explain what were they thinking and how it fits the paradigm.

[matthewkantar]

SpaceX will try things that seem impossible as long as they don't violate the laws of physics and they sometimes find a way to do it and sometimes find that even though it is possible it is too difficult and not worth the continued effort. (and then they often find a different solution so they don't have to keep chasing the thing that is proving too difficult)

Somehow building a tank farm that violates regulations doesn't fit this paradigm. I'd love someone to explain what were they thinking and how it fits the paradigm.

My guess is that CH4 tanks were long lead time or expensive, or both, maybe effected by Covid. They reasoned that they were already making CH4 tanks designed for flight loads, just make a few more to leave on the ground. Provides tank making practice as a bonus.

That such tankage is a heavily regulated item may not have come up?

[Coastal Ron]

As far as confirmation bias goes - is that always a bad thing? For example, if someone predicted that there would be a lot of pad damage at full thrust and are thus proven right, is that somehow a bad thing?

Because in a world of over 8 Billion people, you could find a guess for every single possible failure mode, regardless if it happens or not. So how meaningful is that, especially when the vast majority of "predictions" are most likely based on incomplete knowledge of the actual situation?

It is like a HUGE game of "Failure Bingo", with everyone having a chance to be right at something that happened. Are we supposed to cheer on the person that had the right combination of "predicted" failures on the launch, and then consider them a prophet?

I think we have a hard time separating things like these sorts of predictions or assertions vs jumping to conclusions "SpaceX is doomed, etc." Confirmation bias can work the other way too, in a positive way. We all have opinions on things and if our opinion is validated by the results, we like it, whatever it is.

Sure, there is a HUGE game of "Success Bingo" that happens too, but that doesn't seem to generate the same level of discourse... 

I don't think it's helpful to make doom and gloom statements and projecting things, but I don't see anything wrong with pointing out improvements that can be made, or mistakes made, etc. It doesn't mean you're a hater.

Yeah, but is SpaceX really listening to the space forums to get advice about what they should do? We can speculate, but again we DO NOT have any data, all we have is pictures from a large cadre of space enthusiasts from outside the borders of SpaceX property. There is a limit to what we can state as "fact", for anything.

Personally, I've been thinking for awhile now that they needed steel underneath the booster to protect the concrete and guess what, they're actually doing it.

Well you can punch that square of your "Failure Bingo" card, but I didn't think that. But I really don't understand the forces at hand, and quite honestly I don't follow the Starship program that closely. As I've mentioned previously it is a tremendous source of entertainment for me, and I kind of leave it at that... 

[meekGee]

SpaceX will try things that seem impossible as long as they don't violate the laws of physics and they sometimes find a way to do it and sometimes find that even though it is possible it is too difficult and not worth the continued effort. (and then they often find a different solution so they don't have to keep chasing the thing that is proving too difficult)

Somehow building a tank farm that violates regulations doesn't fit this paradigm. I'd love someone to explain what were they thinking and how it fits the paradigm.

One of:

1) A combination of bad knowledge at one level and bad communication at another (no org is monolithic)

2) Reality being more complicated than the cartoon scenario depicted by some, multiple regulations/agencies being involved, different types of certification being applicable, etc

3) A judgement call going not how they thought it would, and construction starting before the results were in since standard tanks were scarce.

It didn't exactly result in much harm though, right?  We don't even know if it caused any delay since we don't know what the alternatives were.

[john smith 19]

I'll disagree with a couple of your observations.

I prefer the Henry Spencer variant "Good, Fast, Cheap, same old management" pick any three. Likely most of us have worked in situations with management being an obstacle to performance. AND at companies where problems seemed to be infrequent and handled quickly with low friction. The second type outperforming the first by wide margins. I have seen three to one ratios in fairly simple projects. Complex ones can be far worse. So my disagreement is that one of the three in the triangle absolutely must give way to accomplish the others. Facon9 vs everything before.

Now there's a name you don't see mentioned too often these days. 

He was right though. Without management commitment nothing changes. 

BTW I think you missed a [ /]. I spent a while trying to find a Coastal Ron quote with "Henry" in it.

[M.E.T.]

You don’t make so many decisions, so fast, across so many ventures as Elon does, without taking some risk along the way.

Else no one man would ever achieve as much across so many fields of endeavour as he has over the last 20 years.

I’ve often heard him effectively shrug and say:”What’s the worst that could happen”, as he goes ahead with an idea.

So they dug a hole in the launch mount. Big deal. Way too much pearl clutching over what’s really not that big an issue.

[redneck]

I'll disagree with a couple of your observations.

I prefer the Henry Spencer variant "Good, Fast, Cheap, same old management" pick any three. Likely most of us have worked in situations with management being an obstacle to performance. AND at companies where problems seemed to be infrequent and handled quickly with low friction. The second type outperforming the first by wide margins. I have seen three to one ratios in fairly simple projects. Complex ones can be far worse. So my disagreement is that one of the three in the triangle absolutely must give way to accomplish the others. Facon9 vs everything before.

Now there's a name you don't see mentioned too often these days. 

He was right though. Without management commitment nothing changes. 

BTW I think you missed a [ /]. I spent a while trying to find a Coastal Ron quote with "Henry" in it.

Henry is still posting on arocket with the same level of wisdom. I remember losing arguments with him on usenet in the late 90s and discussions at Space Access conferences a couple of decades back.

I still don't have quoting down properly here, apologies.

[Kiwi53]

SpaceX will try things that seem impossible as long as they don't violate the laws of physics and they sometimes find a way to do it and sometimes find that even though it is possible it is too difficult and not worth the continued effort. (and then they often find a different solution so they don't have to keep chasing the thing that is proving too difficult)

Somehow building a tank farm that violates regulations doesn't fit this paradigm. I'd love someone to explain what were they thinking and how it fits the paradigm.

That's actually an easy mistake to understand:
A young (aren't they all young at SpaceX?  ) not-from-Texas engineer is tasked to lead the tank farm design team. One of the many jobs to do is to work out the regulatory framework. They - or a subordinate - make a reasonably diligent search through the County and State legislation to discover what are the regulations for storing LNG, and find nothing at all.
"That's weird" they think. They may even say to the team "Hey guys, do you know there's no State or County regulations about storing LNG or LCH4? That's Texas, I guess!". It never even entered their minds that the railroad regulator would have anything to do with it, I mean, the nearest railroad is literally miles from Boca Chica.

That's bureaucracy for you!

[dondar]

Everything you do costs time and money....Or in another words "path of innovation and access to resources"
Taking engineering resources to build something that's not needed dearly (as in nothing works without) is not only bad in terms of misusing precious engineering resources. There is nothing  worse for an engineer performance than waiting game....

I find it peculiar that a person who claims to be working in SpaceX as an executive during "20k$" times bothers comparing Starship program with SLS. Just basically all of his arguments.... What did he do in SpaceX really?

[eeergo]

Everything you do costs time and money....Or in another words "path of innovation and access to resources"
Taking engineering resources to build something that's not needed dearly (as in nothing works without) is not only bad in terms of misusing precious engineering resources. There is nothing  worse for an engineer performance than waiting game....

I find it peculiar that a person who claims to be working in SpaceX as an executive during "20k$" times bothers comparing Starship program with SLS. Just basically all of his arguments.... What did he do in SpaceX really?

Ahhh some good ad-hominem to add to the pile.

I detailed in the OP what the person did during his time at SpaceX, which even if it were little (it wasn't) would be more than (most/all?) dismissive posters here put together: actually developing things that worked and continue to do so without so much destruction, rule-bending and hubris, plus admitting mistakes and showing the dangers of letting a certain philosophy get too far.

[JamesH65]

Everything you do costs time and money....Or in another words "path of innovation and access to resources"
Taking engineering resources to build something that's not needed dearly (as in nothing works without) is not only bad in terms of misusing precious engineering resources. There is nothing  worse for an engineer performance than waiting game....

I find it peculiar that a person who claims to be working in SpaceX as an executive during "20k$" times bothers comparing Starship program with SLS. Just basically all of his arguments.... What did he do in SpaceX really?

Ahhh some good ad-hominem to add to the pile.

I detailed in the OP what the person did during his time at SpaceX, which even if it were little (it wasn't) would be more than (most/all?) dismissive posters here put together: actually developing things that worked and continue to do so without so much destruction, rule-bending and hubris, plus admitting mistakes and showing the dangers of letting a certain philosophy get too far.

"The author is a former SpaceX lead engineer responsible for the successful debut of F9 v1.1 in Falcon 9's 6th flight in 2013, as well as leading the design of the ASDS barges."

So, they went from working on rockets to working on barges? If someone is taken off rocket development and put into barge development, that does sort of imply that they are better suited to the barges than the rockets. Which may have implications for this conversation.

[eeergo]

Everything you do costs time and money....Or in another words "path of innovation and access to resources"
Taking engineering resources to build something that's not needed dearly (as in nothing works without) is not only bad in terms of misusing precious engineering resources. There is nothing  worse for an engineer performance than waiting game....

I find it peculiar that a person who claims to be working in SpaceX as an executive during "20k$" times bothers comparing Starship program with SLS. Just basically all of his arguments.... What did he do in SpaceX really?

Ahhh some good ad-hominem to add to the pile.

I detailed in the OP what the person did during his time at SpaceX, which even if it were little (it wasn't) would be more than (most/all?) dismissive posters here put together: actually developing things that worked and continue to do so without so much destruction, rule-bending and hubris, plus admitting mistakes and showing the dangers of letting a certain philosophy get too far.

"The author is a former SpaceX lead engineer responsible for the successful debut of F9 v1.1 in Falcon 9's 6th flight in 2013, as well as leading the design of the ASDS barges."

So, they went from working on rockets to working on barges? If someone is taken off rocket development and put into barge development, that does sort of imply that they are better suited to the barges than the rockets. Which may have implications for this conversation.

Seriously, before passing judgment and suggesting demotions about professionals that made F9 what it is today, in both launch and recovery operations, take at least a moment before going down the dismissiveness path just because you don't like their conclusions, and at the very least actually search their online profile.

He worked on launch pads, and then moved to landing pads, and now has his own company for both.

[matthewkantar]

He worked on launch pads, and then moved to landing pads, and now has his own company for both.

And will never be hired by SpaceX to do either. As a competitor bad mouthing the competition, some pushback is expected.

[eeergo]

He worked on launch pads, and then moved to landing pads, and now has his own company for both.

And will never be hired by SpaceX to do either. As a competitor bad mouthing the competition, some pushback is expected.

Do you realize he's not badmouthing, but applying lessons learned by SpaceX themselves during his years there? As far as I know the company hasn't pushed back, unless you're a SpaceX representative - are you?

Also, what in the world are you talking about when you state he will "never be hired by SpaceX to do either"? He's already been hired, and he moved on to entrepreneurship on his own - or do you have information that suggests he was fired? EDIT: Actually, if you look in his Linkedin account, there's high praise from then-VP of SpaceX Lee Rosen stating that he was top-of-the-line and decided on his own to leave the company, that he'd "hire him again in a heartbeat" and that he had his full endorsement...

I sometimes wonder whether Elon himself would be subject to this treatment by the unfailingly faithful if he came out to say such things.

[spacenut]

SpaceX has been in business for over 20 years.  They have seen a lot of people come and go.  Even Mueller, who designed the Merlin engine is gone.  Lessons those people who left learned for Falcon 9 may all have taken those lessons with them.  Starship probably has a whole new group of people working on it.  Same with launch mount. 

Another thing, Pad 39a and 40 were already built back in the 1960's to take rockets that had more thrust than F9 and FH.  All they had to do was modify equipment to fit F9/FH.  They didn't design or build the launch pads themselves.  Not the same thing with Starship/Superheavy pad. 

Elon did use the milk stool method like they did with Saturn 1 to fit the Saturn V access mounts.  However, Saturn 1 was a lot less powerful than Saturn V. 

So, building a launch pad for Starship/Superheavy was and is a whole new learning experience.  So this former SpaceX employee doesn't really know what he is talking about, since he was using existing pads for the Falcon rockets which had less thrust than the pads could handle.  Starship required new designs and ideas for a launch pad.  This is one reason why launching offshore is and was being considered.  Sorry, but critique from a former SpaceX engineer isn't revelant for a less powerful rocket using launch pads already designed for more powerful rockets.