Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Requirements Mess

5 Comments

“Ray” has a good comment over at NASA Watch on the NASA Commercial Crew requirements:

Oh I just cannot wait for these requirements to finally see the light of day. I am going to have a field day with them (because, of course, any requirements the GOV levies on commercial enterprises are subject to public comment). Without even reading them, just based on Wayne’s words and my knowledge of existing substandard NASA requirements (current human rating requirements is but one example), I can tell they are going to be a bunch of unsubstantiable doo doo.

I am just getting warmed up, but here are the first two issues I have for these requirements mongers:

1) How many of these existing requirements are actually validated? And if so, what are the principles against which they are validated (I hope someone answers this with a CFR citation!)
2) For all those requirements in this set that are not yet validated (a viable situation), I would hope that NASA will clearly and unambiguously identify each and every validation plan for each and every requirement levied.

My specialty over the last 10 years of my career is going into troubled programs and laying waste to all their BS, unverifiable, or outright wrong requirements. The best way to prevent such problems like this from happening is following model-based systems engineering principles, which I am pretty sure NASA has not done in this case. If they actually did, then when they release the requirements for public comment, they should also be expected to release the fully coherent operational, functional, and physical architecture models. If they do not or cannot, then all they are doing is politics, not engineering.

I will take this task on as part of my duty as an American engineer to make sure NASA is NOT permitted to make these kinds of mistakes in systems engineering that they have made before. It is well understood by professionals in systems engineering that each “shall statement” has a dollar amount attached to it. Many contractors use this as a metric (e.g. so many dollars for each well-formed, substantiated, and traceable requirement). When requirements are found that are not verifiable, not measureable, not coherent, or not traceable, the “cost fudge factor” on those requirements is usually somewhere around 4-5x that of a well-formed requirement.

What we are seeing here is the EXACT same problem that DoD has. It is the single biggest problem that government, overall, has that causes over budget and blown schedule technology programs. If We The People let this happen without a whimper, we deserve what we get.

Actually, I would go further. In order to figure out what the “shall” statement is going to cost, you have to look at the verification statement(s). In the last few years of my own curmudgeonhood, I will no longer accept a requirement without one (or more, if necessary). Because in my experience, the verification statements are the foundation for a test plan, and that’s where the costs of a program can really balloon. A requirement without a verification statement has no value, and isn’t a real requirement. I would also add that when I was working CEV (before it became Orion), NASA had imposed some truly ridiculous requirements on it (e.g., it had to survive a bird strike at 10,000 feet).

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

A True Bitter Clinger

3 Comments

If this guy was a Tea Partier, the media would make him the face of the movement. But he did it out of a rational hatred of a young woman who’d never done anything to him except be on television, so it’s OK. Apparently his remote was broken, and he was too lazy to get up and change the channel.

[Update a few minutes later]

Iowahawk comments on Facebook: “After booking, he was offered tenure by the University of Wisconsin and a Senior Fellowship by Media Matters.”

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Regrets, I Have A Few

8 Comments

Wayne Hale thinks that he posted in haste. But the problem remains:

Now I have re-read it and have some additional thoughts. It is clear that this is a vast scaling down from the requirements that say, Ares-1 and Orion had. And many of the paragraphs say that the specifications and standards can be replaced with alternatives, or with other standards that “meet the intent of” spec such and such. That is good. And to the casual reader that sounds like a big change. Unfortunately, it is not. Having to prove that an alternative standard is just as good as the standard NASA listed is an uphill battle. The adjudicator will be some GS-13 who has lived with one standard his whole career, understands it thoroughly, probably sat on the technical committee that wrote it, and loves it. Proving that his baby is ugly is going to be time consuming, and probably fruitless. I speak from sad experience.

So, what is my recommendation? Simple. Do what the Launch Services Program does: require that providers HAVE standards and follow them – don’t make them pick particular processes or standards, let the flexible, nimble, [your adjective here] commercial firms pick what suits their business best. As long as they have standards and stick to them – that is what we should require.

I would note that this is the FAA’s approach for launch licensing of passenger flights, until the industry matures sufficiently to develop certification standards (a point in time that is many years off).

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

It’s Not A Messaging Problem

3 Comments

It’s an honesty problem:

Sixteen of the waivers, you won’t be surprised to learn, were granted to union-based plans, which confirms that the sleaze-addled bill became a sleaze-addled law. Why, after all, should a few chosen companies be granted dispensation while others subsidize them?

The administration argues that these waivers are necessary only until reform takes effect in 2014, at which time workers will enjoy a wide range of approved options. Now, clearly anyone gullible enough to believe that a giant, invasive regulatory scheme is going to spur competition and choice is already working for the administration. But even if we were to suspend our disbelief, how does any of that comport with the president’s claim that we can all keep our insurance if we like it? (Answer: not well.)

The president has a problem with a lot of his claims. And as long as he continues to delude himself that the problem is the dog-food ad, and not the dog food, he’s going to continue to decline in popularity.

Political Commentary

Impeach Napolitano

8 Comments

Once the Republicans take over in January, I think that they should start making some serious statements about the incompetents running the country. Even though the Senate probably wouldn’t remove, just the threat of it would still be a useful club to get the White House to clean up their mess themselves, to avoid the political fallout.

One of the many frustrating things about the Bush presidency was that he hired morons like Napolitano as well, and the House wouldn’t do anything about it, because they were “Republican” nominees.

Actually, in the Senate, I think we have the best of both worlds. The Republicans didn’t take control, so they can’t be said to be in charge of even one branch of government, but given how many Democrat seats are at risk in 2012, they probably have a working majority on politically popular issues, which means that they can not only force out the Napolitanos and LaHoods, but ensure that their replacements are nowhere near as bad, because they’ll have to get a majority vote of the Senate.

[Late morning update]

Speaking of Senate confirmations, this looks like one that will be DOA, or at least it should be. Actually, I’d like to see a complete overhaul of BATF, but that’s not going to happen until the rest of the Dems are flushed from the Senate and we get a reasonable president.