Astronomy / Space “Clowns Supervised by Monkeys” Boeing Puts Space Industry in Danger

[Manticore]

According to a NASA safety review panel, Boeing narrowly avoided a massive malfunction during the December test flight of its CST-100 Starliner. Boeing’s Starliner is a space crew transportation vehicle developed to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station.

"Clowns Supervised by Monkeys" Boeing Puts Space Industry in Danger

Boeing's Spaceliner flirted with catastrophic failure due to a software bug in December. Is the company's putting the space industry at risk?

www.ccn.com

 

[Caramel Clown]

I don't agree with that statement Boeing gives bad name to clowns.

 

[metatheurgist]

Natural result of lowest common denominator economics. But...economics works right?

 

[Morbad]

Natural result of lowest common denominator economics. But...economics works right?

If there are rational standards that are actually enforced, without bias, then RFT economics work well.

However, such systems are not immune to the corruption they were intended to mitigate.

When it comes to software in such contracts, open access to the source code and third party audits should be mandatory, but the laws in place allow too much to be hidden behind the pretense of trade secrets and ensure that excessive secrecy compromises security, ironically enough.

 

[Arry]

Boeing and NASA working together. What can go wrong?

 

[askavir]

Incredible how Boeing is suddenly and quickly throwing away a century of success in the aviation history.

Luckily I'm european so I fly Airbus

 

[Patrick_68000]

Incredible how Boeing is suddenly and quickly throwing away a century of success in the aviation history.

Luckily I'm european so I fly Airbus

Intel takes the same path with its CPUs for some time.

 

[askavir]

Intel takes the same path with its CPUs for some time.

Yes but at least CPUs don't put people in danger.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Yes but at least CPUs don't put people in danger.

This is not guaranteed ...

 

[znôrt]

If there are rational standards that are actually enforced, without bias, then RFT economics work well.

However, such systems are not immune to the corruption they were intended to mitigate.

When it comes to software in such contracts, open access to the source code and third party audits should be mandatory, but the laws in place allow too much to be hidden behind the pretense of trade secrets and ensure that excessive secrecy compromises security, ironically enough.

and that's in aerospace industry ...

i guess it varies with countries, but in my experience more than mitigate corruption it just outsources most of it to the private sector, which excels in scaling things up. add to it a corrupt judiciary system and any laws you might have in place are just wet paper, even when disaster strikes.

 

[Morbad]

Yes but at least CPUs don't put people in danger.

Many of the same problems afflicting software design also afflict hardware. Namely excessive secrecy, lack of openness, and too much complexity for internal audits to suffice, even if one could rely upon a manufacturer to perform honest due diligence. They have huge amounts of errata, with more being continually discovered, and there is a lot of potential for known or unknown bugs to return incorrect results or present vulnerabilities that could be exploited.