Thread

NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart

327 points · 403 comments · ilamont

braiamp · 1790764939 · focus · HN ↗
> “Every time I threw one of these things out there, he says, ‘Oh, engineering will take care of that [and] engineering will take care of that,’” Relja recalls.
That sounds all to familiar to people that actually has to accomplish stuff, heard from management. Engineering will not take care of that because engineering is the one that is raising the concerns!
1. tyrabound · 1790769550 · focus · HN ↗
  It's funny how management's self-delusion about things never makes it into the mind and reality distorting Hollywood movies where the boomer reactivated from retirement saves the day through muscle memory alone in 48 hours of tense montage of frustrations and final inevitable success.
  1. brightball · 1790771838 · focus · HN ↗
    Are you trying to tell me that Space Cowboys isn’t real?
    Forgeties79 · 1790776011 · focus · HN ↗
    No if you want accuracy you need to watch Armageddon
  2. adolph · 1790779301 · focus · HN ↗
    Sometimes things really are delusion until they become reality. Isaacman built up Draken International, "an American provider of tactical fighter aircraft for contract air services including military and defense industry customers." [0] Its fleet includes 1960's vintage aircraft like the Mirage F1. He also is privately undertaking a restoration of a Pavina Tornado. [1] Additionally he has donated restored or to restore early missile artifacts to a space museum. [2]
    Could Isaacman's NASA restore and fly an SR-71? If anyone on the planet had a chance, it's either him or Paul Allen and Allen isn't around any more.
    0. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draken_International" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draken_International
    1. <a href="https://thisisflight.net/2024/07/02/jared-isaacman-announces-tornado-f-2a-restoration-to-flight/" rel="nofollow">https://thisisflight.net/2024/07/02/jared-isaacman-announces...
    2. <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/private-astronaut-jared-isaacman-gives-091025248.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.yahoo.com/news/private-astronaut-jared-isaacman-...
2. teew · 1790782983 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah, compare that statement to Thomas Zurbuchen's assumption that solving engineering problems was a 70% social and 30% technical issue...
3. bunderbunder · 1790787370 · focus · HN ↗
  Sounds like a common communication disconnect that I've seen time and time again.
  Engineering says the juice isn't worth the squeeze. The message management hears is, "It's impossible." They respond - often correctly, if we're being fair - "But of course it's possible." Engineering instead hears them insisting it's feasible.
  I bet that cycle gets cranked up to high gear in an environment like the current US administration where two-way communication is impossible because telling your boss something other than what they want to hear is tantamount to handing them a resignation letter.

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