[HN Gopher] Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design
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Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design
Author : Tomte
Score : 249 points
Date : 2021-01-09 09:46 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu)
| makach wrote:
| "41. There's never enough time to do it right, but somehow,
| there's always enough time to do it over."
|
| There are quite a lot of items on this list that applies to any
| kind of project management, software development.
|
| This is too close to home, will enjoy responsibly.
| okl wrote:
| In my experience, the opposite is often the case -- The
| argument: "We can't start over because we don't have enough
| time left" grows in strength as the project approaches the
| deadline and is used to justify shoddy work. (You paint
| yourself into a corner.)
|
| I guess one aspect why "agile" stuff is effective, is that the
| "last day" (on which it becomes surprisingly easy to make all
| the decisions that couldn't be made until now) happens multiple
| times and earlier in the project.
| Ottolay wrote:
| To me this is more of a NASA thing. If a program ends up
| going over budget too much it gets cancelled. But the need is
| still there, so new program is often started up with a
| similar set of requirements. This problem is endemic across
| government aerospace programs.
| valuearb wrote:
| NASA projects don't get canceled for being over budget or
| late, they get canceled for being championed by a different
| administration.
|
| Sources: - SLS - Orion - James Webb Telescope -
| constellation/Ares V project
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| It took 24 months of effort to get a particular system to
| barely run every hour by some contractors. After 3 weeks, I
| rewrote most of it and still have a month left, but it runs
| in 5 seconds. I'm having trouble right now convincing my boss
| it's better to work on the 5 second version even if he spent
| hundreds of thousands of dollars on the 1 hour version. It's
| the most annoying sunk cost ever.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I took him as being sarcastic when saying there was always
| time to do it over. He's ironically stating the bad logic
| that people use to justify introducing new technical debt.
|
| At least, that's what I assume, since I've heard this
| sentiment expressed in the much clearer phrasing "If you
| haven't got the time to do it right, when will you find the
| time to do it over?".
|
| That's apparently the title of a popular book by a management
| consultant named John Wooden, but I'm not sure of the
| provenance of the quote.
| [deleted]
| larrydag wrote:
| From Elon Musk "failure is an option". My take, if you aren't
| failing then you aren't learning.
| roughly wrote:
| Failure is an option right up until you're doing 85 on a
| crowded highway with passengers in the car.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Depends what kind of payload you have on your rocket. People
| or a billion-plus dollars of equipment? Or is it just a test
| rocket to see if it can land itself?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People or a billion-plus dollars of equipment?_
|
| Requiring no risk of failure for people is a large part of
| why we don't launch astronauts much.
|
| Space is risky. Setting the expectation that astronauts can
| never be lost, as opposed to that they are on an exciting
| frontier that has its dangers, is out of line with
| astronauts' own risk preferences. This has been a failure
| of expectations setting by NASA.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| I'm just saying it would be blase to say that "risk is
| always an option" in regards to astronaut lives or
| billions of dollars of equipment.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I'm sure it's not just for the sake of the astronauts
| though. Losing an astronaut is losing a massive
| investment and years of training.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Losing an astronaut is losing a massive investment and
| years of training_
|
| Practically grounding astronauts for three decades is not
| much better.
| irowe wrote:
| Which 3 decades were astronauts practically grounded?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Expanding: it should be known when failure is tolerated.
| Situations where it isn't ( _e.g._ maiden flight with
| astronauts) should follow ones where it is.
|
| Being the one learning through failure in an organisation not
| tolerating it isn't fun.
| coldtea wrote:
| When the final outcome is important/worth it, failure is
| tolerated everywhere.
|
| Including "maiden flight with astronauts".
|
| Several test pilots, and astronauts died and we still went
| to air/space.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| This is a perennially satisfying work. It appears to originally
| be from 2003 given the previous time the submission got traction:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25698990
| GlenTheMachine wrote:
| I was Akin's grad student (I'm Henshaw, of Henshaw's Law). The
| Laws go back to the late 1980s, at least.
| aweiland wrote:
| Your name is familiar. Were you there in the 99-02 time
| frame? I was an undergrad employee then working on SCAMP and
| later NBV2/RTSX. I helped design and build the big crate on
| the deck housing the power, comms, and air supply.
|
| Such an amazing place to be.
| GlenTheMachine wrote:
| I was! And I worked on SCAMP II.
| aweiland wrote:
| Very cool! We probably passed on the deck quite a bit
| then.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> 8. In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle
| somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme
| point.
|
| Is it contentious to say we're going through a point in time
| where this is not commonly held?
|
| What I really want to figure out is am I mis-remembering or were
| the late 90s / early 00s pretty strongly centre biased?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| This is the classic fallacy of the middle ground when it comes
| to opinions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
|
| Particularly as "the middle" can be dependent on where the ends
| are. The middle ground of American politics is different to the
| middle ground of European or Chinese politics for example.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Let's consider this in the context of engineering, rather than
| politics.
|
| It's not clear that this is a good rule. If you want to get
| mass from ground to orbit, the rocket equation means that you
| want the least quantity of infrastructure mass that will work,
| maximizing the payload fraction. If you're in charge of safety
| equipment on an orbital station, you want the most effective
| things you can cram in to your mass budget.
|
| Life support? Whenever possible, eliminate it in favor of
| automation. But if you need it, you either want minimal
| (emergency only) or maximal (resilient against disasters) to
| the extent of your available space/power/mass.
| jcims wrote:
| You're absolutely right, but I think the point is that the
| rocket with the maximum payload fraction isn't necessarily
| the best.
| okl wrote:
| Right, if the optimum is not the maximum/minimum of X, then
| you are probably not optimizing for X, or you have additional
| constraints.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The thing is, you always have more than one optimization
| target.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Another formulation would be "optimising on one parameter means
| pessimizing on one or more others".
| DrBazza wrote:
| What's the one where it's not worth launch an interstellar
| vehicle now because one launched in, say, 50 years would overtake
| it and arrive first?
| NortySpock wrote:
| I've never heard it called anything fancy, just the "wait
| calculation" or the "wait equation"
|
| https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2006/11/24/barnards-star-and...
| DrBazza wrote:
| Thanks!
| Razengan wrote:
| Why is almost every spacecraft design in reality and sci-fi
| "pointed" like airplanes and sea ships, as if it's only going to
| move in one direction on one plane?
|
| I'm guessing it's because of the need to go through our
| atmosphere first.
|
| Wouldn't an omnidirectional saucer-like shape (or spherical for
| larger ships) be more practical in 3D vacuum?
| frabert wrote:
| Because that's what the public expects a thing that flies fast
| to look like. Also the Rule of cool applies here.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| In actual engineering, the "rule of cool" only applies when
| two options appear to be exactly similar on all other
| aspects. Which is almost never.
| Razengan wrote:
| Even then the Independence Day saucers and Borg cubes and
| spherical ships win out in the cool factor.
| bluGill wrote:
| In SciFi many ships have a military purpose and should be
| designed around the guns and the engines. Everything else used
| cramed in where there is space.
| elygre wrote:
| I can think of two:
|
| * There would often be a need to separate human areas from more
| energy rich areas. A pointed solution often allows for this
| separation.
|
| * Current engine design has a "rear end" of some sort, which
| then implies "pointing"
| phreeza wrote:
| If you are going fast enough, my understanding is that the
| interstellar medium is actually not that empty and such a shape
| might make sense again. At least that is the reason given in
| the Revelation Space saga.
| yetihehe wrote:
| We don't yet need to go through interstellar medium.
| Currently vehicles which need to go through atmosphere are
| pointy. Vehicles which do not are not pointy (all current
| satellites).
| phreeza wrote:
| The question specifically included sci-fi.
| detritus wrote:
| and, critically, 'fast enough'.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Sci-fi shows need designs that are "readable" by the viewer in
| split secons. That means unique, distinguishable silhouettes
| that also tell you at a glance where everything is moving in a
| shot. Pointy designs make that work excellently.
|
| As for the real world: there are plenty designs that are not
| pointy and flying: every satellite, the ISS, the lunar
| lander... however, all the designs that interact with earth's
| atmosphere have to respect aerodynamics. Thus, just about every
| ascent vehicle becomes pointy. Landers are different. The Soyuz
| return module doesn't look particularly pointy, for instance.
| the8472 wrote:
| almost every satellite.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-
| State...
| the8472 wrote:
| > Why is almost every spacecraft design in reality and sci-fi
| "pointed" like airplanes and sea ships, as if it's only going
| to move in one direction on one plane?
|
| Because they have directional main engines. That does not
| strictly necessitate them to be pointy on the opposite end, but
| it at least requires some design that can distribute the force
| through the ship's body with the minimal amount of structural
| mass. E.g. an axial design that only has to withstand
| compressive forces, not shear forces.
|
| A bigger issue is the lack surface area for cooling. Not even
| The Expanse gets that one right.
| skrebbel wrote:
| > A bigger issue is the lack surface area for cooling. Not
| even The Expanse gets that one right.
|
| Care to elaborate? What's "lack surface area" and how does
| the Expanse get it wrong?
| PeterisP wrote:
| Whatever you do with internally generated energy, you
| either get it out or it accumulates, overheating you.
|
| You need 3-10 m^2 of radiators for every kW of power you
| use. If your ship is powered (I mean internal power, not
| engine exhaust) by a 1MW reactor, then you need radiators
| close to the scale of a football field pushing out waste
| heat, no matter what tech that reactor uses.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| Where does that 3-10 m^2 per kW estimate come from? The
| best I could guess based on my shaky grasp of radiation
| is to equate internally generated power to total radiated
| power using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law:
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+kW%2F%28Stefan-
| Boltz...
|
| Based on that, you need 3-10 m^2 of radiative surface
| area per kilowatt, but that's assuming your equilibrium
| temperature is 203 to 275 K (-70 to 2 degC). Assuming I
| haven't made some basic mistake, couldn't you decide to
| heat part of your surface to some much higher temperature
| and radiate most of your internal power out of that part?
| PeterisP wrote:
| This is what our current spacecraft radiators manage. You
| also have to take into account that radiators also
| interact with the sun and with the rest of the
| spacecraft.
|
| Of course, you could have a heat pump pushing heat to a
| higher temperature surface, some current radiators do
| that, but it has its limitations requires more energy for
| the pump the higher temperature difference you want to
| sustain.
| bombcar wrote:
| Delightfully counterintuitive given the low temperatures
| of space - would it help said ships to hide on the dark
| side of the moon and avoid solar radiation?
| the8472 wrote:
| Scifi ships tend have engines with stupendous power ratings
| (Gigawatts and higher). Even with 99% of efficiency they'd
| have to shed megawatts of heat. Since there is no
| convective or conductive cooling in space your steady-state
| option is radiative cooling which is constrained by surface
| area, temperature difference and emissivity. You don't have
| much flexibility on the latter two. So you need to increase
| surface area. The ISS' radiators take up about 200m2 and
| can reject 70kW. There are non-steady-state options such as
| sacrificial coolants or plain thermal mass but that would
| require extra mass, resupplies or additional downtime. In
| The Expanse the ships just don't have enough area
| considering they're powered by fusion reactors burning
| constantly.
| rm445 wrote:
| What about lasers for emitting waste heat? Obviously
| there are practical issues with having powerful-enough
| lasers essentially powered by a heat engine, but are
| there thermodynamic reasons it couldn't work?
|
| This question is not 'Expanse'-related but inspired by
| David Brin's 'Sundiver'.
| NortySpock wrote:
| I think you're going to run into problems turning waste
| heat into usable energy, because it implies there's a
| cold sink already that you can use to convert the
| temperature differential into electrical energy to drive
| your laser. High end laser efficacy ranges from 30% to
| 50%?[1] But regardless, you're asking to get low-entropy
| energy out of high-entropy energy, and that's one of
| those "you can't win or break-even at thermodynamics in a
| closed system" kind of thing. Since spaceships come
| conveniently jacketed in a vacuum-insulating outer layer
| (i.e. space :) you're still stuck with some variant of
| radiative heat transfer, and "a big piece of metal being
| used as a infrared heat radiator because we pushed heat
| into it using a refrigerator loop) is still the cheapest
| option.
|
| The last option techie that I've ever heard for rejecting
| heat already onboard on a spaceship (and this is pure
| technobabble from proposals about Star Wars ships massive
| power generation needs) would be some magical way to
| convert heat into neutrinos, which, since neutrinos can
| pass though most matter, could be inside the ship and
| still function as a heat rejection mechanism. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.laserfocusworld.com/lasers-
| sources/article/16547...
|
| [2] https://www.theforce.net/swtc/power.html
| blincoln wrote:
| There's a writeup here that you may be interested in, if
| you haven't seen it already:
|
| https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-
| epstein-dr...
|
| The author suggests creating a fusion reaction well
| behind the ship, but channeling the useful parts of it in
| an electromagnetic field tunnel to create thrust while
| dissipating the heat more effectively. Vaguely like
| Project Orion, but with a more-or-less continuous
| external fusion reaction instead of a series of nuclear
| explosions. I am not a physicist, but they seem to have
| done their homework.
| benlivengood wrote:
| > A bigger issue is the lack surface area for cooling. Not
| even The Expanse gets that one right.
|
| This depends on the working temperature of the radiator too.
| In theory if area needed to be optimized a (series of) heat
| pumps could shed more power from a hotter radiator.
|
| If future designers want to be cute about it they could stick
| a high temperature radiator at the front of the ship as a
| headlight and lower temperature radiators in the back for a
| tail light.
| rriepe wrote:
| Mass Effect is the only sci-fi I've come across that touches
| on the issue of building up heat in ships in space.
| pomian wrote:
| Saturn Run, is a really interesting and fun book - by John
| Sandford. I highly recommend it, as a successful modern
| science fiction book. That topic is really well covered,
| with engineers solving all sorts of problems, including
| that one.
| the8472 wrote:
| Banner of the Stars addressed it by cooling peak loads via
| disposable coolant instead of solely relying on radiative
| cooling. It became a limiting factor during a large-scale
| fleet battle.
| hyko wrote:
| They're not? Obviously many of the spacecraft we're used to
| spend a fair bit of time in the atmosphere, but even real
| manned spacecraft have come in different shapes and sizes
| (usually variations on spheres and/or cones).
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" 29. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Program Management) To get an
| accurate estimate of final program requirements, multiply the
| initial time estimates by pi, and slide the decimal point on the
| cost estimates one place to the right."_
|
| I wish I'd learned this a long while ago. Going on some of my
| current projects, it seems that a good portion of my brain still
| hasn't!
| gabia wrote:
| Given spacex, this one hasn't aged well
|
| "39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new
| human space program affordable and on schedule: 1) No new launch
| vehicles. 2) No new launch vehicles. 3) Whatever you do, don't
| develop any new launch vehicles."
| benlivengood wrote:
| Starship is intended to be a dual-purpose cargo and human
| flight vehicle and Falcon 9 + Dragon were iteratively improved
| through many cargo launches before Dragon 2 for human flight.
|
| What has likely changed is that there is sufficient demand for
| cargo flights to bootstrap an affordable human flight program
| on top of it.
| shakow wrote:
| SpaceX was neither affordable nor on schedule. If you wanted
| someone up there cheaply and on time 5 years ago, you should
| just buy a seat on a Soyuz.
|
| However, #39 doesn't say "don't ever develop new launch
| vehicles", rather "don't develop new launch vehicles if staying
| in budget and on timeline is your priority".
| valuearb wrote:
| Falcon 9 is the most affordable launch system in history.
| It's saved NASA billions through ISS cargo launches.
|
| And developing their crewed launches has been over a billion
| dollars cheaper than Boeing, and successfully launched years
| earlier.
| dotancohen wrote:
| SpaceX did not develop a new launch vehicle for a human space
| program. SpaceX developed two new reusable launch vehicles for
| transfering cargo, whilst not cutting the corners that could
| not be cut if it were used for a human space program. Then when
| it came time to put humans on it, it already had a legacy.
|
| Starship, however, is in fact designed for humans. But it is
| not part of a "human space program", rather it is a multi-
| purpose vehicle. It is yet to be seen towards which human space
| programs it will be applied, but even with the Artemis bid many
| aspects of Starship were clearly designed without the Artemis
| bid as a specific target.
| dwighttk wrote:
| I think that one is a round about way of saying "a new human
| space program will never be affordable or on schedule"
| yetihehe wrote:
| It wasn't "on shedule". Also, those launch vehicles were
| already old and proven (multiple times even!) when they
| launched humans.
| JonnyaiR wrote:
| Not quite, spacex changed quite a few things every launch or
| at least every version, that's why the first falcon 9 is very
| different compared to one from today. The one carrying humans
| is called block 5 of the full thrust version (version 1.2).
| qayxc wrote:
| That's not what they meant - SpaceX didn't develop a Falcon
| 9M or Falcon X for the crew vehicle is the key here.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| Notably, SpaceX did not develop the Falcon 9 as part of their
| human spaceflight program, and it was in fact not rated for
| carrying humans for many years. They instead developed their
| launch vehicle as part of a standalone "launch vehicle program"
| then later committed to building a human spaceflight program on
| top of their existing rocket. Starship _is_ being developed as
| part of a human spaceflight program, and we have yet to see
| whether this violation of Akins Laws will be justified.
| zaphoyd wrote:
| I had the opposite thought. SLS/Artemis is a "new human space
| program" that includes a new launch vehicle and it is
| hopelessly unaffordable and off schedule. SpaceX developed one
| of the most affordable human launch systems ever made, in a
| reasonable amount of time, by using their pre-existing cargo
| launch vehicle. Even Boeing will likely have Starliner, which
| also uses an existing workhorse launcher, flying humans before
| SLS launches anything.
| rozab wrote:
| SLS reuses almost everything (with modifications) from the
| shuttle program. These are 40 year old designs. Falcon Heavy
| reused a 10 year old design (Falcon 9).
|
| edit: If we count back to the first successful propulsive
| landing, the technology was only 5 years old. Falcon Heavy
| had been planned since way back in 2005.
| larrydag wrote:
| I think the only thing reused is the engines. Granted that
| is a lot of the engineering.
|
| https://everydayastronaut.com/sls-vs-starship/
| FlyMoreRockets wrote:
| My math shows the technology to be 22 years old.
|
| DC-X: First flight (and first successful propulsive
| landing) 18 August 1993
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
|
| "In December 2015, a Falcon 9 accomplished a propulsive
| vertical landing."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
|
| See also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTVL
|
| Not mentioned in the above link was an amateur group
| developing VTVL tech around the San Francisco bay area in
| the 90's. IIRC, it was EPRS. FWIW, they also invented a
| multi-rotor platform to test their conrol system that
| evolved into the modern drone.
|
| http://www.erps.org
| valuearb wrote:
| Don't forget that SpaceX Grasshopper flew DC-X like tests
| in 2012. Not first by any means, but first for SpaceX.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_prototypes
| FlyMoreRockets wrote:
| Valid point. Also, if one wants to stretch the envelope,
| Harold Graham, flying the Bell Rocket Belt, performed the
| first rocket powered landing, April 20th, 1961 at Bell
| Aerospace, upstate New York. This development footage
| opens with that flight:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxmxbMdToR4
| Isamu wrote:
| Agreed, the entire point of Starship development is to make a
| new human space program (to Mars) affordable.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| All of spacex work is on launch vehicles, so I disagree, you
| are just reading it wrong.
| valuearb wrote:
| Also Cargo and Crew Dragons.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| And a large satellite constellation
| iamtedd wrote:
| Just finished watching the latest episode of The Expanse and had
| to severely reel back my expectation of 'spacecraft' when reading
| this article.
| leetrout wrote:
| " 7. At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants
| to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it."
|
| That's interesting. I generally have strong opinions about things
| I care about and would much rather be the one making decisions so
| I can own the outcome, ESPECIALLY negative outcomes. Maybe it's
| just a control thing... I'd rather fix my own mess
| vvanders wrote:
| I think it's largely a function of the intrinsic reason that
| someone wants to lead.
|
| Are they in it for the title or the prestige? Their desire will
| as some point run in conflict with the larger program goals.
|
| Do they do it because they enjoy bringing a diverse set of
| viewpoints together to create something that couldn't be
| created in isolation? That might have a better chance of
| success.
|
| Unfortunately it's very difficult to determine this externally
| without a significant investment in time or otherwise.
| christophilus wrote:
| " To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who
| most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to
| do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of
| getting themselves made President should on no account be
| allowed to do the job." Douglas Adams
|
| This has largely been my experience.
| moosebear847 wrote:
| Strong opinions could be bad at the start, when nobody really
| actually knows what the heck is going on.
| [deleted]
| lordnacho wrote:
| > Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is
| only an opinion.
|
| With or without numbers, it's still an opinion?
| slx26 wrote:
| It happens with language. Although you can label both as
| "opinions", one of them is, probabilistically speaking, a more
| substantiated opinion.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Not sure why you are downvoted, unless we are in math land, you
| might be right.
|
| Numbers that come from measurements are often not precise
| enough, measure additional things, massaged until they fit the
| preconceived etc. So its still the opinion pretending to be
| engineering.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I recall 39. whenever someone suggests rolling their own form
| component library along with the project - it's pretty much the
| same issue.
| capableweb wrote:
| Well, trade offs right? Rolling their own form component is
| sometimes the right decision, depending on context and more.
|
| See also, #1 and #12 that should be considered in your example
| too.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Perhaps, but in my experience most of the time the project
| focus shifts to those components from the application in
| question.
| teleforce wrote:
| Awesome list of engineering wisdoms!
|
| This one probably the best:
|
| 36:Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is
| elegant. A good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great
| engineer designs them to be effective.
|
| This statement reminded me of the popular quote on teacher, "The
| mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior
| teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
| okl wrote:
| Unless you can decide what elegant, efficient, and effective
| mean for your project that statement is empty.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Cheap, fast, good.
|
| Mediocre: pick one. Adequate: pick two. Outstanding: pick
| three. And customers are happy too.
| _Microft wrote:
| _Elegant_ might be open for debate, but _efficient_ means
| good use of needed resources and _effective_ that the desired
| outcome is actually achieved.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| I would say, if engineers can even identify what the
| desired outcome is, they are already on the path to being
| excellent (or maybe, if they even _attempt_ to identify
| what the desire outcome is!)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Elegant engineering work is work that has good properties
| as evaluated by other engineers and that don't directly
| impact the properties non-engineers care about (what
| doesn't mean that aren't impacts, just not direct ones).
|
| I don't think you will find this in any dictionary, but the
| meaning is incredibly consistent, even on different
| engineering areas and different languages.
| simonh wrote:
| That's why good teaching is hard.
| sokoloff wrote:
| TIL that great (and excellent) are _stronger_ adjectives than
| superior. Thanks.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| I would say the best teacher listens - how can you direct
| someone somewhere if you don't know where they are?
|
| Of course, only really feasible for 1-1 teaching.
| pmdulaney wrote:
| "(Nasa's Law) Work flows to the most competent man until he
| sinks."
|
| Yes, sexist, I know. I recall this from many years ago but have
| not been able to find an official source. Anyone know?
| dotancohen wrote:
| > #20 A bad design with a good presentation is doomed >
| eventually. A good design with a bad presentation > is
| doomed immediately.
|
| This should be the Y Combinator motto. It is one of the axioms
| that is represented here again and again, both explicitly and
| implicitly.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Hm? I can't think of any recent projects with good design but
| bad presentation. The first half is true, but the second half
| seems mistaken in the context of the web.
| jaspax wrote:
| You can't think of them _because they immediately failed_ ,
| and thus you forgot about them or, more likely, never heard
| of them in the first place.
| lisper wrote:
| Exactly this. I have a long list of examples, with a one-
| to-one correspondence to large capital losses I have
| incurred. This is not a coincidence.
| OCISLY wrote:
| > doomed immediately
|
| It's an amenity, though.
| ausbah wrote:
| lists of advice like this from experienced practicioners are
| always great, but does anyone have any good methods for actually
| incorporating just pieces of wisdom into their own work? I find
| myself bookmarking stuff like this but never coming back to it or
| unsure how to fully utilize them
| rzimmerman wrote:
| These lists can be fun because they're a list of inside jokes,
| but there's nothing useful or actionable here. I'm not a fan of
| this type of self-congratulating stuff about budgets and
| schedules never being right and launch vehicles being too hard.
| This type of mentality is why most of the industry is stuck in
| the 60s. Honestly it sounds analogous to wondering why anyone
| would want a personal computer 40 years ago.
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