Report slams Boeing and NASA over shoddy quality that's delayed SLS blastoff

Boeing and NASA have come in for scathing criticism from federal investigators, who examined the next generation of Space Launch System rockets. A report from NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), released Thursday, considered progress of Space Launch System (SLS) version 1B – the rocket hoped to lift off in 2028 and …

[ecofeco]

It's... complicated

NASA has been fully captured by Boeing. A process that occurred over several decades with the direct help of a specific certain group of folks in Congress.

Outside of anything to do with Boeing, NASA still does great work. But when it comes to all things Boeing? Yeah. Utter shite corporate welfare for an incompetent company and NASA's hands are tied by Congress.

[DS999]

"The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

Dunno, this may come at the perfect time for him. There will undoubtedly be some resistance to the changes he's going to need to make from the entrenched bureaucracy. You don't get in the position Boeing is today overnight, it takes years of a lot of people doing the wrong things. Undoubtedly some of them would prefer to keep their head down and "wait for the whole thing to blow over", hoping to escape scrutiny.

So the more stuff he can use as a hammer to force people to do things his way or be able to demote or fire people who stand in the way, the better.

[cageordie]

Re: "The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

Assuming he doesn't just continue to put his bonus scheme and shareholder value above all else... like the law requires. Boeing execs think they have a press image problem, they are still making millions. They just need to make people stop saying bad things about them. So, the new guy can use the "take three envelopes" joke in real life.

[SundogUK]

Re: "The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

"Assuming he doesn't just continue to put his bonus scheme and shareholder value above all else... like the law requires."

The law says nothing about his bonus scheme.

Maximising shareholder value is required but how you go about that is never specified, and it is up to the shareholders to communicate what they actually require. A business prioritising long-term value is certainly an acceptable option.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

"Maximising shareholder value is required but how you go about that is never specified, and it is up to the shareholders to communicate what they actually require."

It's up to senior management, not shareholders to determine what's required since the shareholders are silent partners and it's easy for them to change their ownership at will.

What "maximizing shareholder value" has devolved into is making sure that senior management who are often compensated with more in shares than salary create policy that makes those shares as valuable as possible. In law, the requirement is to conduct business in a responsible manner that's consistent with the intent of the enterprise and the market it serves. I see enriching the C-level as counter to managing the company properly while realizing that having some skin in the game is not a bad thing. Cutting corners to bolster stock price isn't maximizing "value" to the shareholder (maybe to a day-trader), but reducing the long term prospects of the company which will affect any investor putting money in for the long term.

[Anna Nymous]

Re: "The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

> Maximising shareholder value is required

Can you point me to where it say that, that it is required? Because if there's a law that says that, then you can betcha that most companies are doing it wrong. I own a company and own 100% of the shares in it. I am not maximizing my shareholder's value when acting as the president of said company, its value has been relatively flat. Am I a criminal now?

While officers of a company have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the company with its funds, that is not the same as now anywhere near to 'maximizing (ed.) shareholder value", that's just "be wise in how you spend money and don't do obviously dumb stuff". It's time this trope that companies have to do everything for profit and "maximizing value" dies because it's untrue.

[Julian Poyntz]

Re: "The report comes at an unfortunate time for Boeing's new CEO"

carry on the with their current distasters, they won't have a share price, or even a company to worry about

[cageordie]

Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

It hires former government officials when they leave government service. So turning a blind eye today gets you a sweetheart deal tomorrow.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

That sweetheart deal is going to be a lot less interesting if Boeing tanks, like it should.

Of course, if that is the case, there will be a "too big to fail" bailout, but the public effect of that would be disastrous - which doesn't mean it wouldn't work. After all, the White House can hardly imagine buying an Airbus 320 for its next Air Force One, now can it ?

[Fr. Ted Crilly]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

No, but i'm quite sure AirBus would 'do' A340 specials for presidential and the Looking Glass fleet if asked nicely

[Like a badger]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

A340's out of production for over a decade, that won't restart ever. Remains to be seen what the US will do for the next AF1, because airlines have gravitated to twin motors, that might be an acceptable risk for the airlines, not so sure they would regard that as OK for AF1. Whilst the A380's more recent and would be ideal, doubt that it would be possible to restart production after it ended four years ago. And would the US want to find a pair of second hand A380s? Second hand goods from foreign airlines and a foreign manufacturer for POTUS doesn't seem likely.

[Wellyboot]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

The Next AF1 (USAF designation VC-25B) aircraft are being customised from a pair of cancelled new build 747s that had been sitting around in a Mojave storage compound for half a decade.

Wiki* has a page, spoiler they're behind schedule with QC issues!

*I know but the ref. section is good.

[druck]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

There is a huge amount of commonality between the A330 and A340, including the wing. Foregoing the centre rear landing gear, while it isn't quite as simple as taking a A330 MRTT off the production line and sticking 4 engines on it, it is not beyond possibility for a customisation job of the scale and cost of the Air Force One program.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Historically Boeing has a way of buying lenient trreatment

there will be a "too big to fail" bailout,

"Too big to fail" doesn't preclude breaking up a huge conglomerate into smaller, more manageable pieces, pieces small enough that some of them can be allowed to fail or be bought out if they don't sort themselves out.

[John Smith 19]

IOW.....

BAU at both NASA and Boeing.

Boeing is veeeery far from the company that built the 707.

Note this is exactly the outcome that the people like Senat Shelby of 'bama wanted.

More cash pumped into that state.

NASA actually has excellent project management, scheduling and costing skills.

On paper.

All turns to s8*t when on an actual project.

Remember Boeing got roughly 2x the award to build "Starliner" as SX got to build Dragon. Build quality? P**s poor.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Boeing don't have all the money and may have to give some back

I tried to find out what the milestones are and how much is awarded for each. The information is considered commercially sensitive so is not released to the public. NASA does pay out for progress towards each milestone but if a milestone is not completed they get the progress payments for it back. Much of the contract value is in the early milestones to cover development costs. NASA has extended SpaceX's contract with an additional 8 operational missions bringing the total contract value to $4.9B. If SpaceX complete all their current missions and Boeing cancels before completing their current demonstration SpaceX could easily end up getting twice as much money as Boeing for Commercial Crew.

In such a scenario NASA might allocate Boeing's 6 operational missions to SpaceX for an additional $1.5B - $2B. They could also reconsider Dream Chaser or ask Blue Origin if they want to re-enter the commercial crew program. BO stepped out of CC with the intention of continuing self funded. Any progress they have made remains a closely guarded secret. Dream Chaser is much more public but NASA does not like Dream Chaser having to escape its fairing if a launch abort is required. Launch companies do not want to launch Dream Chaser without a fairing because aerodynamic forces could switch their rockets to flamey end up mode of flight.

[Irongut]

Re: Boeing don't have all the money and may have to give some back

> ask Blue Origin if they want to re-enter the commercial crew program

When Jeff's BO proves it can actually send a rocket into space, ABOVE the Karman line, maybe they can be considered a launch provider. But the ISS will likely be dead and gone before they are capable.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Boeing don't have all the money and may have to give some back

"When Jeff's BO proves it can actually send a rocket into space, ABOVE the Karman line, maybe they can be considered a launch provider. But the ISS will likely be dead and gone before they are capable."

They already do that. The rocket the launch at their facility in Texas goes above 100km on every flight (except one). When they tested the emergency separation and expected the booster to crash, it continued on to over 100km and came back safely to the landing pad.

I'm anxious to see the New Glenn maiden flight going to Mars in a couple of months in advance of the Holman transfer window, too.

BO doesn't talk a lot about what they are doing. They have no need since Jeff Bezos is bankrolling the whole thing and keeping investors happily donating more and more cash isn't needed thus far.

You might be thinking of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic which can't get to 100km in the iteration the just retired. It remains to be seen if they fly again with a new carrier aircraft (White Knight) and redesigned spacecraft.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Boeing don't have all the money and may have to give some back

"Jeff's BO"

Whenever see it abbreviated like that, I always think maybe he just needs to take a shower and order some deodorant from Amazon :-)

[Alan Brown]

Re: Boeing don't have all the money and may have to give some back

Getting above the Karman line is easy, sounding rockets have been proving that for decades

The hard (expensive!) part is going sideways fast enough to miss the ground and BO have yet to demonstrate anything along those lines.

[Cruachan]

Re: IOW.....

"Boeing is veeeery far from the company that built the 707."

Boeing is essentially McDonnell-Douglas now in all but name, pretty much everything that is going on there is what led to the "merger" but the M-D attitude has won out over the historical Boeing one over the years.

[Wellyboot]

Re: IOW.....

TBF, Beancounters didn't override engineering in M^cD-D while it existed (and as the two companies prior)

The reputation for slipshod work that Boeing has achieved in the last decade because of the 737-max debacle is not helped by the fact that what competent QC inspector would want to have Boeing on the CV these days, especially at the current 737 build rate (387 last year)

[Alan Brown]

Re: IOW.....

Whilst the MD attitude has prevailed, Boeing has been slipping towards this since the beancounters got the upper hand in 1971

The B747 was a massive risk that in the long term sank the company - it just took longer than everyone else's heavies to get there thanks to "first to market" advantage

[GuldenNL]

Re: IOW.....

New Orleans is in Louisiana, not Alabama.

Boeing's facility is in New Orleans.

The Marshall Space Flight Center is in Huntsville, AL but they has nothing to do with Boeing.

Louisiana's Senators are Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy.

And I agree with the premise of an aerospace manufacturing facility in New Orleans to be a true"WTF?!?" decision.

It's more suited to hurricanes and Hurricanes with bead necklaces and bare breasts. Certainly not known for highly skilled employees.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: IOW.....

Knowing a few Louisiana residents of the greater New Orleans area, they do have highly skilled workers down there.

The big problem is the off-shore oil industry can outbid boing for the services of such employees.

Which is one of the things listed in the report: low pay.

And like a lot of businesses, you get what you pay for... so if you're offering $25/hr for a skilled welder vs $50/hr somewhere else, you are not going to get very many skilled welders or if you do, you find out that they've lied on the resume and are not all that skilled after all.

And the rest is quality issues that would not be a problem if you paid people enough to care about them, and had a decent QA department (why is this sounding more and more like a rant against microsoft for shoddy software?)

After all, shareholders are happy enough to pay way over the odds for company management.... how about the rest of the staff and have a company thats actually worth its stock market price

[MachDiamond]

Re: IOW.....

"so if you're offering $25/hr for a skilled welder"

California might make any hospital position start at $25.hr. Why weld when you can work in a gift shop selling flowers and plush toys for the same money.

[Vulch]

Re: IOW.....

The location in question is the Michoud Assembly Facility which is an Apollo era legacy site. Under NASA ownership it was used to manufacture the Saturn 1 and 1B first stages, followed by the Saturn V S-1C first stage, and then rejigged for the Shuttle ET and now SLS. Administratively it's part of Marshall SFC with part being hired out to Boeing and other bits to LockMart for building Orion capsules.

[MachDiamond]

Re: IOW.....

"It's more suited to hurricanes and Hurricanes with bead necklaces and bare breasts. Certainly not known for highly skilled employees."

For a job working on rockets, the workers will go to where the facilities are. It seems rather obvious that those facilities should be far closer to the launch facilities rather than being spread all over the US in military spacing fashion.

Xcor was in Mojave, CA and that's not a mecca for lifestyle and entertainment, but not far from Los Angeles. They were supposed to move to another desolate outpost in Midland, Texas but folded before they moved. I was up for a job with them, but it was at the time when the writing was on the wall so I wasn't brought onboard. Midland is out in the sticks amongst a lot of oil fields, but that's not the sort of job I'd want. The problem was that roughnecks get paid rather well so the housing market is expensive. I did find a house to rent from somebody that didn't want oil workers as tenants since they'd done that before and the cost to renovate the property after they moved out was massive. They also tended to party pretty hard. A quiet nerdy electronics guy was just the ticket for them and paying at least 6 months at a go was good too.

[Alan Brown]

Re: IOW.....

"Remember Boeing got roughly 2x the award to build "Starliner" as SX got to build Dragon. Build quality? P**s poor."

AND, that was regarded as the "safety bet" because SX was impossibly cheap

McBoing is being shown up, as are large chunks of the entrenched operation - and the probable solution will be to turn SX into a pork-barrel welfare queen as well, rather than kicking asses and taking names

[A Non e-mouse]

[NASA] is unwilling to charge Boeing if the contractor fails to meet quality standards.

Can I just clarify something here: Boeing is on a cost plus contract to build this thing. You're telling me that if Boeing don't make what's required, you'll just pay them more to make it right second time and not consider telling Boeing to pay for the mistake themselves? What f**king incentive is there for Boeing to do anything right?

Obligatory Dilbert.

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Another unhappy Boeing customer from earlier this century

The massive U.S. Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) was cost-plus, co-run by Boeing and the pre-2013 SAIC [1]. I saw lots of waste working that program, especially the copious design review meetings with lunch provided (approx. once a month [2]). It was probably good that they killed the entire program but it seems [solely my opinion here] that Army R&D, especially for ground vehicles, has been a bit haphazard ever since. I'm hoping the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV, the M2 Bradley replacement) and M10 Booker (formerly Mobile Protected Firepower, MPF) fit the supposed purposes.

[1] Split into the primary successor Leidos and the smaller spin-off SAIC (kept the name, tweaked the logo) with both sharing the corporate history/story and none of the FCS blame. The split was due to different areas of the same company creating competing bids / conflict of interest over contacts, not due to any FCS fallout.

[2] Didn't help my waistline / scale readings in my first few years starting my career.

[Giles C]

Tanks

The thing that is strange is that oxygen tanks weren’t welded properly.

Now these are fairly common items (I accept that space rated might need to be better quality) but surely they are numerous companies out there that have fabricated oxygen tanks they are used in all sorts of industries. This is either we don’t care or Bob down the road will do it for a cheaper price and we won’t bother getting the work checked. I mean welders use them all the time.

[Roj Blake]

Re: Tanks

And door plugs on airliners are fairly common items as well. But that didn't stop Boeing from failing to secure one.

[collinsl]

Re: Tanks

Failing to secure several, if memory serves - the one that fell out was just "unlucky" as I believe loose/missing bolts were found in several more, some of which were just being held in by inertia or their own weight etc or one loose bolt which would have failed eventually.

[Andy The Hat]

Re: Tanks

Welding on a steel oxygen tank that's 2mm thick is one thing, potentially welding a 0.5mm LOX tank is something else. Not defending Boeing but you need to see the problem before comparing to average Joe welding up your car ...

[Wellyboot]

Re: Tanks

That leads to the 'Below Average Pay' part, how did the pay for being a LOX tank welder on a Saturn back in the '60s compare to Grandpa Joe who welded Chevy trucks ?

'You get what you pay for' holds true for any skilled occupation.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Tanks

Off the shelf oxygen tanks are probably steel unless you pay extra for a composite over-wrapped pressure vessel. The ones small enough to fit on a light truck start out as a flat sheet and are pushed through a mandrel to make the basic cylinder with a round base shape without any welds. Big storage tanks are made of welded sections but they are not built for high pressure or low weight.

SLS core stage oxygen tanks are aluminium and 8.4m diameter. They are made from two rings and two domes welded together. Each ring is made of 8 sections. Lots of welding partly because of the size and I suspect the ring sections may be orthogrid like New Glenn. The closest to an alternative manufacturer would be Blue Origin. New Glenn uses a 7m diameter liquid oxygen tank made of orthogrid sections and rings machined from large blocks of aluminium. I do not know if Blue can step up to 8.4m but they certainly cannot manufacture quickly and are busy with their own rocket.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Tanks

" I do not know if Blue can step up to 8.4m but they certainly cannot manufacture quickly and are busy with their own rocket."

For something like this, if you don't need to produce a large number of tanks, there's no point to be able to make them quickly if that adds a bunch of cost.

BO uses friction-stir welding to put he tanks together which can yield a weld line that's nearly as homogeneous as the based metal (no fillers in the welding process). I can't see why the same process and materials wouldn't be used for SLS and then x-rayed for QC with any deficiencies repaired. Given the size of the tanks, it's a lot easier than the tanks I worked with when I was in aerospace that were much much smaller, yet we had all of our propellant tank welds inspected with very good first round outcomes. The company we used to fabricate the tanks was chosen partly for their reputation for doing really good work. Time and engineer salaries were a bigger cost so saving a few bucks at Bob The Welder didn't make sense. Our engineering team ran the numbers on company daily costs for things if they were stuck on hold for some reason or needed remedial work done (adding more days for transportation).

Perhaps BO should be given a chance to bid on building tanks. If they can do a better job, that's a bonus for the program and BO is very committed to the space industry so supporting them means another contractor that can do that sort of work. It might be worth BO's investment to expand their capability.

[Potemkine!]

Similarly, the development costs of the EUS were forecast at $962 million, but have since risen to $2.8 billion by 2028

At 100$ per hour, the difference is 18,380,000 hours of work, over 2,000 man-years. A slight underestimation of the workload maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

More an underestimate of the executive bonuses to be handed out.

As long as nobody is made to pay back a bonus, risk management will remain asymmetrical.

[collinsl]

That includes materials, R&D etc does it not?

[Vulch]

Materials don't appear from nowhere, and R&D doesn't just turn up as a nicely formatted document on someones desk as if by magic. It's still wages being paid at some point back along the trail.

[Headley_Grange]

This is just capitalism at its best. Apollo was supported and funded by the government. They were awash with money and the commitment to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade was a driver for both funder and spender. At its peak, NASA's funding was 2% to 3% of total government spending. Now they are competing with commercial companies and that competition is doing what it does best - driving down costs at the expense of quality.

[MachDiamond]

"Now they are competing with commercial companies and that competition is doing what it does best - driving down costs at the expense of quality."

NASA contracts out building purpose built rockets and buys launches from providers if they don't need custom. NASA does build payloads in-house much of the time, but those are very bespoke and it's faster and cheaper to do that than to send it out for bids.

[Marty McFly]

"The report notes that NASA has changed made decisions .... sail beyond initial budgets."

Entire rest of the world.... "You moved the goalposts after the game started, of course it is going to cost extra money."

NASA... Study the problem for two years, then reach the same conclusion.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "The report notes that NASA has changed made decisions .... sail beyond initial budgets."

"NASA... Study the problem for two years, then reach the same conclusion."

Government studies are like that do to the pages and pages detailing how, very precisely, those studies have to be done and who can do them. I like small companies where an engineering manager canvases the staff and plugs things into a project management timeline to have an estimate in a few days. With enough experience, knowing where those first estimates will go can be projected. At one firm, the engineering manager was a qualified engineer himself and could jump in where needed to cure slippage. He also knew enough that if somebody or group was ahead, people could be shifted around where needed. Even though I managed avionics, there was no reason why I couldn't also keep the plumbing documentation and BOM's for that up to date. We liked to instigate as much cross-pollination as possible so the people with the the highest level of skills were applying those skills rather than doing the paperwork if they needed some help.

[Marty McFly]

"His first move was to return Boeing's corporate headquarters to Seattle..."

Ortberg himself is moving to Seattle, not "corporate headquarters".

[Anonymous Coward]

"The first three Block 1 SLS systems will put US crews on the Moon"

Likely in pieces.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or one big flat piece?

[Spherical Cow]

"The first three Block 1 SLS systems will put US crews on the Moon for the first time in half a century"

At first I misread that. Then after working out what it actually meant, I thought nah it works both ways: half a century from now seems plausible the way things are going.

[John Brown (no body)]

I wonder if the Chinese will roll out a red carpet to welcome them?

[Alister]

Space Launch System project overspent, under-built, and is overdue

I wonder how much it cost to prepare that report and get to that conclusion.

I think if you asked most El Reg commentards they could have given that result instantly.

[Richard 12]

Re: Space Launch System project overspent, under-built, and is overdue

Yes, but more important is how and why it got there. Otherwise the only rectifying action is to cancel the whole thing.

The hope of the report authors is that at least some of the issues could be fixed, and SLS actually fly to the Moon before the end of the century.

[spireite]

I read the article n paragraph near the top as the Explosion Upper Stage

That may prove prophetic given the build quality evident in anything Boring is involved in, or attached

[EricB123]

Wow

Prior to reading this story, I had no idea Boeing is moving it's headquarters back to Seattle. I was living in Seattle when Boeing moved it's HQ to Chicago, and I, along with Senator Patty Murray and countless others, were disappointed beyond words. Intentionally moving it's HQ to be away from manufacturing and engineering... I mean, executives are actually paid to make these decisions? Heck, I could have fucked up Boeing for free.