JPL and the Space Age: The Breaking Point

Classic Darwin thinking what a hopeless administrator its why he should be fired years ago

"Don't be afraid of failure". Sounds like he is throwing the crew against the wall to see what sticks and burn the rest.
After all, he has to answer to those writing the checks. Certainly I would not have taken it at face value. I doubt they did either.

Pushing the teams to their breaking points, just like pushing the spacecrafts to their breaking point was and is a good strategy you need to know your limits not just technical but also organisational limits to get the most done.

Underfunded, pressured on schedules, and more and more expectations piled on as to what to achieve.
Faster, better, cheaper.
These are the priorities for space exploration, when at the same time we spend billions on warfare and vanity projects on planet earth ?
Can we even begin to imagine the possibilities, if (for example) this so perceived maverick of future tech and supposed economic genius Elon Musk had spent his 44bil Twitter dollars on JPL, NASA, Lockheed, ESA and/or entities ?
Or even just half of it ?
Yes, so i'm an utopist, naive perhaps, unrealistic certainly.
Dreaming of a world that has overcome it's squabbles between nations, and unitedly focusing entirely on looking outwards to the knowledge and opportunities that await.
Not in my life time, i know.
But when i watch these (and other) videos, the brilliant people who dedicate their lives to this, the obstacles they can overcome and the limits they keep challenging, i cannot help but being hopeful that as a species, one day we will pull together and make this our priority.
It's a vision, a dream, i refuse to let go of.
And i can't even begin to describe how awe struck i am by the people involved in these missions !

Those delicate moments but Genius dared to put aside obstacles and obtain the destination, thank you for your time and effort into the great establishment of the JPL!

FAILURE is EDUCATIONAL.

They should be getting better at this NOT WORSE !!!

Wish NASA would include the year of production in the video title - just makes it easier to know which content really is 'NEW' and which .... isn't.

So it goes.

Breaking point? Breaking point of what?!?

Loved it! Thanks!

Imagine a documentary on the military black projects! Trillions of dollars on science unknown to the public and the advancement it would bring to all human kind.

That's what happens when you send mission after mission for the last 50 years to one planet and still haven't found life or water!
When do you think it's time to stop? The planet died billions of years ago! And yet we spend 100s of millions on the same mission, LOOK FOR LIFE, LOOK FOR WATER?

I know nothing about rocket science but why did Lockheed Martin use the imperial system? I would have assumed industry standard was metric.

ô kê năm bao quen mu ro với bạn Sean je bình luận coi sao hỏa

There's a quote from Hamming, that "mistakes are inevitable, finding them is imperative". Everyone in engineering faces the chance of failure due to mistakes, and we're responsible to search out and prevent all of them that we can find.

I wonder what nine Mars trips each having been successful who benefits, does this level of research have applications that improve the life of the taxpayer.
I think it’s absolutely certain that this level of expense help the lives of humanity long
range.

Can't really thank JPL enough for this series.

Well next time i have a bad day I'm going to remind myself that it could be worse and I could be at a press conference trying to explain how a simple mathematical error doomed my super expensive mars project. My heart went out to the poor guy.

I applaud JPL for their amazing work. And for their bravery in producing this bare all documentary. Every industry experiences failures. What you do next is the measure to judge by. Personally, I would be happy to be the lady working in the cafeteria just to say 'I too work at JPL'. Thanks.

JOHN CASANI AND DAN GOLDIN SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED WITH NO RETIREMENT!! Guarantee fewer mistakes would be made in the future. There is no excuse . Sure Goldin can easily bow up and say i take responsibility because there's no repercussions to the millions he wasted. Take his cushion called lush retirement away after firing him!! YOU WON'T AND DIDN'T, SHAMEFUL!!!!!!

JPL documentaries are always immaculate.

The head of Nasa's comments are very valid. You cannot have stunning science without failure.

And more so, yeah mistakes were made "So what???"

Great vid! Thanks! I am stunned that the U. S. STILL uses the imperial system! I vividly remember as a kid while on an interstate, seeing a brown mileage sign (usually green), that had miles and kilometers. So it was attempted. But...never saw again. Get with the rest of the world and get smart! Go metric!!!

JPL.. town hall meetings..SNL ..open access to the press..director like a regular guy?? How do I sign up? Plus it’s close to home..where do I send my app?

If you take no risk you risk no failure. But you gain little in the way of success.

The only way to find out where the edge of the envelope really is to break it.

In the Bible Jesus said in my fathers house are many mansions I am going to prepare a place for you .

Good series. Look forward to many more.

Let's not call it failure. Let's call it deviation by design. Boom!

Impressive. Good lessons for all of us. I retired from JPL in 1996. The last project I worked on was Cassini. I'm glad it worked so well. Not all of my projects did.

Impressive, as an engineer I can totally relate.

Very interesting Documentary
I knew about the mix up and failure

What amazed me is that this was completely caused by management, but when investigating and applying fixes it is not said out loud that management, not engineers, caused this

As an engineer I face this at my company (post covid) today, where every problem is due to engineers and not managements insistence on bigger faster cheaper

PS: is this not the same reasons for losing both space shuttles…?

Nasa is a deception ... Project Blue Beam ... has an Planned end day Deception Agenda ..... It is an Agency of deception and lies ... its Logo is the serpent tongue

I tried listening to this while I napped… I got anxiety and a racing heart relieving all these problems. I remember those failures and disappointments. FBC… what a waste that could have been avoided.

respect!

These kind of films are very important. And this one especially. To know how to do something great, you should learn how to fail. Just not to fail too many times :-)

Excellent presentation. I was in Tasmania, online with my dial-up internet connection, eagerly following each update of the MPL, hoping against hope that the next contingency would come through.

That's what happens when you put accountants ahead of engineers. I hope the board at Boeing are watching.

Exceptional documentary. Such accounts allow us to take the true measure of the extraordinary scientific and engineering accomplishments achieved by these dedicated people, accomplishments which nowadays almost look routine as they follow one another. Coordinating such projects in all their complexity is no small feat, and anyone involved in such management, from any side of it, funding, etc., will find this document invaluable.

Goldin in 1992 on time and budgets: "There's a sense of "all we have to do is get it working and launch it and all is forgiven" - Hopeless. That will never. occur. again". JWST would like a word!

Along came SLS...

Awesome documentary

Soon NASA will be burying its losses.

My breaking point was when yer gaffer lied to humanity. Then I declared war on NASA.

I personally think we all should show ALOT of respect for all the NASA teams they have achieved so much and they have ALOT more wins then they do fails let's not forget that so to all the NASA teams you get a big 👍🇬🇧

If any of these people spent any time with an aerospace contractor, this "faster better cheaper" mantra coupled with a promised work force reduction would be all too familiar to them. When things start to go wrong with the new (imposed) managerial plan, they always send for people like Goldin to play the "grim reaper" to tell them they'd better get with the plan or else. A very familiar pattern.