Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[OttoVonBismarck]

Designing the Space Shuttle doesn't show technical brilliance, it shows the opposite.  One in twenty-six people who flew in the Shuttle died in the Shuttle

The shuttle was designed to NASA's specifications for a reusable space plane, neither shuttle disaster related to the design of the plane itself--Boeing didn't design the overall system, just the space plane part--and technically Rockwell did a lot of that work although I think Boeing later absorbed that part of their business (can't recall specifics.)

One fatal shuttle accident was largely caused by NASA choosing to launch in very cold weather and people ignoring warnings about the consequences from an experienced engineer at Thiokol, the physical failure was in the solid rocket booster which wasn't Boeing designed. The other was caused by debris hitting the shuttle during launch, which again--wasn't due to the shuttle design but the breach mounted system as a concept, which again, wasn't Boeing.

There is a different between the shuttle space plane, which Boeing was involved in, and the overall decision to make a breach-mounted spaceplane system that was intended to be reusable--which was largely a NASA decision and the design of a consortium of aerospace companies.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also this isn't really about Boeing's history or operating efficiency--it is about the specific claim of "advancing human spaceflight", which to my mind incrementally reducing the cost for multinational corporations to fill earth orbit with junk associated with profit seeking ventures is not something I view as advancing human spaceflight.

Wise or unwise, the space shuttle was an undeniable advancement in human spaceflight capabilities. SpaceX's rockets seem to largely be advancements in corporate bottom line for putting stuff into space, none of which appears to be meaningfully advancing human spaceflight.

Worse still, the end goal of SpaceX is a very poor one--which is to advance human spaceflight, specifically for a human Mars mission. A wholly stupid endeavor that should not occur, and has no reason to occur, at least not with technology we will have for many years (probably 100+.) Any scientific missions to Mars can be far more effectively done via robotics teams--and the teams at JPL and others have meaningfully advanced the ability of humans to study other planets in the solar system continuously over the last 30 years--in a way that actually matters and that serves human scientific ends.

A mission to Mars is almost anti-scientific, and a massive waste of potential public resources and energy to a vanity project of billionaires. It is disgraceful that human spaceflight is the goal of the two billionaire led space private companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX), and shows the sort of decision making when "little boys" with lots of money are allowed to make such decisions.

[grumbler]

The shuttle was designed to NASA's specifications for a reusable space plane, neither shuttle disaster related to the design of the plane itself--Boeing didn't design the overall system, just the space plane part--and technically Rockwell did a lot of that work although I think Boeing later absorbed that part of their business (can't recall specifics.)

One fatal shuttle accident was largely caused by NASA choosing to launch in very cold weather and people ignoring warnings about the consequences from an experienced engineer at Thiokol, the physical failure was in the solid rocket booster which wasn't Boeing designed. The other was caused by debris hitting the shuttle during launch, which again--wasn't due to the shuttle design but the breach mounted system as a concept, which again, wasn't Boeing.

There is a different between the shuttle space plane, which Boeing was involved in, and the overall decision to make a breach-mounted spaceplane system that was intended to be reusable--which was largely a NASA decision and the design of a consortium of aerospace companies.

ULA was NASA's prime contractor for SLS operations, not just construction.  NASA launched Challenger because ULA assured it that the contractors agreed that launch was safe.  Colombia was lost because the heat shield tiles (designed and installed by Rockwell, then Boeing) were far too fragile for the intended purpose.

It is a bit macabre, but the NASA/ULA team knew from launch that Colombia was doomed, but didn't investigate the total damage because they didn't want the crew to realize that they were dead folks flying.

The SLS was a failure by any measure.

[viper37]

Musk Shakes Up Twitter's Legal Team as He Looks to Cut More Costs

Twitter has stopped paying rent on offices and is considering not paying severance packages to former employees, among other measures. 

Twitter has stopped paying rent on offices and is considering not paying severance packages to former employees, among other measures.

Mr. Spiro is no longer working at Twitter, according to six people familiar with the decision. Those people said that Mr. Musk has been unhappy with some of the decisions made by Mr. Spiro, a noted criminal defense lawyer who successfully defended the billionaire in a high-profile defamation case in late 2019 and worked his way into the Twitter owner's inner circle.
Among those decisions was Mr. Spiro's call to retain the Twitter deputy general counsel, James A. Baker, through Mr. Musk's various rounds of layoffs and firings. Mr. Baker had served as general counsel at the F.B.I. until May 2018 — advising the agency on politically fraught investigations into Hillary Clinton's private email server and Donald J. Trump's campaign — and joined Twitter in 2020.

Last week, Mr. Musk said he terminated Mr. Baker after he learned that the lawyer had been responsible for reviewing internal communications about the company's decision to suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop. Mr. Musk had ordered that those communications, which he has called the "Twitter Files," be given to a group of journalists to release and discredit the decision-making of the company's past executives.

With Twitter drained of legal talent from layoffs and departures, Mr. Musk has sought lawyers from his other companies, including rocket maker SpaceX, to fill the void. More than half a dozen lawyers from the space exploration company have been given access to Twitter's internal systems, according to two people and documents seen by The Times. SpaceX employees who have been brought in to Twitter include Chris Cardaci, the company's vice president of legal, and Tim Hughes, its senior vice president, global business and government affairs.

A SpaceX spokesman did not return a request for comment.

Among its legal challenges, Twitter is facing more questions from the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating whether the company is still adhering to a consent decree. In 2011, the company signed a consent decree with the F.T.C. after two data breaches and said it would not mislead users about privacy protection. In May, the company paid $150 million to the F.T.C. and Justice Department to settle allegations that it had violated the terms of that consent decree, which was expanded.
The F.T.C. has sent Twitter letters asking whether it still has the resources and staff to adhere to the consent decree, two people with knowledge of the matter said. An F.T.C. spokeswoman declined to comment.
On Friday, as Mr. Musk encouraged the release of internal information through the continuation of his Twitter Files, he also sent an email to employees noting "many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information" showed that some were violating their nondisclosure agreements.
"If you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when joining Twitter, you accept liability to the full extent of the law and Twitter will immediately seek damages," he wrote. The email was first reported by the Platformer newsletter.

Mr. Musk's team has also deliberated the merits of not paying severance to the thousands of people who have left the company since he took over, when there were about 7,500 full-time employees. While Mr. Musk and his advisers had previously considered forgoing any severance when discussing cuts in late October, the company ultimately decided that U.S.-based employees would be given at least two months of pay and one month of severance pay so that the company would be compliant with federal and state labor laws.
Mr. Musk's team is now reconsidering whether it should pay some of those months, according to two people familiar with the discussions, or just face lawsuits from disgruntled former employees. Many former employees still have not received any paperwork formalizing their separation from Twitter, five people said. Mr. Musk has already refused to pay millions of dollars in exit packages to executives he claims were terminated "for cause."
As Twitter has downsized, Mr. Musk's team has been hoping to renegotiate the terms of lease agreements, two people familiar with the discussion said. The company has received complaints from real estate investment and management firms including Shorenstein, which owns the San Francisco buildings that Twitter occupies.
A spokesman for Shorenstein declined to comment.
In other money-saving moves, Twitter has laid off its kitchen staff and begun to list office supplies, industrial-grade kitchen equipment and electronics from its San Francisco office for auction.
Mr. Musk also continues to cut staff and leaders, including Nelson Abramson, Twitter's global head of infrastructure, and Alan Rosa, the global information technology head and vice president of information security, according to four people familiar with the moves.
On Sunday night, Mr. Musk sent two emails to Twitter's staff with advice about how to work for him that he had previously shared with SpaceX and Tesla employees. One message focused on first principles thinking, a worldview based on the teachings of Aristotle to reduce assumptions to basic axioms, which Mr. Musk credited with helping him make difficult decisions. The other advocated against workplace hierarchies.
On Monday, Twitter notified members of its trust and safety council, an advisory group formed in 2016, that it would dissolve immediately. The council was created to guide Twitter through challenging safety problems and content moderation issues, and was made up of organizations focused on civil rights and child safety.

"Safety online can mean survival offline," said Jodie Ginsberg, the president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, one of the organizations involved in the council. "As a platform that has become a critical tool in both open and repressive countries, Twitter must play a constructive role in ensuring that journalists and the public at large are able to receive and impart information without fear of reprisals."

[HisMajestyBOB]

One weird trick to lower your monthly payments - creditors hate it!

[viper37]

It is a bit macabre, but the NASA/ULA team knew from launch that Colombia was doomed, but didn't investigate the total damage because they didn't want the crew to realize that they were dead folks flying.

It seems more complicated than that.
Wikipedia

In short, one team seemed to have concerns about the mission, but another didn't, since Atlantis had the same problems before and nothing bad happened. Also, typical govt bulsshit interfered:

To assess the possible damage to Columbia's wing, members of the Debris Assessment Team made multiple requests to get imagery of the orbiter from the Department of Defense (DoD). Imagery requests were channeled through both the DoD Manned Space Flight Support Office and the Johnson Space Center Engineering Directorate.^{[5]: 150–151} Hale coordinated the request through a DoD representative at KSC. The request was relayed to the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), which began identifying imaging assets that could observe the orbiter. The imagery request was soon rescinded by NASA Mission Management Team Chair Linda Ham after she investigated the origin of it. She had consulted with a Flight Director Phil Engelauf and members of the Mission Management Team, who stated that they did not have a requirement for imagery of Columbia. Ham did not consult with the Debris Assessment Team, and cancelled the imagery request on the basis that it had not been made through official channels.

I think you are confusing with NASA engineers saying that even if they'd knew from the start, nothing could have been done:
Link

I thought for missions like this they kept the other shuttle in a semi-ready condition, with a backup crew on standby, but it seems like this was not the case, and there was not enough fuel to reach the ISS on its orbit.  But they didn't know from the beginning there was important structural damage.

[OttoVonBismarck]

For Columbia I once read a long writeup about whether or not they could have saved them had they known about the damage incurred during the launch. Essentially--yes maybe. The plan would not be try to intercept ISS (they had nowhere near the delta V required to change orbit so dramatically), nor did they have a backup shuttle ready to go. Instead, the plan would have been to just keep the shuttle in orbit, where it had about 30 days of food. They believed with rationing they could extend that out to maybe 45 days, and in that window they believed NASA could probably rush a supply rocket to intercept and extend their time. The end goal would be to rush the next planned shuttle launch up (which was a few months out), to rescue the stranded shuttle crew with the other shuttle.

[viper37]

For Columbia I once read a long writeup about whether or not they could have saved them had they known about the damage incurred during the launch. Essentially--yes maybe. The plan would not be try to intercept ISS (they had nowhere near the delta V required to change orbit so dramatically), nor did they have a backup shuttle ready to go. Instead, the plan would have been to just keep the shuttle in orbit, where it had about 30 days of food. They believed with rationing they could extend that out to maybe 45 days, and in that window they believed NASA could probably rush a supply rocket to intercept and extend their time. The end goal would be to rush the next planned shuttle launch up (which was a few months out), to rescue the stranded shuttle crew with the other shuttle.

From the link I posted:
Cain's review did not address the possibility of launching an emergency shuttle rescue mission. But engineers say they do not believe it would have been possible to get the next shuttle in the launch sequence - Atlantis - into orbit before Columbia's crew ran out of carbon dioxide-scrubbing lithium hydroxide.

I believe after that they kept Atlantis on standby to rescue stranded astronauts during missions.

[Tonitrus]

Mr. Musk's team has also deliberated the merits of not paying severance to the thousands of people who have left the company since he took over, when there were about 7,500 full-time employees. While Mr. Musk and his advisers had previously considered forgoing any severance when discussing cuts in late October, the company ultimately decided that U.S.-based employees would be given at least two months of pay and one month of severance pay so that the company would be compliant with federal and state labor laws.
Mr. Musk's team is now reconsidering whether it should pay some of those months, according to two people familiar with the discussions, or just face lawsuits from disgruntled former employees.

Now, I am not a law-talker...but isn't deliberating planning to violate the law...even labor laws...amount to criminal conspiracy?

[Syt]

He's a billionaire, what's the worst that would happen? He gambles on not having to pay the money, and if he still has to pay (plus damages), he will still be richer than all of us here combined, with more money than we or our kids will spend in our combined lifetimes.

[Tonitrus]

I may be an old-fashioned sort of chap, but I think a conspiracy to violate the law...especially labor laws if one is a corporate CEO...warrants prison time. 

[Syt]

I like your optimism.

[Eddie Teach]

A mission to Mars is almost anti-scientific, and a massive waste of potential public resources and energy to a vanity project of billionaires. It is disgraceful that human spaceflight is the goal of the two billionaire led space private companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX), and shows the sort of decision making when "little boys" with lots of money are allowed to make such decisions.

Like JFK?

[Syt]

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-vacancies-staff-shortage-berlin/

Tesla's Berlin Hub Can't Hire Enough People, or Keep Them

The company's staffing problems have been magnified in Germany, where it is unable to meet targets as more workers head for the exit.

AS ELON MUSK attempts to manage Twitter after mass layoffs in November, his flagship company Tesla is also facing staffing problems globally, with vacancies doubling since mid-June, coupled with exits at its newest gigafactory in Germany.

When the gigafactory in Berlin opened in March, it had a target to produce 5,000 vehicles a week by the end of this year. But it is far from reaching its goals after facing major recruitment problems—the company has so far managed to hire just 7,000 people out of a planned 12,000. This lack of personnel is coupled with missed ambitious production targets; in 2022 Musk told German media he expected to build half a million Teslas in Berlin in 2022.

The company is also losing experienced personnel, according to former and current employees at the gigafactory. They say that current staffers are leaving jobs due to low and unequal pay and inexperienced management in the highly competitive German manufacturing sector. Tesla did not respond to WIRED's requests for comment.

One current employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their job, describes the Berlin gigafactory as "total chaos." "Some people are off sick longer than they've actually worked. There are people who I haven't seen working for three weeks in six months. Many people are signed off sick because the motivation isn't there," they say, blaming poor working conditions. The exits involve temporary staff and permanent employees who have been there for over a year, hired before the gigafactory opened, they claim.

Worldwide, Tesla reached a record number of vacancies for the year in November, listing almost 7,500 jobs. This is double the postings in mid-June, according to data from its own website. Though most of these vacancies were in the US, Germany was in second place, with 386 vacancies advertised at the Berlin plant on November 11, including one for a "high-volume recruiter."

Local labor specialists say it is unlikely Tesla will be able to find more qualified workers to fill the gap, because it is seen as an unattractive employer in the heavily unionized German auto sector, and it competes with rival carmaker Volkswagen for skilled workers in the Berlin area. The Job Centre in nearby Frankfurt (Oder) said on October 4 that Tesla had hired 1,000 previously unemployed workers already, calling it "the biggest recruitment project since reunification," and according to some reports, Tesla is already the largest private employer in Brandenburg.

According to the German metalworkers union IG Metall, Tesla is paying 20 percent less than similar businesses based on staff contracts and job descriptions. IG Metall representative Birgit Dietze wrote in a press release in June, "We know from active IG Metall members that recruitment is not happening at the planned speed."

Holger Bonin, research director at the Institute of Labor Economics, based in Bonn, said that this was a problem with the specialist job market in the country generally, not helped by the fact that many qualified workers in the Berlin region can easily commute to Volkswagen's main plant in Wolfsburg instead.

"Fundamentally, the German labor market has record employment despite coronavirus and inflation. There is a shortage of qualified workers everywhere," Bonin says. "Everyone who could be employed is already employed. That makes it very difficult to fill jobs."

Around 10 percent of the gigafactory's workers are foreign, mostly from neighboring Poland. Tesla had hoped to attract more Polish workers by advertising Polish-speaking hiring managers at the gigafactory, which is just 60 miles from the border. But Polish media reports that these hopes have been dashed by Tesla's German language requirement.

Staffing is just the latest setback for Tesla's Berlin gigafactory, which has already faced a legion of difficulties. Before it opened, it faced environmental protests and court orders over its construction harming endangered lizards, and causing deforestation as well as water contamination.

In September, the Tesla factory's fire brigade was unable to put out a large cardboard fire itself and called in help from local firefighters. It then emerged that Tesla had no working fire alarms.

In the last year, Tesla dropped from being German engineering graduates' second preferred employer (behind Google) to sixth. It is now behind German car manufacturers like Porsche, with some respondents pointing to Elon Musk's comments about firing employees who wanted to work from home.

Tesla's Berlin gigafactory reached a production benchmark of 2,000 Model Y cars a week at the end of October. This means that gigafactory workers have doubled their output since June. But even if they continue to increase production at that rate, they will still be far off their goal of 5,000 a week by the end of the year. This is much lower than the output from the company's other gigafactories: Tesla data tracker Troy Teslike points out that Giga Shanghai reached 20,000 units in exactly 100 days, followed by Giga Texas in 151 days, and Giga Berlin in 187 days.

One of the reasons for this production deficit is the delay of the planned full third-shift system to keep the factory running 24 hours a day, a source familiar with the matter says. This shift was supposed to be implemented in September 2022, but it has reportedly been pushed back. This third shift will require production workers to change their shift patterns every day, across a seven-working-day period. A number of current staff at Tesla Grünheide were unhappy about this, complaining that these working conditions were not in their contract and saying that it exacerbated preexisting staffing problems, the current employee says. They blamed numbers-driven recruitment targets. "People in HR want to hit their targets for recruitment, so they will say anything to get people in, but not pay attention to keeping these workers," they say.

One former employee, who left Tesla in September alongside other staff members after working there for over a year, describes sudden, unannounced changes in working conditions. The former employee, who requested anonymity to speak openly, had been recruited for a mid-level position via LinkedIn, and had signed a contract to move hundreds of miles to Berlin from a smaller German city.

Just before they started, the former employee says they received an updated contract with a new job title. The initial job description had specified that staff must be "willing to work weekends and nights determined by project," which they had understood to mean occasional nights and weekends in special circumstances.

But without any warning, they were given a new job description that required them to work early, night, and weekend shifts. "After two months they changed my shift to a 24/7 three-shift system. I have a young son, and for us it was hard to manage," the former employee says, adding that they had no family support available, because they had moved away from family for the job. When they complained about this, "there was a lack of empathy" from Tesla, and the employee claims they reported inflexibility in changing shift plans, even when the factory was not producing cars due to machines not functioning, with significantly reduced tasks.

Tesla's attempt to improve recruitment and retention by increasing pay for new staff also backfired, as longer-term employees were being paid less than employees who had just arrived doing the same jobs with similar qualifications. This is not usually possible in the heavily unionized auto sector in Germany, as salaries are usually negotiated according to union rates. This caused conflict with the IG Metall union, negative press, and accusations from the Confederation of German Employers' Associations of "threatening Germany's social partnership model" of cooperation between businesses and unions. Tesla received threats of legal action from IG Metall, causing it to eventually raise overall pay by 6 percent, though the union says inequalities remain.

[celedhring]

Yeah, all kinds of tech companies are competing for hiring technical roles, iormlund's comparison to being a hot girl on Tinder was pretty spot on. Given the amount of effort companies put on presenting themselves as attractive places to work, I've never understood Musk's longstanding policy of treating workers like shit (this is pretty documented) as being conducive to sustained success. He seems to have relied on just the brand and the mission, and he's shitting on that too now.