Re: Ariane5 Troll -;)

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

Hyman Rosen wrote:

> > Look, he insisted that there should be some reasons for that unfortunate
> > management's decision, but consistently refraines from guessing what those
> > reasons may be
>
>You'll notice that the unfortunate management did not decide
>to replace the engines with hamsters running in wheels. Why
>not?

Just because they weren't engineers. As the managers they may *decide* among
already existing set of technical solutions; they may call engineers and other
technical or scientific experts and ask them for extension of that set; but
they can't propose technical solutions of their own.

> If you insist that management makes completely stupid
>decisions for no good reason,

Not at all. They may had many good reasons of various kinds (cost, schedule,
national security, market opportunities etc.). But still they had no reasons
to expect that the software, which was created for Ariane 4, should work for
new rocket Ariane 5.

> they should have done that as
>well, since hamsters are so much cheaper.

No, they may choose entirely inapproriate solution if it happens to be in
some general set (which is not tuned for the case); but they can't decide
for anything too irrelevant.

>Decisions may be bad, and they may be wrong, but they are
>seldom made for no reason at all

As I just said there well may be reasons, and we know that there actually
were at least two - cost and schedule. But that did not constitute complete
set of nesessary reasons.

> - the people making them
>must believe that they are doing the right thing at the time.

Yes, no one disagrees.

>Or are you contending that they wanted the rocket to fail?

Not at all, there is no need for such awful assumptions. But perhaps (if you
wish), for some of them the success of the rocket was not among their primary
personal goals, and the risks associated with the possible failure of the
rocket weren't among the most sensitive personal risks. For example, visible
administrative failure -- such as too big delay against the schedule -- may
be considered as high personal risk, while a launch failure may be considered
as lesser personal risk, because in such a case there was a good chance that
the blame may be essentially diverted (the latter was actually happened...
so nobody should be considered as stupid). 

>Your purported FAQ makes lots of speculation as to the mindset
>and beliefs of people in the project.

I don't think so. Pointing out at the expectations (about specific class of
things), which are natural for persons with particular background and or
experience, is not a speculation about their mindsets and beliefs.



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia