[extropy-chat] Space elevator numbers III

[Jef Allbright]

Keith Henson wrote:
> It's fairly clear that there are not many hardware people on this
> list or
> they are not speaking out.
> 
> Any suggestions as to another list were I could get engineering
> type criticism?

No, I don't know of a better list for such speculation and review.  We
have good scientific and engineering minds on-board, people who have
thought about these and related subjects for years.

More rigorous design reviews at this conceptual phase would include
detailed modeling, simulation and documentation.

-----------------

Sorry for not changing the subject line when it turned toward philosophy
of design.

In over two decades as a manager within high tech industry, and as a
working member of product development teams, I gained an acute
understanding of how true engineers will create wonderful castles in the
air, and then defend them as if their children, fortified with the
certainty that nearly all of those with questions, criticisms or
alternative views weren't even nearly qualified to peoperly understand.
Heh, most of the time they were right.

But it was often a self-fulling pattern of belief, and Not Invented Here
reigned supreme.

As a technical manager in the support side of the business, I
experienced what happens when a clever prototype escapes to
Manufacturing and then out to the field and is exposed to use and abuse
never thought of in the pure light of Engineering, and when FMEA was
optional and contingency and fallback plans were not even considered or
were Somebody Else's Problem.

I learned that there's a fascinating *philosophy* of design and
engineering including statistical failure analysis and prediction, and
significant differences between reliability, robustness, and resilience,
and that one can never be 100% certain what will happen out in the real
world but it must be considered.  Many of the engineers I've known
didn't want to be bothered with all that shit, however.  Couldn't get
them to do documentation, either.

FWIW,

- Jef