What he says about communication at around 32:00 is spot on. That was both frustrating and scary. My former coworkers (and my wife) can attest to me saying multiple times “I’m afraid we’re gonna kill astronauts in space. I don’t wanna be part of that.”
THIS was exactly what was giving me misgivings. Poor communication. All the shit that was getting lost with all the layers of managers and secretive subcontractors. The turnover with NASA management and new people having to get up to speed. The way the different parts of NASA didn’t seem to know what each other were doing and couldn’t even make decisions together.
It’s mind-boggling considering how famously well-managed the subcontractor relations were during Apollo. It feels like NASA has forgotten how to do project-management at the scale needed to do a moon mission.
I suspect it’s less about NASA itself than it is about our dysfunctional Congress. There is no unification over the mission coming from the top, just infighting over who’s districts get the most pork, and which politicians rub elbows with which contractors.
