That contrasts quite strongly with the Air Force/TRW models of large project management developed for programs like Atlas and Titan, with a firm hierarchy of responsibilities and authority.
Interesting comparison. Back in the Atlas and Titan days, government was willing to pay whatever price it needed to develop ICBMs. The technology was still quite new and there was so much to learn. They not only had to develop the missiles themselves but also the reentry vehicles, launch control systems, silos, and a host of other things. SpaceX, on the other hand, was able to select from largely existing technology to develop boosters where cost was perhaps the most important factor.
Many startups fail when they grow too quickly. All too often, the skills needed to start a new company aren’t the same as those needed to operate a much larger company. That SpaceX was able to grow so rapidly (from 7 employees to over 3000 in about 10 years) while still maintaining the startup’s ethos is remarkable. They’re keeping the management flat. While it sounds like a fairly high pressure place, it also sounds like it’d be a fun place to work for someone passionate about space. If I were a young aerospace engineer, I’d want to work somewhere like Scaled Composites, SpaceX, or one of the other “new space” companies. Hell for me would be spending a career somewhere like Boeing where about all I could look forward to is being one of hundreds (or thousands) of engineers developing yet another refinement of the 737.
It isn’t that different from Kelly Johnson’s Skunkworks model.
That contrasts quite strongly with the Air Force/TRW models of large project management developed for programs like Atlas and Titan, with a firm hierarchy of responsibilities and authority.
Interesting comparison. Back in the Atlas and Titan days, government was willing to pay whatever price it needed to develop ICBMs. The technology was still quite new and there was so much to learn. They not only had to develop the missiles themselves but also the reentry vehicles, launch control systems, silos, and a host of other things. SpaceX, on the other hand, was able to select from largely existing technology to develop boosters where cost was perhaps the most important factor.
Many startups fail when they grow too quickly. All too often, the skills needed to start a new company aren’t the same as those needed to operate a much larger company. That SpaceX was able to grow so rapidly (from 7 employees to over 3000 in about 10 years) while still maintaining the startup’s ethos is remarkable. They’re keeping the management flat. While it sounds like a fairly high pressure place, it also sounds like it’d be a fun place to work for someone passionate about space. If I were a young aerospace engineer, I’d want to work somewhere like Scaled Composites, SpaceX, or one of the other “new space” companies. Hell for me would be spending a career somewhere like Boeing where about all I could look forward to is being one of hundreds (or thousands) of engineers developing yet another refinement of the 737.
It isn’t that different from Kelly Johnson’s Skunkworks model.