As I present this week’s My Two Cents, two American astronauts find themselves stuck in space. Fortunately for Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, they are aboard the International Space Station–which is designed and equipped to sustain human life for prolonged periods of time, as opposed to being stranded in a tiny capsule somewhere outside of earth orbit. Wilmore and Williams are in their predicament because the spacecraft that got them to the ISS–the Starliner capsule–is not working properly, and may not be able to safely return them to the earth.
After launching, problems with the Starliner started when the crew started to attempt docking with the space station. It was discovered that the thrusters that enable the astronauts to maneuver the craft were leaking the helium that maintain fuel pressure. An initial attempt to dock was aborted–but a second attempt was successful. Since then, what was supposed to be an eight day mission and a return to earth in mid-June instead sees Wilmore and Williams still in space more than a month-and-a-half later. NASA officials say that in an emergency, the crew could likely use Starliner to leave the space station and come back to earth–but they would rather keep them up there and try to troubleshoot Starliner using a ground-based model.
If you were not aware, Starliner was designed, developed, and built by Boeing–the once mighty engineering and production company that now finds itself beleaguered by failure after failure. Starliner was delivered to NASA several years late and way over budget. This is its maiden flight, and there is a very real possibility that NASA may have to scuttle it in space, and return its crew to earth in a capsule designed and built by Space X.
Following two crashes of 737 Max models featuring a new fly-by-wire system that actively fought control inputs from pilots during takeoff, it was found that Boeing covered up the issues just to avoid having to retrain pilots for certification on a model they promised all of their customers would not require re-certification. Then came an incident earlier this year where a sub-contractor that builds Boeing’s fuselages somehow forgot to bolt a door onto an aircraft–which famously came off mid-flight. And now, Starliner is stuck in space.
In reporting on the bad run for Boeing, stories and conversations usually focus on the “corporate culture” within the company–with a lot of blame being put on a “bottom line mentality” that sacrifices safety and quality for padding the bottom line. And while that has been true since the company merged with McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, where the engineering-driven management of Boeing was subjugated to the accounting-driven leadership that had driven M-D into the ground. There are multiple books, articles, and documentaries on that subject which I would highly recommend checking out. That merger is also now being used in academic settings for how NOT to execute a merger.
While things may suck at the top at Boeing, what if things at the bottom are worse now too?
When you look at the rise of Boeing, and the first decades of NASA, the workforce was very different than it is today. Both organizations were built by engineers that learned their craft in ways that today’s employees wouldn’t understand. Consider that Boeing jets were designed by hand, with engineers using such antiquated items as slide rules and compasses to make their calculations. At NASA, rocket forces, projected speeds, payload capabilities, and return trajectories were all computed long-form, using equations that had been developed through trial and error, or invented just to meet the demands of space travel.
And those engineers came through an education system very different from today’s. Kids back then learned through rote memory, repetition of things like phonics, multiplication tables, square roots, and flash cards. Assignments were hand-written, research was done through reading of books or hands-on experimentation, and testing was seen as the best way to determine actual knowledge and understanding.
Those on the factory floors were different back then too. Many of those that helped build the machines that first got man into space and eventually all the way to the moon had just a few years earlier been building the machines of World War II–again, by hand–around-the-clock for nearly four years. There were few machines to assist in the labor and all instructions were written down or contained in printed blueprints. And they shared the same primary educational background as those designing and operating those machines.
Even the astronauts were different at that time. All of the Mercury 7 were test or fighter pilots–men accustomed to dealing with powerful machines that operated on the edges of performance and design. They had honed their skills dealing with disasters in the air, whether it be damage from dog fights and flak, system failures, or a myriad of other unexpected events that needed to be fixed–literally–on the fly.
Compare that to the workforce of today. While the engineers at Boeing and NASA are (hopefully) still the “best and the brightest”, are they actually the “better of the worse”. Younger employees of all aerospace companies and agencies are the kids that moved through schools with proficiency ratings of less than 50% in core areas like reading comprehension, mathematics, and science understanding. They learned to read by guessing what words described the illustrations in picture books, learned to add by first “building math mountains”, then just using the calculator feature on their phones, and moved a mouse across a screen to “discover new things”.
And the secondary education they received is not nearly as rigorous as previous generations. Large percentages of college students now begin their time on campus in remedial math and English Language Arts courses, literally coming up to the minimum expected standards of comprehension and skill required for college level learning. With a base like that, “college level” has declined as well. 100-level courses are not nearly as advanced as they were in the past. And if you start from a lower point, can the highest point be as high?
Those building these flying machines come to the workforce with the same reduced education, manufacturing experience, and capability to learn. While “reading comprehension” may apply to understanding what you see on a page, it can also affect how you understand what someone is telling you–especially if it is complex directions on how to install an airplane door, or propellant lines for propulsion systems on a space capsule.
It took a lot of highly-educated, highly-trained, incredibly creative, and risk-taking individuals to make Boeing and NASA what they were in the latter half of the 20th Century and the early years of the 21st Century. A mix of penny-pinchers and a less-well-educated, risk-averse new generation of workers threaten to tear that all down. And contribute to a lot more junk floating around in space not working properly.
