Michael: You just brightened my day. Thanks for that comment and the excellent quote from Harry Truman.
I have an interesting story on this topic of asking hard questions:
I am often called upon to serve on review boards for spacecraft subsystems -- CDRs, PDRs, etc. I have to ask tough questions during these reviews. If I don't we might lose a $300,000,000 spacecraft. There is no room for mistakes; no repair shop in the heavens.
Recently, the ADEOS spacecraft was lost. This was a Japanese craft. Unfortunately, a US instrument was being flown on it, the NSCAT Scatterometer. The mission was supposed to last for at least 3 years. Instead, we got only about 9 months of data before it died. As a result we currently have no weather data for the wind speed and direction over the world's oceans except for what can be obtained infrequently and very sparsely by reports from the ocean's shipping lanes. This data is very important to helping us understand the El Nino phenomenum. The NSCAT instrument performed beautifully while it lasted and was revolutionizing our understanding of low altitude atmospheric dynamics. NASA and the Atmospheric Sciences community was very disappointed when we lost it.
So we're going to fly a couple of replacements. But in the meantime, NASA wanted to lend whatever hand it could to our Japanese partners to help prevent a similar fate for the ADEOS II spacecraft. I was sent to Japan (about a month ago) to review this craft and the changes that were to be made.
Now here is the interesting part: the cultural differences between Japan and the US prevented me from speaking to the engineers and NASDA (Japanese equivalent for NASA) officials like I would our hardy, thick skinned American engineers. Saving face is very, very important to the Japanese. I had to suggest in very gentle, diplomatic ways, what changes needed to be made. Whereas in the US, I would just lay it on the line and not worry about whose feelings I may have hurt with the truth. The Harry Truman approach would have caused a lot of political fallout, I'm afraid, and, in fact, did with a previous reviewer.
I think the no-nonsense approach of the Americans is very efficient and allows a design to progress with fewer faults and bettter communication between subsystems. As a result, the US is the world leader in Systems Engineering. But I think we have a lot we could learn about respect for the individual and kindness in our disagreements.
All the best to you,
-Sword |
