I have no doubt that NASA's 'business' software is like everyone else's. It would be a waste to invest in high assurance, high talent development for the HR and bug tracking systems.
> It's not just about peeling back the curtain and seeing how the sausage is made, it's more about an organization having high-minded goals where they have requirements to a certain standard of work, but in practice they often turn a blind eye to those standards.
My perspective: Few people live up to the high-minded goals; we're human. We achieve great things when, after experiencing humanity, we don't despair but keep our faith and enthusiasm for those goals. When the founders of the US wrote the Declaration of Independence, they were not naive - they had lots of experience of humanity (including their own), much worse than what we know. Yet they believed in something higher, beyond themsleves. If they didn't, if NASA didn't, we'd still be living in a early modern monarchy and not flying to Jupiter.
Perhaps I’m jaded, but I think there’s a difference between aiming for a high goal but missing because we’re human vs. deliberately aiming short because it’s easier. I saw a lot of the latter, like refusing to learn how to tune PID parameters to manage system dynamics or saying they don’t want to run certain tests because they would be expected to fix any problems they uncover(!).
The lowering of standards is particularly troublesome when higher standards are contractually obligated. There’s a sad phrase that I had heard at high levels called the “NASA salute” which is basically shrugging one’s shoulders to say “yeah, I know I’m supposed to do that, but I also know I won’t be held accountable if I don’t”
> It's not just about peeling back the curtain and seeing how the sausage is made, it's more about an organization having high-minded goals where they have requirements to a certain standard of work, but in practice they often turn a blind eye to those standards.
My perspective: Few people live up to the high-minded goals; we're human. We achieve great things when, after experiencing humanity, we don't despair but keep our faith and enthusiasm for those goals. When the founders of the US wrote the Declaration of Independence, they were not naive - they had lots of experience of humanity (including their own), much worse than what we know. Yet they believed in something higher, beyond themsleves. If they didn't, if NASA didn't, we'd still be living in a early modern monarchy and not flying to Jupiter.
Thanks for sharing yours! TIL a few things.