NASA
Out of context: Reply #90
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- peteski0
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design
(pretty good)
• Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is, at best, only an opinion.
• To design a spacecraft right takes a infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong.
• (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.
• At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.
• In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point.
• When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along.
• Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.
• The ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.
• The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct.
• Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though.
• The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, the chances are better that you've screwed up than that you've invented warp drive.
• A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
• (Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.
• Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, SOMEBODY DIES!