Engineering Philosophies: An Insight

Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin with the American Flag working on the Eagle. Image courtesy of NASA

Engineering Philosophies are complex yet integral parts of any engineering company. It describes how a company will behave while undertaking a project. It describes how the company will work and how the funds are distributed. It depends upon the varying resources of each company. Time, funds, manpower, and availability of facilities make a difference in each company’s approach (essentially The Engineering Philosophy).

Note:  The word “company” will be used for “company/organization” throughout this blog. Also, the word Russia/Russians will be used interchangeably with USSR.

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1^st Example of Engineering Philosophy:  NASA in the 1960s

The 1960s was a time of excitement, experiment, rivalry, and scientific evolution. During this time, it seemed that both sides fighting the war (Russia and The USA) had endless resources. The money or facilities used never seemed to be a problem as long as work was progressing on schedule. This led to rather un-cost-effective measures of getting work done. Everything that mattered was GETTING THERE FIRST. NO MATTER THE COST. Getting a milestone would heavily affect the political condition surrounding a party and thus they gave it everything they had. This led to The Soviet Union and USA’s Space Agencies only focusing on finishing their projects faster.

The Saturn V launches for Apollo 1. Image Courtesy of Science Museum, UK

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2^nd Example of Engineering Philosophy: USSR in the 1960s

1961. The height of the Cold War. USSR was dominating. They had achieved Orbital satellites, manned spaceflight, and manned orbital flight before the Americans. The world was in chaos. The white hell of Communism winning the war wasn’t too pleasing for many. Amid failure, JFK dared the USA and the newly formed NASA to land a person on the Moon and safely bring him back, a move which was considered impossible by everyone and even the USSR themselves did not do dare to commit to a challenge that difficult. To maintain their lead in the Space Race, the Russians maintained top-level secrecy. Some of the files, designs, and other documents have still not been found. Their engineering philosophy was to create incomprehensibly complex designs and MAKE THEM WORK. They did not have the money the Americans had or the time normal space agencies have. What they had is manpower, good departments, and a lot of support. One of the Departments that they were good at was metallurgy. This was proven when the Russians built Oxygen-Rich Closed-Cycle Engines. If you want more info on Engine Cycles, go check out Everyday Astronaut’s Video Here:

Courtesy of Tim Dodd, and everydayastronaut.com

 The manpower they had made it possible for them to do a lot of experiments; have a lot of programs running at the same time, and with the Space agency outsourcing to the military, a lot of their operations were self-sufficient. Just to give you a scale of the Russian Space Agency’s operations, they tested a whopping 83 different engines. By the way, Everyday Astronaut’s got a Banger Video on the different Soviet Engines. Check it out here:

Courtesy of Tim Dodd, and everydayastronaut.com

3^rd Example of Engineering Philosophy:  SpaceX

SpaceX operates like a sleek Silicon Valley-based Start-up Tech Company. It has the Silicon Valley concept written all over its books. This is of course due to its billionaire owner Elon Musk and his time with zip2, x.com, and PayPal. The company hires highly-skilled professionals and builds a team of strength. Elon likes to give it 100% and above. Many people simply cannot fit in with a work environment like that. So more than building a strong team, SpaceX focuses on building a team of Go-Getters. SpaceX has remained private though, Elon not wanting to lose the company to investors like he lost x.com to PayPal. SpaceX is a fast-moving-untraditional-silicon-valley-mindset-go-getting Company.

The Falcon of the Rockets! 😉 Image Courtesy of SpaceX

Brought to you by Vasurva Wadajkar and Aerospace With Vasurva

There are many ways to tackle a problem and reach the wanted end result. Which way we take depends on what resources we have. The same goes for a company. Space Agencies will do anything to wiggle out of problems and achieve their goals, sometimes discovering new and ingenious ways to do so in the process. How a company approaches a problem and moves to its result is nothing but its engineering philosophy. I hope you enjoyed this blog, if so please consider following the blog and reading some of my other posts! Thanks for reading; I hope you have a nice day!