Hacker News Reader

Comment by hnthrowaway0315 | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that once you have a very well defined requirement doc that mostly kicks humans out of the picture, as well as a patient boss who doesn't want anything ASAP or "Tomorrow morning first thing", engineering is not that hard, and is almost...enjoyment.

View on HN

> ASAP or "Tomorrow morning first thing"

like in "fast pacing environments" with "flat hierarchies" and "agile mindset"? :-D

As ASAP As Possible

As asap as possible or you can say rip in peace to yourself

A well defined doc evolves over time. it gets sharper with real-world scenarios, incidents, and experiments. Before Voyager 1, we didn’t have that kind of experience. You can’t predict everything upfront.

> Theory only takes you so far

I’d argue that you must not be working on interesting problems if you think that “engineering is not that hard”

I think their point is that the challenge becomes more enjoyable than tedious.

That's the point. I haven't but I would like to, and I realize that the so called "engineering" problems I work on is NOT real engineering.

OK I was probably wrong about that "not hard" though.

Most of us are working on problems that are boring and tedious, not hard.

Would sending voyager have been a real definite deadline?

Absolutely. You could wait decades or centuries for a useful planetary alignment.

Not really. Jupiter alone is good enough. Its huge mass accounts for almost all of the gain you get from any such slingshot. Launch windows from Jupiter to anywhere occur every 12 years. Voyager's alignment was captivating, but realistically if it hadn't happened, we would have just done separate Jupiter-Uranus and Jupiter-Neptune missions instead.

Visiting this many planets was only possible due to a very rare alignment. It's a once a century event. That's why we sent two probes, not just one

Reply on news.ycombinator.com