r/space • u/thesheetztweetz • May 23 '19
How a SpaceX internal audit of a tiny supplier led to the FBI, DOJ, and NASA uncovering an engineer falsifying dozens of quality reports for rocket parts used on 10 SpaceX missions
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/justice-department-arrests-spacex-supplier-for-fake-inspections.html1.6k
May 24 '19
According to the ethics class I took last semester, this is very unethical and bad.
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u/caustic_kiwi May 24 '19
Glad you learned something.
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u/GuysImConfused May 24 '19
LMAO, I'm taking an ethics class right now for my bachelor in IT/Software.
Indeed I too can confirm, this is a bad man, very bad man.
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u/emichael86 May 24 '19
I hope his dog doesn't let him give the goodest boy pats he deserves and that he finds someone worthy.
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May 24 '19
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u/GuysImConfused May 24 '19
Before you drive anywhere, in the car settings you can select;
A) For The Greater Good Mode - (default in communist countries) where the car will save the pedestrians if there are more pedestrians than there are passengers. Or
B) Self-Interest Mode - (default in capitalist countries) where the car protects you regardless of the cost in lives, because you own it.
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u/Scipio11 May 24 '19
For simple reasons the car should self preserve:
What if the scanners screw up and interpret a couple of trees or other inanimate objects as pedestrians? Then you have a bunch of self driving cars killing the passengers for seamingly no reason.
The car isn't going to have time for facial recognition to trigger before an accident to see if an object is human or not. If it had that kind of time it would just avoid the accident entirely.
It's interesting to debate, but a scary number of people think that all ai are great philosophers that take in all this information and calculate the fate of the world around them.
They literally just see: road, road, small unknown object, road, lane drift, lane drift corrected, road, road, stop sign, clear intersection, road, etc.
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u/Singing_Sea_Shanties May 24 '19
Neither. It simply presses pause, unable to come to a solution. The people inside the vehicle safely step out, and the pedestrians walk away. Eventually the car runs out of electricity trying to decide what to do and shuts off.
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u/DarkMoon99 May 24 '19
Why tho?
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May 24 '19
Different moral theories will tell you different things. The conclusion I came to in this class was that Particularism will allow me to follow my instinct--that this is bad-- and then allow me to pick a moral theory that supports it. I don't have the coffee in me to give you a full analysis, but it's bad because lying is bad, it violates a code of ethics and that's super bad, doing it makes you a bad person and that's bad, and this can affect you/other people in bad ways and that's bad too.
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u/JTanCan May 24 '19
Maybe from a non-teleological viewpoint...
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May 24 '19
I disagree. A good engineer will not violate quality reports or their professional code of ethics, else they've violated their purpose. The only exception would be if someone decided their life's purpose was to be a crappy, dangerous engineer-- then they would be completely in line with their morals.
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May 24 '19
People need to be taught ethics...?
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u/JustARandomGuyYouKno May 24 '19
If you look at the world and how company behaves....yes?
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u/sharfpang May 24 '19
I'm afraid it's not that. Mostly all people well understand the concepts of ethics and know what is ethical and what is not. They just choose to do unethical things, and I don't think any classes can teach one not to do that.
Maybe except classes that teach you just how much trouble you'll be in when you're caught, and that you'll be caught... but that is providing you will be caught... which, if you look at the world and how the companies behave, and what they are getting away with is not really there.
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u/88cowboy May 24 '19
Trading sex for Steaks and office supplies discounts is a lesson to be learned.
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u/themaster1006 May 24 '19
The world is pretty large and complex these days. A lot of actions one can take have several different implications and downstream effects, not all of which are necessarily obvious. Teaching ethics can help people realize the true consequences of their actions and provide a set of rules that can be adapted to many different situations. It can absolutely be helpful. It's not always straightforward to be "good" these days.
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May 24 '19
There are different moral theories that analyze moral issues differently, so... yes? We were taught them as a requirement for our engineering/computer science degrees and they are meant to help us make ethical professional decisions later on. We learned probably around 6 or 7 moral theories and they were pretty useful, so... I mean there's a whole world of academia out there, you did know that, right?
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u/jon8172 May 24 '19
Wish I learned ethics in my class. My teacher just talked about how interesting/ great of a person they are. Typical philosophy majors.
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May 24 '19
Oh, please tell me more about this person. What made them so interesting/great? Most of the philosophy majors/professors I've had any meaningful conversations with definitely did not come off this way, although they do seem to have their own flavor...
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u/jon8172 May 24 '19
First day of class starts of with him saying “people have told me I have lived an interesting life” which was followed up with “I am probably the smartest person in a five mile radius” so that set the bar I guess. Every class and I mean every class he brought up how he adopted his child from an orphanage in Russia and how he does volunteer coursework in a prison for women. Granted at the prison he uses it as examples for how they don’t understand ethical behaviors but the way he presented came off as look at how humble I am. He would bring up multiple times how a girl who was doing poorly in his class would “come in scantly dressed and coo at me” and how he had strong enough will power to not take advantage of the situation. Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head right now.
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May 24 '19
According to my russian aeronautics and engineering classes, it's fine as long as you piss on the rocket before launching it.
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u/theevilengineer May 24 '19
If its like my ethics course 99.9999% of all engineering ethics issues orginated because of a greedy business person wanting to skimp on safety for profit.
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u/vpsj May 24 '19
We don't have ethics class but we did have a moral education class in our schools, and I can confirm this is very immoral
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May 24 '19
I've had students question why anti-cheating policies are so harsh. This is why.
Your integrity matters.
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u/zachrywd May 24 '19
Especially with Engineering, not just integrity but lives as well.
Keep your iron ring on.
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u/wheetcracker May 24 '19
Didn't expect to see the order of the engineer on Reddit. Nice.
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May 24 '19
What? According to statistics, it's the second largest profession among people on Reddit (after It/coding,etc).
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May 24 '19
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u/IsaapEirias May 24 '19
When I was taking aviation maintenance classes a couple students got upset about some of the procedures we had when overhauling an engine. Every bolt, nut, screw, bracket, clip and is placed in a labeled bag saying it was and what part of the engine it came from. if you put it back together and had an extra ANYTHING you took the whole thing apart until you figured out was was missing, if you put it back together and were missing parts all shop work stopped till that missing piece was found.
They complained and asked why we had to deal with such "stupid things". The instructors response has always stuck with me: "Your training for a license. When you get a job with that license you will have more responsibility and liability than any surgeon. If the doctor fucks up he kills one maybe two people at most. You screwing up can kill hundreds, if your really unlucky and the planes lands in a city you could kill thousands. I'm teaching you to keep your job and keep blood off your hands. Don't like it drop out."
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u/I_SUCK__AMA May 24 '19
Next time they ask, bring this up as an example. Tell them it could literally blow up in your face.
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u/Freyr90 May 24 '19
I've had students question why anti-cheating policies are so harsh. This is why.
Nah, most anti-cheating policies, as well as safety regulations are written by megacorporations for the sake of nipping the competitors in the bud.
FCC is run by Verizon people, FDA is run by big Pharma, FAA is run by Boeing and LM.
From Wikipedia:
The FAA has been cited as an example of regulatory capture, "in which the airline industry openly dictates to its regulators its governing rules, arranging for not only beneficial regulation, but placing key people to head these regulators."[22]
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May 24 '19
Are you kidding? Anti-cheating is meant to enforce honesty onto students. It has nothing to do with government regulation.
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u/dsguzbvjrhbv May 24 '19
Harsh policies don't create integrity though. In this case their goal is to create a more fair competition, not better people
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u/pairolegal May 23 '19
Dude should get 10 years. He said his reason for the forgeries was so the company “could ship more product.”
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May 24 '19
Dude will get years. His company will never get another business, will go bankrupt, everybody gets sacked, and no one ever will do business in the aerospace field with the owners/upper management. They threw out their entire future for (I guess) 3% more revenue now. Nice job asshats.
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May 23 '19
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u/Reverend_James May 23 '19
So maybe only 10 years. If your boss insists that you break the law, you can report them anonymously and even if the company finds out you have whistleblower protections. If you think the company is punishing you, get a lawyer and pick out your dream home.
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May 23 '19
If you read the article he literally says that nobody knew what he was doing. If he’s choosing to cover for someone, throw the book at him. If he’s not, throw the book at him.
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May 24 '19
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u/Rally8889 May 24 '19
I worked in human factor engineering and left because I was so sick of management not wanting to do diligence on medical device safety. At my last job, they tried to get my team to sign off on a report that removed our entire section on known failures (causing things like second degree burns). Extra sad that the nurses who reported this in isolation sometimes blamed themselves, not seeing the bigger trend.
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u/spader1 May 24 '19
the excel spreadsheet I used showed the true figures. Not the fudged figures they were using.
"What does that other book say on it?"
"NEVER show to the IRS."
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u/outragedslapping May 24 '19
Current quality control tech here. This is something I go through every day. When I first took this job years ago I would get into legitimate screaming matches with production managers over product not passing inspection. They neutered the quality department by having the techs notify production managers who get to have the final say. All I can do is document things and be told to look the other way. It's all about getting product out now. No one cares about the promises made to customers or the lives of people that are affected by higher ups givng the okay to ship anything and everything. The fight has been beaten out of me and I can't do anything else anymore. I feel like shit when I see our product go out the door, knowing that I didn't have the will or ability to fight it anymore. I just know I'll never buy our products.
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u/pairolegal May 24 '19
True. But I guess you find out if you have integrity when it costs you something. Integrity is easy if there’s nothing at stake.
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u/spartaxwarrior May 24 '19
I've had friends/colleagues speak of this, as well. Even if no one says "you have to pass this thing" it's this understood pressure that never lets up and they don't give a shit as long as only the lowest people on the totem pole would get in trouble.
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u/pairolegal May 23 '19
Maybe. His words suggested that he was self-directed, but it’s certainly possible. “Just following orders” doesn’t cut it in terms of his responsibility.
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u/brickmack May 24 '19
He forged other employees signatures, I doubt this was ordered from above
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u/ImaCallItLikeISeeIt May 24 '19
How many bosses have you had? Because I have had ones that are shady af.
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u/Beer_bongload May 24 '19
Smalley forged the signature of third party inspectors
Not that matters a ton but he was checking the box that outsourced work was acceptable. He was doing it either to pass things through more quickly or just pass more things through. Either of those reasons should have caught the attention of his management whose job would be to track those two metrics. Someone else knew what he was up to.
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u/Ragnar32 May 24 '19
Where does it say that? It says he forged the signature for NDT (Non Destructive Testing) which I highly doubt a company that's only pulling in $2.4 million a year in SpaceX work is going to have the capabilities to do in house. I don't recall it being explicitly stated that he forged the signature of others at PMI. I question it because a directive from above saying "Look buddy, this material passed the last ten times and we know it will pass this time and we really can't take the hit of a late shipment again on a major account like Space X, what can you do to help the company?" Sounds totally reasonable and down right likely.
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u/TheLightningbolt May 24 '19
Yeah, but if he was following orders, whoever gave the orders should get punished too.
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May 24 '19
If he had a paper trail showing that upper management was involved, he wouldn't be in trouble in the first place.
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u/HalloweenLover May 24 '19
I don't get how someone can do this. I did QA on an application that calculated dosages for radio pharmaceuticals, and I was stressed the whole time knowing that if it wasn't right someone could die. How do you live with yourself if something you faked kills someone?
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u/ManikMiner May 24 '19
Really? I do manual and automation testing for hospitals in the UK and we have so many levels of testing its hard to be worried. It would never just fall on one person.
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u/ManWithTheSilverGun May 24 '19
I've seen this sort of thing happen to people before.
It starts with the little things. Maybe something is .001 out of tolerance but could still work just fine. Signing off on it would alleviate a lot of pressure in multiple departments where as rejecting it would mean days or even weeks of extra work. So, why not just overlook it just this once?
The issue keeps coming up, but everything was okay that one time so why not just go with it?
And that's all it can take to allow yourself to become compromised.
Once that happens the rules and regulations start to blur and some find themselves justifying their actions by saying things like, "this is perfectly safe. The tolerances are so high and have so much room for error."
Yet those little oversights just keep getting bigger and bigger until you get to where this guy ended up.
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u/B_U_F_U May 24 '19
Where am I missing where it says in the article that the parts he passed were failing parts?
That’s not what happened. The parts could’ve been passing parts. Where he fucked up is him FORGING the documents, which is typically strictly prohibited in heavily regulated industries.
I didn’t see anywhere where they said he passed failing parts.
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u/CMYK2RGB May 23 '19 edited May 24 '19
Just happy to see it wasn't a former company I worked for in Aero Tech; We were strict by ISO but never, ever, let anything close to being out of spec go to to Space. My eyes wanted to bleed after manually checking measurements of what we sold them.
Still waiting for aliens created from DNA that made it space to come to Earth and make me king, though.
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u/koreaneverlose May 24 '19
I’m a field / supplier QE at a Big 5 defense contractor
While we have a satisfyingly tight quality record and all, the amount of pressure we put on quality for space product is absolutely insane
It’s no wonder space material costs 10x+ other military-grade material, which already costs 10x+ the COTS alternatives.
The paper trail alone eats up 90% of my labor when i do space jobs. The other 10% is actually looking at the hardware.
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u/CMYK2RGB May 24 '19
The place I was at was very small, I spent most of my time with ISO paper worker and packaging, only spent about 20% tops actually manufacturing the products we sold them and designing blueprints.
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May 24 '19
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u/CMYK2RGB May 24 '19
Speak for your own aliens, not for mine, bro!
I enjoyed the link and wish you a great day.
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u/GuruGurrlicious May 24 '19
I work in a similar industry... started out doing Non-Destructive Testing and moved into other QA/QC stuff and stories like this drive me crazy.
I’ve seen it first hand in the field too. People forging signatures. Triple loading radiography films to fake weld inspections. Copying ultrasonic files and re-using them for other inspections. Etc.
I don’t know how on earth people like this guy can sleep at night. I couldn’t even imagine faking these inspections... even when I do everything right and do my best there are still instances where I think back on some of the stuff that “technically” passed code and it creeps me out.
So many people that take that inspection and signature for granted. Operators walking by pressure vessels or boilers every day assuming you did your job and inspected the equipment well... or in this case people literally launching rockets into the air assuming you did your job properly...
I hope he goes to jail for a long time. This was nothing but greed and laziness...
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May 24 '19
I saw similar things. There was a big company that sold materials to my old job/ aerospace companies. They faked certificates and companies like BE aerospace, Northrup, Lockheed essentially purchased materials that didn't technically meet mil-spec... all I could think about is how many lives this affected or has the potential to affect.
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u/F0rkbombz May 24 '19
This is one of the reasons that the stupidest of parts cost DOD so much money - there is a crazy detailed audit trail for the simplest of parts. When (if) something breaks they go through all that and figure out if something was forged/faked/not to spec.
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May 24 '19
I'm an NDT technician and my #1 rule is that I have to be able to sleep at night. Integrity above all. The reality of this profession is that you're gonna be the bad guy sometimes. You're gonna be the guy that holds the project up. You're gonna be the guy that drives up costs. You're gonna be the guy that says this just isn't good enough, no I'm not signing off on it, yes I'm serious, go get your fucking grinder cut it out and try again.
If you can't handle being that guy, this job is not for you.
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u/Istalriblaka May 24 '19
You've gotta be an engineer to get his position, right? Dude needs a reminder of why we wear iron rings.
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u/deepthunk42 May 24 '19
Engineer here, but not that kind. Iron rings? Can you ELI5, please?
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u/KralHeroin May 24 '19
A nuclear plant near me had to shutdown for months due to a worker faking X-ray weld inspections. Not sure if the company was held accountable though.
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u/ORLAking May 24 '19
I’ve been in aerospace and defense manufacturing for 7 years, and we always hear horror stories of companies that fold and people getting federal time from falsifying documentation. I’ve worked in QC and engineering, and never once has the thought crossed my mind. If it doesn’t meet spec, you don’t sign. Simple as that.
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May 24 '19
I doubt it is limited to aerospace and defense. I've heard similar stories from a quality engineer that formerly worked for an automotive supplier. They wanted him to sign off on things that didn't meet specs, he wouldn't do it. That put him at odds with management.
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u/ORLAking May 24 '19
You’re not wrong. And the consequences of shoddy quality in automotive manufacturing can be far more devastating that unmanned space flight.
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u/anteris May 24 '19
Always liked the idea that was used to motivate quality work in RV lines, there's a pool of money set aside for warranty work, the people that worked on it get a bonus from what's left at the end of the warranty period.
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u/skiman13579 May 24 '19
Amen.
Signed, an aircraft mechanic and former aerospace manufacturing worker.
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u/martinborgen May 24 '19
Question - how do they find out it's falsified documentation and not the QA actually signing on faulty stuff?
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u/gram2017 May 24 '19
Could be various ways. One example that I heard about, inspector used same exact inspection data results for multiple parts. His work was reviewed and more parts were found with same exact test results.
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u/emerald18nr May 24 '19
Ahhhh, it's always good to see my city on the news for something that's not about the opioid crisis... Wait, shit...
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u/Decronym May 24 '19 edited May 25 '19
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| COTS | Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract |
| Commercial/Off The Shelf | |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission |
| (Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure | |
| FOD | Foreign Object Damage / Debris |
| ITAR | (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations |
| QA | Quality Assurance/Assessment |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| UDMH | Unsymmetrical DiMethylHydrazine, used in hypergolic fuel mixes |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| hypergolic | A set of two substances that ignite when in contact |
8 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 11 acronyms.
[Thread #3802 for this sub, first seen 24th May 2019, 02:46] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]
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u/ChoosyBeggars May 24 '19
Well, yeah, the worst thing you can do in America is lie to a defense contractor.
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u/geman777 May 24 '19
Glad to see my upstate new york making the news! Damnit
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u/kaishenlong May 24 '19
"Upstate". Please. I can practically smell Canada from my porch. Smells like maple syrup and apologies. /s
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u/geman777 May 24 '19
Well when your that close your not upstate anymore.. Your down Canada, like chromosome wise, why u there. Unless your near lake placid and i forgive u.
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May 24 '19 edited May 24 '19
QC for rockets is a serious thing. Glad that engineer was caught early before the tourist moon trips and manned missions began.
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u/justdace May 24 '19
My mother worked for this company. It cost so many people their jobs. The guy really wrecked a bunch of people's lives just to be lazy.
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u/Latentk May 24 '19
Honestly going through life I feel like personally most people in most careers seem to be either purposely or accidentally half assing most things so long as they get a paid.
My only hope is that I'm completely wrong....
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u/Ghosttalker96 May 24 '19
half assing is not the problem because there are QM processes which will eventually discover the fault. The problem is if people actively hide errors. This is intentional and not half assed
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u/Camoedhunter May 24 '19
That intern is now the highest paid inspector in spacex. Good for him.
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u/Nyloc70 May 24 '19
It wasn't a Spacex intern who caught it:
"In January 2018, SpaceX directed the third-party it used for inspections, SQA Service, to perform an internal audit, which revealed the falsified inspection reports from PMI, the complaint said"
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u/Camoedhunter May 24 '19
Listen, I read through it fast while o was falling asleep. I still support my message that they should promote an intern to chief inspector. Would still be a better story.
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u/IMR800X May 24 '19
Were these parts in any way related to the crew dragon launchpad kaboom?
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May 24 '19 edited May 24 '19
I work in an almost identical setting, making aerospace parts and dealing with source inspectors. I would never imagine faking inspection reports, especially for something going into space. The thing is, everything is traceable back to the manufacturer. If there is a catastrophic failure, it could lead back to you. That being said, I know why he did it: pressure. Deadlines, penalties...customers don't want to hear excuses when parts are late. You don't get paid until they get their parts. It's the same as Wells Fargo employees opening fake accounts and Volkswagen programming their cars to fake emission tests.
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May 24 '19
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u/ahecht May 24 '19
I work in aerospace, and we face internal, DCAA (Department of Defense), NASA, and ISO audits, and by far the internal audits are the strictest and most grueling.
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May 24 '19
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u/Dragoniel May 24 '19
Why the fuck are they not using digital signatures?! Paper fucking signatures? Are you kidding me? I am sitting over here in Lithuania in an inconsequential department that doesn't do anything remotely connected to life-threatening projects and all of our systems are digital, signed, timestamped and good fucking luck breaking the SHA-256 XADES-X-L encryption to fuck with our order for a freaking vacation day I am taking on Monday, let alone an actual contract.
Jesus Christ, our entire IT infrastructure is a rounding error in those companies and they can't do electronic signing? Fuck me.
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May 24 '19
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u/Arkanslayer May 24 '19
Well I don’t think he’s keeping his job. Getting one is pretty easy though.
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u/InfamousAnimal May 24 '19
Because they don't actually care until it. Becomes their problem. I work in aerospace and my company has knowingly run out of spec parts for the last year and a half. I notify them every month when the testing is performed and make sure to notate the sheets but they don't do anything about it.
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u/ErickAggie60 May 24 '19
As a guy who works in aerospace, the pressure to speed things through. With millions (a whole lot of millions) on the line for each company things get pressured to rush unfortunately...
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u/swaggaliciouskk May 24 '19
Every since that NASA supplier got caught providing inferior steel (aluminum?), everyone is going to be on their toes for proper QC.