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Comment by fhdbdnfnndnn | Hacker News Reader

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Oh I thought you were talking about NASA and the Columbia disaster. The PowerPoint slide was poorly designed, as it says in the story. The problem was not PowerPoint though. You could summarize it using a PDF, and it will still have the problem if key issues don't grab attention.

The point that seems lost on HN, who evidently are incapable of consuming information that isn't presented in a format designed by Jony Ive himself, is that there's nothing wrong with the format of the slide to the kind of skilled subject matter expert in the aerospace industry that should have been reviewing it on NASA's behalf.

But that's not how it works in most large organizations. The person who has the authority to make the decision is not necessarily an SME in all of the areas they have to make decisions. Rather, they rely on SMEs to do the investigation and then... communicate properly.

For reference, NASA asked the group of aerospace engineers ("rocket scientists") who designed the Space Shuttle to provide them with a technical analysis of the effects of foam impacts, and then subsequently lost the Columbia with all hands because they couldn't exercise more than a high school level of reading comprehension. The engineers presented the facts as they were understood, only stopping short of doing NASA's job for them by deciding to abort reentry.

Why are you posting under three different accounts that you've made in the last 2 hours?

It wasn't communicated properly as it says in the story. It is typical engineer reaction to question the reading comprehension ability of the readers.

If you can't consume the PhD-level analysis that you requested because you only have a high school reading level, despite having been tasked with safely operating what was arguably the most technically complicated piece of technology in existence at the time, then there's really no other excuse for that level of incompetence.

Let's presume you are correct. The Boeing engineers who made this slide were geniuses. The NASA managers consuming it were dullards. If the Boeing engineers were so smart, why didn't they write for their audience?

I am consistently ranked as both one of the best engineers in my company and one of the best communicators. I would never make a slide like that for any audience. It's shit writing for non-engineers and it's shit writing for engineers, too.

You have got to get over whatever this hangup is about "PhD level analysis". That phrase doesn't mean anything.

I'm not arguing that it was a good slide: just extremely average in the context that it was created. If there was a problem with communication, then it was solely on the reader for not being fluent in their own field. The engineers were presenting a nuanced view of their data, which went above the heads of the NASA personnel who were evidently only capable of interpreting a simple "yes or no" answer.

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