SpaceX’s Use of Agile Methods

[Guardian]

Author and IT consultant Cliff Berg opines:

"...[T]he existing government-funded space exploration ecosystem, which includes the long entrenched aerospace contractors, don’t really want to do anything new — they just want to keep reinventing the same old things, to keep the money flowing to them but with minimal risk, because mission risk translates into funding risk, and there is less risk in doing things you have already done.

And now SpaceX has ruined things for them. Now they have to actually try things they have not done before. Suddenly everyone is talking about rockets that can land and be reused; and suddenly there is talk of going back to the Moon, and even going to Mars. Other nations have reignited their own programs, because no one wants to be left behind."

SpaceX's Use of Agile Methods.

"SpaceX’s approach to building something new is to break the problem down into a series of smaller problems, and solve them individually. For example, the Starship will need to be able to dock in orbit with another Starship and transfer fuel. To figure out how to do that, SpaceX has signed a contract with NASA to develop the technique. NASA would like to learn how to do that as well, so it is a win-win.

To look at this through an Agile lens, each problem solved is a “minimum marketable feature” — one that can be used and reused for many of its future products.

SpaceX did not invent that approach: NASA used it to get to the Moon. NASA did not start out building a moon rocket. They started with Mercury, to learn how to get to orbit and back reliably. Then they shifted to the Gemini program, through which they perfected the ability to dock in space and do spacewalks. Apollo was next. What SpaceX has done is systematize the approach and use it for all of the systems that they create."