Decomposition (prostitution) of engineering activity as a key reason for the collapse of the Soviet system

I studied in Baumanka at the turn of the 80s. Baumanka in those years was quite a tough place to study. It was necessary to thoroughly absorb a basic set of theoretical and engineering knowledge. The atmosphere was essentially a fight club… and every third student dropped out (this is a lot for Soviet universities of that time). Back in 1979, I had the opportunity to be the captain of the Baumanka student team on strength of materials. Our team was specially trained for an additional month and a half, and when we were released, we “rolled out” the rest of Moscow and the Moscow region.

In specialty E-8 “Plasma and Plasma-Ion Systems for Space Applications” we were trained to implement a response to the American “Strategic Defense Initiative” – SDI – those same Reagan “star wars”. A couple of my friends ended up working on the development of Buran, a couple designed satellites, including some with some kind of recoilless gun, someone ended up at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.

But when we met in the second half of the 80s, all our activities smelled of some kind of strangeness and uselessness. Moreover, something similar happened among graduates in other specialties.

Among the possible responses to the American SDI, many things were being prepared, and not only “Buran”. For example, in the second half of the 80s, deputy. the head of the NIIFI department, a certain Zolotarev, was present at the launch of some black space object. Upon his return, he told the department:

“..It was some kind of terrible thing.. Everyone really didn’t like it.. Everyone really wanted it not to fly.. When it deviated from the route, flight and fell into the Pacific Ocean, everyone was very happy.. Everyone was very happy … Everyone was very happy..”

As it turned out later, it was a mock-up of a military space laser. Actually, the project itself had been successfully failed by this time and all that was required was to do it correctly – “ends in the water.” We can say that the space flight route, which in the future will be known as the Phobos-Grunt space route, was well mastered and known already in the 80s.

In the mid-80s, while visiting Baumanka, I found guys from the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where they were talking about how they created a large mechanical energy storage device for some kind of military R&D. It was a flywheel combined with an extreme unipolar electric machine. The problem with electrical machines of the unipolar type is that sliding contact is inevitable… and monstrous currents. The project's implementers decided to try a solution known as plasma contact. They made it in air at atmospheric pressure, received a huge flow of heat in the form of a welding arc… and tightly welded the flywheel.

After which it was stated that plasma is a rare nasty thing…

Examples of various kinds of such failures can be continued to be given, but it is advisable to give a systematic vision of the reasons for such development. To do this, you need to immerse yourself in the inner atmosphere of the world of design bureaus and research institutes.

The first place of work where I was assigned was the design department of OKB Fakel (Kaliningrad). My first strong impression, which is worth dwelling on, is misunderstanding and a constant silent question mark in the eyes –

“How does all this fit in with what we were taught in Baumanka?”

When in Baumanka we were trained to solve problems – this was essentially a prototype of solving something similar from practice, when we performed laboratory work – they could be a prototype of real research.

In the design department, people came in, came out, and typed something on a typewriter. There was nothing there that resembled course projects at Baumanka and how we carried them out.

A little later, my friend and classmate appeared in the design department… Then the KhAI students came for practice… In all of them one could see that very initial bewilderment and lack of understanding of how it all fits in with what they were taught.

There was a story going around in Baumanka that when, during the defense of my thesis project, the teacher pointed to a spring on the engine drawing, asked to explain how its stiffness was calculated, and it turned out that the spring was simply drawn “from a lantern.” The rating was lowered.

From the point of view of the canon of Baumanka’s development, the project should not so much be drawn as it should be to bring all physics and all calculated theoretical balances into compliance with the technical specifications. In the absence of a theoretical description of a number of processes, it is necessary to do auxiliary practical research.

Since the old-timers of the Fakel design department were clearly not eager to stand at the drawing board and design something there, this task was filled by us, yesterday’s students. At the same time, our senior friend (Kolya Kovalenko) explained to us that there is no design here in our understanding, and what are people doing here? this is drawing.

To understand what OKB Fakel was like in the early 80s, it’s worth telling their story. They arose as some kind of incomprehensible laboratory somewhere at the turn of the 60s. Their place in the sun was very vague for a long time: they were working on space correction engines using ammonia, trying to get involved in the nuclear industry. In the 70s, we docked with the MAI, their local design bureau, and from them we first received the idea, then the development and theoretical support of a plasma-ion engine for spacecraft. Similar ideas have been very popular in research since the late 60s.

Strictly speaking, the physics of the operation of an ion engine consists in accelerating the ions of the working fluid in a potential difference. In this case, the problem is to somehow cut off the parasitic electronic component of the current, which usually dominates in any type of discharge. The Americans made an electro-static blocking of the passage of electrons for this. And this is their classic American way (SERT-II). Ours followed the path of magnetic blocking with Hall current. The initial development of this engine was done on argon (that is, this is what Elon Musk’s space flotilla is currently flying on). It was MAI who, for example, was the author of the idea of ​​a magnetic lens for removing ions from the walls of the engine channel as protection against ion sputtering. In the early 80s, one of the M-70 propulsion modules (now known as SPD-70) was able to operate on the stand for 15 thousand hours.

In this tandem, the role of OKB Fakel was reduced in most cases to support, production and testing.

When in the early 80s it became clear that they had found their “gold mine” at the Fakel Design Bureau, the ministry immediately sent a replacement Chief Designer. This proven “manufacturer” immediately began building and strengthening the vertical of power. Additionally, in the summer of 1983, a commission came from the ministry, which announced the terrible state of affairs with design documentation and that the entire design department needed to be thoroughly screwed up. Alexandra Grigorievna, a rather dull designer in the past, was assigned to this case. She was given high status rights so that she could fully “bend over” and show all her stubbornness. It is usually not at all obvious to ordinary people that, in addition to the visible vertical control, there are auxiliary control loops into which the local “ideologists” can inject horse doses of various dope for fun. For example, even a standard for metric threads can be reissued every 2-3 years. What essentially changes in these re-releases of the standard is very difficult to say due to the large amount of comparison and absurdity, but the clearly visible part is a constant party like “Approved” correct form of entries in drawings.

More piquant is the case when you have developed a design part, take it to the technologist, and show it. His opinion is “… everything is good and problem-free, but let’s change the size tolerances, where possible, to softer ones…”.

There are no problems with the technologist and everyone would be happy with everything, but not Alexandra Grigorievna..

She will only miss one of two options – “..Here is GOST for roughnessaccording to which...” – and the choice is, either you bully all the dimensional accuracy and ruin the agreement with the technologist and put him on his ears without any sense, or you coarse the accuracy in critical places and risk running into problems yourself (at the same time, this stupid and stubborn woman in fact, he is not responsible for anything).

About the state of the level of plasma-ion engines in the OKB in the first half of the 80s, we can say that they were created, underwent initial testing, were ready for use in space (… largely thanks to the MAI),… but still remained very, very raw.

And here it is worth noting that the management of the Torch was somehow not very interested in the subtleties of ion flow, plasma physics and a host of other issues. On the test bench, among the engine parameters, only thrust was measured using torsion scales. Such parameters as ion velocity dispersion, time dispersion, percentage of ionization of the working fluid, temporary stability of the plasma, heat flux from the engine and much more were not measured in any way.

At that time, the management of OKB Fakel set a course for the actual primitivization of its own work.

Around 1983, KhAI (Kharkov, Bilan’s group) began to be connected to the MAI-Fakel tandem. First, just for mastering, delving into the topic, understanding the developments, then for duplicating and replacing the MAI in the initial development of plasma-ion engines.

Already from the 17B13 engine block (this is approximately 1982), the development of control electronics was transferred to Georgia. The development of electronics in Georgia, in that logic, had a lot of advantages for management: subtropics, beaches, you have to get there by plane, Georgian wine, and you arrive there not as a simple Katso, but as a respected Gamarjoba Genotsvalli.

Another interesting feature of working in the design department was revealed. If in your project you don’t create a lot of noise and chaos, for example in a workshop or at a testing station, and you don’t become an eyesore to your superiors by “fighting problems,” then career growth is in question.

In the mid-80s, I moved to my parents in Penza.

My second place of work is the Research Institute of Physical Measurements. This is also the space industry. The task of this research institute was to create highly specialized measuring equipment for debugging problem areas in rocket and space technology. This is potentially a very interesting direction.

NIIFI was created in the early 60s, but unlike OKB Fakel, they had no problem finding a topic for work and their place in the sun – they were a branch of the Research Institute of IT (Podlipki), from where they transferred excess topics and a lot of developments.

The then young director Volkov came to the leadership of NIIFI in the mid-60s. If we look at his biography on Wikipedia, we will see a piquant combination there – “..received an evening higher education…”, “… supervised the creation of sensor equipment for Buran…”.

He had no desire for self-education, but what his intellect was enough for right away was to clear the top management of the research institute from smart people – his potential competitors.

If you look at the bottom of the Research Institute of Physical Measurements in the mid-80s, it was an almshouse, an almshouse, and once again an almshouse. People came to the organization to receive a salary according to the cosmic grid and live there until retirement. There is a certain social aspect to this and there seems to be nothing wrong with it, but when the simple-minded public begins to flock together, they begin to develop inclinations like: “You know, when strangers enter our territory in Malaya Tyutyunovka, we punch them in the face…”

The general tone at NIIFI was, of course, set by the management

Every year they rented out the grassroots population for agricultural work. Sowing began at the end of April, followed by beets, haymaking, Besson onions, harvesting, and in mid-October, apple harvesting in the Bekovsky district ended. For each person it was 1.5.. 2 months a year, sometimes up to 3..4. In addition to agricultural work, every 1..2 weeks we were taken out to sweep the city streets or do local household work.

The very top of NIIFI was very interesting.

Knowledgeable people, when they mentioned, for example, the deputy director for procurement and economics, did so with such emphatic thoughtfulness and respect. It seems that this was the boss of the shadow economy who rode the flow of space supplies.

The Chief Technologist was from the same opera, but with a lower status – “Our man in Havana.” For example, NIIFI received a compact foundry installation. Its meaning was that many of the local parts were in the form of a pan or box, turned from a single pig. The Chief Technologist looked at the foundry, quickly made a summary – “no, it doesn’t suit us” … and the installation instantly disappeared. Similarly, he pulled off a scam with personal computers (Taiwanese clones of IBM PC XT, AT 286, AT 386) for chip development, when more than 50% disappeared. I remember how his workshop son was running around, excitedly preoccupied with the fact that – “.. And my share should be greater!..”.

For all such activities, the management of the research institute has built a very specific management. The seething on the local management vertical and the problems of lower life looked like two almost non-overlapping universes.

For example, my first project at NIIFI was electronics for a cryogenic pressure sensor for a military laser using deuterium – heavy hydrogen. By this time I had already been published in the Radio magazine and had a good level in electronics. The sensor itself was made using thin-film strain-resistive technology. When we started testing the electronics together with the sensor on the stands, the results were at first very bad, then extremely bad.

“..He failed everything!!!.. He needs to be dragged to the authorities!.. Are you ready to go and explain yourself?…”

I explained that I was quite ready and, moreover, said that I carefully recorded and analyzed all the test data, built a large number of graphs and with them I could reasonably explain the reasons for the failure.

The stupidity in the eyes of the dachaites instantly disappeared, the desire to drag me to the authorities also disappeared, only discontent and anger remained.

The performance that was played out with me is a standard technique at NIIFI, when the mischievous group begins to make noise, aggressively and excitedly “bring a blizzard,” blaming everyone and opponents, creating a hubbub..

The explanation why the local public turns on the “pack of mongrels during the rut” mode is simple. In 2008-12, I had on my desk a scientific report on the “MIF-2” agreement, thematic “Renaissance”, dated 2007 with RosCosmos (the first copy of the report should be with the customer). Outwardly, everything seems to be decent, but if you delve into it a little deeper, it will become clear that it was written by an obscurantist with a Ph.D. And the entire top of NIIFI, in confirmation of their brainlessness, put their signatures on the report.

And when the large clan at a meeting raised a hubbub and high spirits, the same director and the people around him clearly did not have enough brains to understand the root causes of the problem (… as well as desire).

I later tried to approach managers of various ranks with the test materials, I approached the Deputy. Director of Scientific Work Red Tie. His reaction can be imagined as an idiomatic classic – “And I’m a Fool at my mother’s place!…”.

The source of this and similar stories is the specifics of NIIFI, when contracts are launched and drawn up by people at the grassroots level, and 30-40% of sensor developers are swindlers who easily scam the customer. The role of the same Red Tie is to provide cover when, with promises to “..consider..”,” “..analyze..”,” “.. approach strictly…”, he stalls for time and diverts the main actors from responsibility. In this case, usually 60% of the money under the contract has already been received and does not need to be returned.

If we ask ourselves whether it was still possible to pull out the project and create a cryogenic pressure sensor for a military laser, then here we run into a typical set of problems that appeared in a lot of other places and stories.

1. The only viable option for this task seemed to be sensors based on the capacitive principle. But this would mean that someone in management would have to make a decision and transfer the project from one sensor group to another. With all the abundance of all sorts of bosses at NIIFI, there was no one who initially strictly monitored the adequacy of the start of projects and introduced adjustments.

2. It is difficult to say how close the parameters achieved at that time for capacitive sensors were to the requirements of the Technical Specification for a sensor for a laser, in particular for thermal shock. The grassroots staff of NIIFI produced a large number of experimental developments from year to year, the direction of movement in which was usually set by the “scientific poke” method, fortunately, the state agreed to an infinite number of attempts. The parameters of the newly created sensors were measured, and report tables were compiled. These reports contained some initial local findings. But there was no systematic generalization of the accumulated experience in these reports.

And most importantly, there was no person at NIIFI who could say that, based on previous experience, we will achieve such and such sensor parameters in new developments and fit the development within such tolerances (if we do not consider trivial cases). The level of understanding of the physics of the processes and the degree of generalization of previous experience were low.

3. After the Dachka workers abandoned me as an electronics developer, the development of electronics was transferred to another laboratory. There they quickly found out that the electronics I developed were the best they had (there were actually some “highlights” that they decided to “pump up” with them). The development cycle seemed to repeat itself and they reported with my own scheme, and for the report at the end they falsified general tests. Here we have the fact that there was no analysis on the part of management regarding the failure at the intermediate stage.

Further, the project itself was quietly abandoned.

Consideration of this story aims to provide an initial understanding of the general atmosphere at the institute without going into infinity of examples of similar issues.

The main objective of the article is an attempt to highlight the very mechanics of strategic failures. To do this, you need to take a closer look at the local control pyramid. The key point is that the emergence and creation of the research institute was done under the patronage and with someone’s very serious help. The “trick boys” of the 60s were only required to be smart. And they realized that applied science could be managed without any titanic personal mental efforts. To fill the R&D work with content, you just need to include “brain implants”, the role of which for bosses from the top to the bottom levels was first played by the patronage of the IT Research Institute, then by contracts with universities such as LETI, KhAI, Baumanka and even the local polytechnic. In the reports on these contracts, the professors, in simple, clear language, without undue wisdom, outlined how to approach the solution of certain problems, made initial studies of projects, and sometimes made mock-up prototypes. The task of the bosses at NIIFI was to read these reports, try to understand, or, as a last resort, look at the final conclusions section.

There were many positive things about this practice. It is worth noting that some of our Greatest Icons of the 20th century worked using this method.

Through collaboration with LETI, NIIFI, for example, gave a start to the direction of capacitive sensors, when a couple of graduate students from a professor at LETI created prototypes of very sophisticated electronics, and then a local enthusiast was found who began to master this direction according to the template. Cooperation between OKB Fakel and MAI started under the same scheme. This is exactly the kind of cooperation that OKB Fakel wanted from Bilan’s group at KhAI, Kharkov in the 80s. True, in the early 2000s they switched to the French from the European Space Agency, successfully pulling out a block of design and technological developments from the Torch.

There were also serious nuances in this scheme.

At that time, no one had yet considered the case that “brain implants” could turn off for some reason.

The value of the “brain implants” method for management was that by using an external source of ideas and connecting outside specialists, they could simulate their adequacy with current trends. At the same time, their personal ability to provide solutions to technical problems, demonstrate depth of understanding, lead the project at the grassroots level, and achieve outstanding end results was at zero.

Another feature of the research institute was the vertical management. In the 80s, it was definitely elongated vertically and bloated. This was partly due to the variety of topics, but if you look at its composition by name, and then check who is who in the local Museum of Labor Glory, it turns out that those who came from 1962 to 1967 occupied all the key positions. Everyone who came later could apply for a maximum of the head of the lab.

This created a very interesting pun in management.

Among themselves, the friendly leadership shobla from the 60s could agree and discuss problems very informally, but for the grassroots public, a formal structure of relationships existed and was emphasized in the form of reporting cards, supervision of the special sector, drawing up and implementation of network schedules.

Imagine, here you are – an ordinary pawn from the developers, you are instructed to go to the middle-level manager of another department, carry the network diagram and convince him to sign. He wants standard hours (the equivalent of money) from you, demands to expand the time frame for completing the task by his department. And at the same time, he doesn’t want to do anything, by and large. An additional condition for signing in the case of a machine shop may be the inclusion in the schedule of submitting an additional request to the supply department to provide them with additional volumes of tools (often for a leftist). That is, another cycle of signatures with guaranteed sadomas.

When in 2012 I was carrying out my last projects at NIIFI, the logic of the network diagrams (for example, SG on electronics DHS-24), which were drawn up and given to me for execution, was a complete spiral of absurdity, created primarily in order to achieve a collegial consensus bosses, expressed in a collection of their signatures. The prescribed order of stages and conceivable reasonable technical logic in achieving the project goal were combined there like an owl and a globe.

An important point in understanding the tight-knit leadership shobla of the 60s was that it was a closed group. They were united by their common involvement in various corruption pranks (for example, the construction of a pioneer camp…). And pure intellectuals were not allowed to the middle and higher levels.

One of the options open to them was to be just specialists with the opportunity to grow to a maximum of the head of the lab. And here it is advisable to understand the coordinate system where the assessment of your work – your project – will fall based on a set of cumulative factors.

It is clear that there are a large number of developments of the same electronics that belong to the average mediocre zone. They all somehow fulfill their tasks, there is nothing particularly outstanding about them, but everything about them seems to almost suit everyone, including the customer.

A group of such projects can be taken as a center in a certain coordinate system.

Almost any projects of the above-mentioned development enthusiast for capacitive sensors can be taken as a stand-out direction.

He was really talented in his projects, hardworking and showed significantly better results.

On the other hand, you can offer for consideration a loose project consisting of some good, poorly thought out wishes. This project hardly reaches the point of the annual report, it is formalized for continuation for the next year, then it drags on for a number of years. If there is a shortage of resources, they are taken away from other departments, and the budget of other laboratories may also suffer… And then you see how computers and scarce resources are allocated to this public “first.”

If we calculate the integral cumulative bonuses in each of the options, the option of making clear, bright projects is certainly pleasant for pride, but definitely does not have obvious practical advantages.

The fact that the space industry of the late 50s and the space industry of the late 80s are two completely different industries can be demonstrated by another example.

Historically, NIIFI had a prototyping workshop – N 30, designed for the production of prototypes. If we consider the solution of complex extraordinary problems, then the movement in solving them can be carried out in many small, quick steps with a clearly defined narrow goal for each stage. At the same time, the “hardware” for testing the stage can be very simple, greatly reduced and almost made on the knee. In fact, here we come to a retelling of the “RK-75 Guidelines for the creation of rocket and space technology”, which at the turn of the 80s were presented as our Space Bible and in which the experience of the beginning of the space era was generalized and the emphasis was placed on the mass use and research of various layouts.

But in the NIIFI in the 80s, the mock-up workshop was repurposed and was mostly occupied with making various useful things in the form of spare parts for cars, country jocks and other useful things for the authorities and the “best people in the city.”

Conclusions:

1. The above examples cannot be applied to absolutely all research institutes and design bureaus, since much depended on the leader (and the conditions in which he was placed). The manager could dampen the trends in the air to reformat the meanings, tasks and logic of work. Even within the same laboratory, the head of the lab, due to his personal qualities, could create a fairly creative atmosphere locally.

However, there were examples in the other direction, and the materials presented in the article pale in comparison to them. With a certain amount of talent, large-scale actual sabotage could be successfully staged and used to knock out extraordinary “goodies” such as scarce Western and domestic equipment, switching the flow of resources to oneself, “undercover” blocking and depriving competitors of resources.

2. Articles of this kind cannot but cause angry waves of indignation. The status of many people is confirmed by their years spent in certain positions. And here other criteria are proposed that do not include “drills, marching in formation and reading the charter».

I remember the curse of Professor Demidov, a friend of Feodosyev himself, the author of the coolest textbook on strength of materials in the USSR:“He is so… that he cannot construct a diagram of the moment and calculate the strength of a simple stick sealed against bending force”

According to my observations, few electronics engineers can directly calculate the frequency response using the impedance method of a simple LCR circuit, for example

3. When I studied in Baumanka at the turn of the 80s, one of the teachers proudly said that he studied here, but in the second half of the 40s, almost half of the graduating class of their group became doctors of science (for some reason I remember that namely doctors of science). This was a record, and nothing like it was ever seen again.

In those years, there was a demand in the country for real achievements, for solving technical problems in accordance with the high pace of development.

In subsequent years, the flow of extraordinary problems to be solved did not go away.

So, in my assessment, the above-mentioned project of the DHS-24 sensor has a request for a theoretical level that significantly exceeds the level of 80% of candidate dissertations (at least here in the provinces). A significant part of the problems arising in the space industry are requests for projects, when every 6..18 months it is necessary to “produce on the mountain” a result much higher than the level of the average candidate or doctoral dissertation.

There are a lot of attractive things in tasks of this level of complexity in terms of self-affirmation and self-realization… But will they allow you to do all this and do it, and do you correctly understand your status in such a “scientific organization”?

If we remember the 19th century and the era of serfdom, then apparently 10..30% of the products he produced could be taken from the peasant on quitrent. When I completed research papers for the development of my microcircuit in the late 80s, they took 100% of the project budget from me, transferred it to other needs, and at the end I was required to write a report on the positive results achieved. It is clear that there could be nothing but falsification there.

4. It would be wrong to blame all the sins on the management. The simple ordinary public was quite curious in places. They went through a lot of training, they could “walk in formation” in a lot of places quite autonomously and carry out work… or “throw away” work (“screw all polymers”) according to a standard proven scenario.

5. Now I work in the design bureau of a large private company.

The level of responsibility for results here is such that it removes the public, which does not have the proper potential and professional adequacy, from critical places.

But examples from our classical industry from places where I have visited or worked demonstrate otherwise. At the turn of the 2000s, the Penza Diesel Plant, at that time the largest enterprise in our region, undertook to convert its diesel to gas. The work ended in failure.

At the same time, at the Kolomensky Plant, one of the largest enterprises in the country, they tried to create and debug their own small diesel engine (enter the “clearing” of the Yaroslavl Motor Plant). The result was similar.