These are awesome. I took that capstone spacecraft design course at MIT in 2003, and can't recall encountering this list (based on the archive snapshot, he would have shifted on to UMD more than thirty years prior). The project was satellite-focused rather than launch vehicle, so maybe his instructions were imbued implicitly into the course?
• Much of the design-conservative ethos permeates aerospace development. It's unsurprising that astronautics evolution has been slow at least until Elon came along. I wonder how Elon / SpaceX folks would respond to these laws esp. #39 (avoid designing launch vehicles).
• Also the one that was conspicuously maintained at the end across the different archived versions:
"Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, somebody dies (and there's no partial credit because most of the analysis was right...)"
It's notable that the wayback machine's first crawl of Akin's list is late 2003 (so presumably when the source page went live) the year in which the Columbia disaster took place.
> I wonder how Elon / SpaceX folks would respond to these laws esp. #39 (avoid designing launch vehicles).
Perhaps, based on specific context, let the Law's vote!
> Law 11: Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is
to throw everything out and start over.
> Law 16: The previous people [...]
did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom
of the ages. There is therefore no reason to
believe their analysis [was optimal].
> Law 31 (Mo's Law of Evolutionary
Development): [...] understand the fundamental
limitations of [the existing] technology/approach.
IMHO: Law 31 is the kicker. That triggers Law 11. With general support from Law 16.
> > I wonder how Elon / SpaceX folks would respond to these laws esp. #39 (avoid designing launch vehicles)
SpaceX has designed 3 (four if you include Falcon 1) launch vehicles: Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship. The first three run the same engine family and are arguably in the same vehicle family.
SpaceX has absolutely embraced avoiding designing new launch vehicles (and even major components) until the fundamental limitations of the existing approach are exceeded.
> capsule (?) for humans riding to the ISS looks reminiscent of the 1960s too
Dragon 2 [1] looks like the Apollo and Gemini craft for the same reason it resembles Soyuz 3 [2]. Crewed disposable atmospheric reëntry vehicles launched in cylinders and soft landed or splashed down under parachutes are going to look similar.
• Much of the design-conservative ethos permeates aerospace development. It's unsurprising that astronautics evolution has been slow at least until Elon came along. I wonder how Elon / SpaceX folks would respond to these laws esp. #39 (avoid designing launch vehicles).
• Also the one that was conspicuously maintained at the end across the different archived versions:
"Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, somebody dies (and there's no partial credit because most of the analysis was right...)"
It's notable that the wayback machine's first crawl of Akin's list is late 2003 (so presumably when the source page went live) the year in which the Columbia disaster took place.