Talk:Peter Stibrany

Note: I have re-created this page. I originally created it some years ago, after seeing more and more people on the web re-quoting it from Henry Spencer's .sig sign-off --- but failing to include the citation to the phrase's inventor, Peter Stibrany. As i was working closely with Peter when he coined this phrase, I was in a nearly-unique position to pass along not only a proper attribution to it, but also the contextual information that explains its full significance.

That first posting to WikiQuotes was taken down shortly afterwards by the editors, due to inadequate sourcing and lack of significance. The current re-posting corrects both of those issues, I believe. First, the original posting failed to cite the original published source (the "Microsat Way" conference paper), which is now cited in the present posting. Also, the original posting pointed mainly to various people re-quoting Henry Spencer's .sig to demonstrate significance; since then, two additional high-prominence people in the space exploration business (Chris Lewicki and Peter Diamandis) have been repeatedly using this phrase (although without attributing its source), and others have started requoting them. While this quote is far from going viral, it has certainly spread far beyond its original habitat in the small MOST team.

If there are any comments are questions about the current posting, I would appreciate a heads-up email to k.a.carroll@sympatico.ca, to make sure that I check in to the conversion here in a timely way.

- Kieran, 21 August 2017

Well, user UDScott saw fit to "trim contextual information" from the main post. Personally I think the contextual information adds much to the entry. For example, without a link to Gene Kranz's autobiography title, the quote seems awkward and odd, whereas knowing the Kranz background, it's clear that it at least refers to something to do with space. Rather than dispute that, I'll post the trimmed information here. I's be interested in others' opinions about that.
 * In 2000, Peter Stibrany was Project Manager at Dynacon for the MOST microsatellite mission, Canada's first science satellite since ISIS II was launched in 1971. While the technical objectives of this satellite were very ambitious and challenging, the funding made available for it by the Canadian Space Agency was extraordinarily low (by launch date, the total spent was only CDN$7M). The project succeeded by dint of adapting the low-cost, "small-team" engineering and project-management approach developed by the AMSAT organization for their amateur radio satellites, to this science satellite mission (with the active help of the AMSAT/NA group).
 * This quote comes from a conference paper that year (co-authored by Stibrany and MOST systems engineer Kieran A. Carroll), which provided a "mid-term report" (3 years before launch) on some of the methods used on this project, and their implications vis-a-vis "traditional" space system development practices.
 * The quote is a play on the title of Gene Kranz's autobiography, "Failure is not an option".
 * Kranz's title, while alluding specifically to the determination of the Apollo 13 Mission Operations team to bring the crew of that mission home alive, can also be taken to epitomize the "top-down" nature of the systems engineering approach which led to Apollo's success, in which all elements of the design of the Apollo mission and spacecraft "flowed down" from the top-level mission requirement stated by President Kennedy: “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” In the Apollo-style approach to space systems engineering, no cost is spared to ensure that the top-level mission requirements are met; to do otherwise would be a "failure", which in that approach is "not an option."
 * The AMSAT approach, in contrast, was crafted as a way to "design-to-cost" (generally to a very low cost), rather than "design to meet top-level requirements." Stibrany's quote epitomizes the AMSAT approach, while at the same time highlighting the fact that there are important differences between AMSAT's approach and NASA's Apollo-derived approach. The conference paper explains some of these differences, and their significance.


 * Fair enough - I can see that the info about Kranz could be useful (and I will restore that). The other info just seemed a bit much a for a site dedicated to quotes rather than being an encyclopedia. Thanks ~ UDScott (talk) 19:40, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I've added a brief paranthetical pointer to this discussion page, for anyone interested in further contextual information --- as the casual user probably rarely checks out the Discussion pages. Hope that suits the WikiQuote style... --K.a.carroll (talk) 22:42, 21 August 2017 (UTC)- Kieran