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In an effort to deal with their quality control problems the Russians plan to consolidate their space industries into a single company controlled by the government.

The Russian way: In an effort to deal with their quality control problems the Russians plan to consolidate their space industries into a single company controlled by the government.

This is not a good sign for the future competitiveness of the Russian aerospace industry. Consolidation will only reduce competition and innovation, while placing the government in control will only increase bureaucracy.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

One comment

  • Pzatchok

    I can think of one good thing to come from consolidation.

    Uniformity.
    They probably did not like the idea of hiring an American for quality control in the first place. This will give them an opportunity to uniformly enforce quality control across the whole of the industry and possibly bring things up to closer to a Western standard. I.E. ISO9001 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000 and AS9100c http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS9100

    Their suppliers might not all meet the quality control standard required for the Aerospace industry. Even though they pass their compliance audits. Each nation makes their own auditing teams and the Russians might be having problems with theirs letting things slide for a friendly wink and a nudge.

    The fact they let an American in on their system means they might just know they need to clean house in this department and are looking to an outside source for some help.

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