.LV154 KLAX 1/1 DT KLAX 0000 0000Z FM [email protected] - FREE TEXT - HOME POSTS ================================================================ a transcription of Akin's Laws 2026-07-10 for some reason, the website these are usually hosted on, UMD's website, never seems to be online. so i'm posting them here. i take no credit, these are all akin's work. AKIN'S LAWS OF SPACECRAFT DESIGN by Dr. David Akin - spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu ================================================================ Law 1 Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion. Law 2 To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong. Law 3 Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time. Law 4 Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment. Law 5 (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve. Law 6 (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker. Law 7 At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it. Law 8 In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point. Law 9 Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis. Law 10 When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along. Law 11 Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over. Law 12 There is never a single right solution. There are always multiple wrong ones, though. Law 13 Design is based on requirements. There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate. Law 14 (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good". Law 15 (Shea's Law) The ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up. Law 16 The previous people who did a similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours. Law 17 The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct. Law 18 Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though. Law 19 The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, you may have invented warp drive, but the chances are a lot better that you've screwed up. Law 20 A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately. Law 21 (Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which. Law 22 When in doubt, document. (Documentation requirements will reach a maximum shortly after the termination of a program.) Law 23 The schedule you develop will seem like a complete work of fiction up until the time your customer fires you for not meeting it. Law 24 It's called a "Work Breakdown Structure" because the Work remaining will grow until you have a Breakdown, unless you enforce some Structure on it. Law 25 (Bowden's Law) Following a testing failure, it's always possible to refine the analysis to show that you really had negative margins all along. Law 26 (Montemerlo's Law) Don't do nuthin' dumb. Law 27 (Varsi's Law) Schedules only move in one direction. Law 28 (Ranger's Law) There ain't no such thing as a free launch. Law 29 (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Program Management) To get an accurate estimate of final program requirements, multiply the initial time estimates by pi, and slide the decimal point on the cost estimates one place to the right. Law 30 (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design) If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept. Law 31 (Mo's Law of Evolutionary Development) You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees. Law 32 (Atkin's Law of Demonstrations) When the hardware is working perfectly, the really important visitors don't show up. Law 33 (Patton's Law of Program Planning) A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. Law 34 (Roosevelt's Law of Task Planning) Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. Law 35 (de Saint-Exupery's Law of Design) A designer knows that they have achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Law 36 Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is elegant. A good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great engineer designs them to be effective. Law 37 (Henshaw's Law) One key to success in a mission is establishing clear lines of blame. Law 38 Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say. Law 39 Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program. Law 39 (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule: 1) No new launch vehicles. 2) No new launch vehicles. 3) Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles. Law 40 (McBryan's Law) You can't make it better until you make it work. Law 41 There's never enough time to do it right, but somehow, there's always enough time to do it over. Law 42 If there's not a flight program, there's no money. If there is a flight program, there's no time. Law 43 You really understand something the third time you see it (or the first time you teach it.) Law 44 (Lachance's Law) "Plenty of time" becomes "not enough time" in a very short time. Law 45 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...) ================================================================ <EOM> twitter flickr [email protected] last build — 1785428330(2026-07-30T16:18:50Z) ACK