[doug_durham]

I didn't get the impression that he was saying "don't try new things". It was more "practice good engineering". He ask people how many refueling launches it would take for the moon landing. No one knew. The engineers responsible for the project couldn't provide a number for one of the most critical things that needs to occur in the next couple of years. It took a government watchdog agency to come up with an evidence based number. That looked really bad for the program.

[sabareesh]

We are changing how things are being done. Before NASA was responsible for everything and more hands on approach but now it is hands off approach with fixed cost contract. Because of this you can expect things to work the same way as before but that doesn't mean it is good to keep the tabs on.