He felt strongly about a technical issue, developed a plan, did the background work, and presented it at a meeting with Musk.
Musk agreed and nobody raised any technical objections, so Musk basically said "Ok, that's the way we'll do it".
Freaked out the former NASA employee. His plan wasn't going to get nibbled away by a dozen meetings with various engineering boards, and if it failed, it was his, and his alone.
That equipment is flying in space today.
That's the difference between the Shuttle years and today.
/johnny
Donald Pettit an American chemical engineer and a NASA astronaut.
“Like the smell of a brand-new car” were the words of International Space Station astronaut Don Pettit on Saturday after he carefully opened the hatch and entered the Dragon capsule for his first glimpse inside.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/26/world/spacex/index.html
Great story, I read about it.
BTW, when I read government forms, I'm thinking, is this written by some former acid head turned government accountant/lawyer?
Even the simplest forms which should be 1 page, are 40 pages, convoluted, overly complicated and disjointed. I read government tax forms, and I want to put a match to them. I'm convinced, they just pull these scams out of their hats, and concoct their formulas out of thin air, all of which just happen to benefit government. Then you're forced to sign, under threat of extreme penalty and prison. lol...