q: Does within-class cumulative heritage carry any identifying variation separable from ordinal demonstration sequence, and is there a named exogenous shock (launch-manifest slip, mission-of-opportunity slot, directorate mandate, budget-line start/stop) that moves a class's heritage independently of its qualification cost to serve as an instrument or quasi-experiment?

facet: identification

priority: high

query_terms: instrumental variable learning curve endogenous cumulative experience

query_terms: exogenous variation flight demonstration sequence NASA mission manifest

query_terms: experience curve identification reverse causality cost

status: open


q: Compute, from the assembled panel, the within-class residual correlation between ln(CumHeritage) and a continuous calendar-year control after partialling out decade dummies, plus the VIF or first-stage partial R-squared of heritage net of time, to determine whether beta is separately identified from a generic secular trend (the Wright-vs-Moore observational-equivalence problem).

facet: empirics

query_terms: Wright Moore observational equivalence cumulative output calendar time

query_terms: Nagy Farmer statistical basis technological progress collinearity

query_terms: experience curve time trend confound partial correlation VIF


q: State the exact conditional-independence assumption beta requires for a causal reading, write down one realistic unobserved driver of both early demonstration and low cost (propositional/codified maturity of the underlying theory), and show from the heritage chronology that this driver is fully captured by class, decade and starting-TRL covariates rather than leaving TRL as a bad control downstream of the same maturity.

query_terms: conditional independence assumption selection on observables learning rate

query_terms: bad control technology readiness level downstream treatment

query_terms: propositional maturity codified knowledge confound cost flight order


q: What fraction of total identifying variation in beta comes from the single steepest within-class pair (AEGIS Opportunity-to-ChemCam), and does a Goodman-Bacon-style decomposition plus a leave-one-class-out (drop-AEGIS) re-estimation show the two-of-three decision rule survives removing the only documented same-capability second-platform pair?

query_terms: Goodman-Bacon decomposition weighted average two-group comparisons

query_terms: leave-one-out influence diagnostic small panel slope robustness

query_terms: AEGIS Opportunity ChemCam heritage reuse pair identifying variation


q: Operationalize a component-level heritage graph from NTRS and cFS dependency records (edges = documented flight-software/design-pattern reuse) and test rank-concordance between the within-class flight count and the cross-class component count; if the two orderings disagree, the within-class slope measures an analyst-imposed partition and the cross-class spec is a different estimand.

facet: measurement

query_terms: Core Flight System cFS dependency graph component reuse

query_terms: recombinant technology combinatorial heritage Arthur lock-in

query_terms: cross-class software reuse rank concordance flight software provenance


q: Provide a falsifying observable that discriminates a genuine learning curve from a selection-into-favorable-conditions path, and identify any abandoned or stalled autonomy class (flew once, never reused despite a candidate successor) so the panel is not silently conditioned on survivors; a censored-data or matched not-reused-control design is required.

facet: rival

query_terms: survivorship bias abandoned space technology demonstration not reused

query_terms: selection on cost increasing returns lock-in not efficient

query_terms: censored sample matched control technology adoption failure


q: Pre-commit to a funding-order monotonicity test: order the five capability classes by date-of-first-investment from TechPort start-date/funding records and test whether per-class slope rank tracks funding-sequence rank rather than ex-ante propositional-maturity rank; if it tracks funding sequence the build-or-wait use collapses to which basin JPL fell into.

query_terms: TechPort project start date funding record capability class

query_terms: non-ergodic learning rate path dependence early investment sequence

query_terms: Wei Smith Sohn retrospective learning rate program-specific


q: Build a recombination-stock measure counting components inherited from any prior class from the cFS dependency graph and NTRS reuse statements, and show whether the within-class slope survives or inverts once true combinatorial heritage replaces the in-class count; the corpus currently holds only McComas framework descriptions, not a component dependency graph.

query_terms: Core Flight System reuse economics cost saved quantified

query_terms: combinatorial recombination stock cross-class components inherited

query_terms: NTRS flight software reuse statement dependency


q: Code each episode for flight-software-lineage and team continuity from authorship and cFS provenance, enter it alongside CumHeritage, and report whether the heritage slope survives the continuity control; the design currently carries no authorship-coding or provenance-coding step, so adaptive-expectations institutional continuity cannot be separated from artifact-level learning.

facet: mechanism

query_terms: flight software authorship team continuity JPL provenance

query_terms: adaptive expectations institutional continuity learning curve

query_terms: personnel overlap codebase continuity cost reduction aerospace


q: Can the cFS dependency record plus lessons-learned be assembled into a within-episode cross-class reuse-stock index, and will the candidate pre-commit to reporting the reuse-stock slope head-to-head against the within-class heritage-count slope rather than as a robustness check? This claim currently rests only on internal dissertation pointers and the christensen_c dossier and needs an external citation establishing cFS reuse-stock estimability.

query_terms: Core Flight System reuse stock index cost buy-down measurement

query_terms: codified knowledge substrate reusable flight software cost effect

query_terms: head-to-head reuse-stock versus heritage-count slope specification

status: partial


q: Re-cut the panel by job-defined clusters (close the perception-action loop without ground-in-the-loop) instead of artifact-based capability classes, identify a TechPort/NTRS scope observable that distinguishes a job-based heritage link from an artifact-class one, and report whether the slope survives, strengthens, or collapses under job-based fixed effects. This jobs-to-be-done critique currently rests on internal dissertation and dossier pointers and needs an external citation anchor.

query_terms: jobs-to-be-done segmentation market product category mis-segmentation

query_terms: onboard closed-loop autonomy operational job clustering

query_terms: job-based fixed effects re-clustering capability class


q: Construct a per-episode adoption-friction observable (schedule reserve consumed, descope events, review-board findings attributable to the autonomy element) from TechPort and lessons-learned, and test whether it falls with heritage; a falling qualification cost is consistent with flat or rising adoption cost if each host mission's resource-allocation process starves the low-margin autonomy line. This RPV-divergence claim rests only on internal dissertation/dossier pointers and needs an external citation.

facet: economics

query_terms: resource allocation process RPV low-margin starve adoption friction

query_terms: schedule reserve descope review board autonomy line item cost

query_terms: cost to adopt versus cost to qualify autonomy host mission


q: Construct a per-episode on-board execution share (fraction of the close-the-loop job performed on-board versus delegated to ground/Earth/COTS) coded from CONOPS, ops-team staffing, ground-software scope and downlink dependence, pre-commit to adding it alongside ln(CumHeritage), and report whether the negative autonomy-NRE slope survives controlling for venue share or collapses as a displacement (substitution) artifact.

query_terms: onboard versus ground task allocation venue share autonomy

query_terms: conservation of attractive profits value migration value network

query_terms: displacement substitution artifact onboard NRE downlink dependence


q: Exhibit one documented Autonomous Systems and Robotics sequencing decision where an on-orbit-only slope would recommend differently than a total-cost-to-field accounting that nets the displaced ground burden, drawing the ground-cost side (per-episode ops-team staffing and downlink burden) from retrievable records; the netted quantitative on-board-vs-ground cost split is currently unbuilt and was not found in NTRS/OpenAlex.

query_terms: operations cost reduction onboard autonomy ground staffing downlink

query_terms: total cost to field build-or-wait autonomy sequencing decision

query_terms: AEGIS EO-1 operations labor cost netted ground burden


q: Certify ontological commensurability of a within-class layer-1 (extracted autonomy NRE) versus layer-2 (NICM-class parametric imputation) cost pair from source records, and rule out that the layer-2 imputation endogenously re-expresses the experience curve being fit, contaminating beta; this requires the candidate's source cost ledger, which retrieval did not return.

raised_by: dietz

query_terms: NICM parametric cost imputation endogenous learning assumption

query_terms: ontological commensurability documental layer cost construct

query_terms: three-layer cost normalization measurement error regressand


q: Map actual reusable software/verification artifact flow between episodes from NTRS heritage chronology and cFS provenance, show the fraction of real reuse that crosses a class boundary, and decide whether the within-class estimand is supportable or whether the essential unit is the reusable-component lineage; cross-class reuse fraction is not derivable from current retrieval.

query_terms: cross-class software reuse fraction component lineage estimand

query_terms: NTRS heritage chronology flight software provenance map

query_terms: capability class boundary reusable component lineage unit of analysis


q: Operationalize transfer-realized heritage (codified knowledge actually ingested and accepted by the successor, a completed handoff with an authorized receiver) from TechPort lineage links and project documentation, re-fit beta with count replaced by realized transfer, and report whether the slope survives; TechPort lineage/ingestion records were not returned by retrieval.

query_terms: transfer-realized heritage completed transaction accept act

query_terms: TechPort lineage link project ingestion reusable artifact

query_terms: Dietz transaction completeness production fact accept act heritage


q: Exhibit, for the five episodes, the completed reuse acts as a directed transfer graph (edge only where a named upstream artifact was demonstrably re-fielded downstream) and show the scalar within-class CumHeritage count is monotone in the in-degree of that graph; if graph and count disagree even on the AEGIS pair, the regressor measures a class label not a transfer.

query_terms: directed transfer graph named artifact re-fielded in-degree heritage

query_terms: AEGIS porting cost named module dependency edge

query_terms: CumHeritage count monotone graph in-degree verification


q: Certify observation by observation that the cost figure and the heritage edge share the same accounting boundary, producing a reconciliation table showing the reusing episode's NRE excludes the sunk qualification cost the producing episode already paid; if the producer's qualification cost silently reappears in the consumer's imputed NRE the negative slope is a double-counting artifact.

query_terms: accounting boundary reconciliation sunk qualification cost double counting

query_terms: producer consumer ledger reused component cost assignment

query_terms: NICM imputed NRE boundary audit per observation


q: Re-cut the panel to count only episodes where all five Dietz transaction elements (named executor, production fact, accepting initiator, re-qualification accept act) are evidenced in TechPort/NTRS, dropping mere temporal precedence, and test whether the slope survives the completed-transfer subset versus the forward-only count; the comparison is untested at design stage.

query_terms: completed-transfer subset five-element transaction heritage re-cut

query_terms: forward-only count versus completed transfer calendar adjacency

query_terms: TechPort NTRS evidence executor accept act re-qualification


q: Exhibit one real documented Autonomous Systems and Robotics sequencing decision (AEGIS reuse, AutoNav infusion, NICM cost-cap call) that the fitted slope, had it existed, would have flipped or quantitatively bounded under the institution's stated constraints (mission cadence, directorate budget lines, decadal priorities, appropriations windows); the actionability counterfactual is constructable from the public AEGIS record but not yet executed.

facet: governance

raised_by: gangale

query_terms: build-or-wait portfolio sequencing decision counterfactual learning rate

query_terms: mission cadence directorate budget appropriations constraint autonomy

query_terms: AEGIS reuse decision actionability NICM cost cap


q: Determine whose autonomy NRE the cFS/OpenSatKit reusable substrate development cost is (loaded on the first flying episode, distributed across downstream users, or excluded as fixed common cost), show from a retrievable cFS/GSFC funding or CONOPS record which appropriation line paid for the substrate, and demonstrate the assignment does not mechanically manufacture the negative slope; no public funding-line document was found this turn.

query_terms: cFS GSFC appropriation funding line development cost amortized

query_terms: fixed common cost reusable substrate assignment learning slope

query_terms: Core Flight System funding directorate budget line


q: Specify the cross-class normalization mapping a unit of EDL heritage (one-shot irreversible event budget) onto a unit of onboard-planning heritage (revisable operations timeline) so the cumulative-heritage axis is dimensionally consistent, and demonstrate the fitted slope is invariant to that conversion; if a single Earth-referenced cost frame is assumed, identify the systematic distortion injected into beta.

priority: normal

query_terms: cross-class heritage normalization dimensional consistency EDL planning

query_terms: reference frame commensurability pooled experience curve slope

query_terms: invariance check unit conversion cumulative heritage axis


q: Demonstrate a unit of autonomy-qualification cost is denominated in one time-stable frame across the 1999-2023 panel given that NASA relocated where autonomy demand is paid (per-mission flight NRE to ground operations to shared reusable substrate), or concede the design implicitly assumes a per-mission-to-substrate conversion factor of 1.0 that no retrieved record validates; absent a frame-specific deflator, decade fixed effects cannot absorb a frame change.

query_terms: frame change per-mission NRE ground operations shared substrate deflator

query_terms: venue shift autonomy cost denomination time-stable conversion factor

query_terms: decade fixed effect frame change institutional locus


q: Run a pre-registered power/false-negative Monte Carlo drawing synthetic panels from a true 15-20 percent learning rate with the actual class/decade structure and report the share of draws whose interval still contains zero, so a wide CI failing to reject H0 is not read as flat cost when the instrument is simply blind; the simulation must be executed on the assembled panel.

raised_by: mccloskey

query_terms: Monte Carlo power false negative minimum detectable effect panel

query_terms: two-way fixed effects small N detection probability learning rate

query_terms: statistical power simulation experience curve tens observations


q: State ex ante the decision-relevant magnitude (learning rate in constant-year dollars against a representative cost-capped mission) that flips a JPL build-or-wait call, derive from NICM-class figures the smallest slope that changes a real portfolio decision, and report a loss function over the slope rather than an accept/reject star; the threshold and loss function must come from the candidate's own cost data.

query_terms: decision-relevant magnitude loss function over slope build-or-wait

query_terms: NICM cost-capped mission threshold portfolio decision learning rate

query_terms: substantive significance oomph minimum decision-changing slope


q: Split the panel on the reliability flag: fit the slope on the audited subset where a separately-reported autonomy NRE figure exists and compare it to the imputed-heavy fit; if the negative slope lives only in imputed observations the curve is a cost-normalization artifact. The design currently only down-weights imputed observations and has not pre-registered the audited-vs-imputed split. This claim's evidence is currently only an internal dissertation pointer and needs an external measurement-error citation anchor.

query_terms: audited subset versus imputed slope reliability flag split

query_terms: non-classical measurement error imputation-driven negative slope

query_terms: inverse imputation error weighting versus subset estimation


q: Construct the joint distribution of (significant, decision-determinate) outcomes from the actual class/decade degrees of freedom and NICM-class imputation error and report the fraction of H0-rejecting draws that still leave the per-doubling cost reduction too unbounded for a program office to act on; add a magnitude-precision gate to the decision rule before any significant slope is called decision-relevant.

query_terms: magnitude precision gate decision indeterminate significant interval

query_terms: joint distribution significant decision-determinate per-doubling reduction

query_terms: wide interval excludes zero oomph program office threshold


q: Find any TechPort+NTRS observable that discriminates the experience-curve story from the rival sequence-of-bespoke-negotiated-budgets story (mission politics, funding windfalls, PI continuity); if both fit the same points equally the negative slope persuades by metaphor. A PI-continuity or funding-windfall covariate, or an instrument for readiness orthogonal to TRL, is owed at build time.

query_terms: PI continuity funding windfall covariate negotiated budget rival

query_terms: observational equivalence learning curve bespoke event metaphor

query_terms: instrument readiness orthogonal TRL selection on cost


q: State the implicit per-doubling cost reduction NASA's by-assertion justification already banks on, in its own units, and report whether the fitted NICM-based interval is narrow enough to confirm or overturn that specific assumed magnitude; the incumbent assumed slope is never quantified and no interval is fitted, so the contribution cannot yet demonstrate decision-relevance against the assumption it claims to replace.

query_terms: incumbent assumed per-doubling reduction by assertion magnitude

query_terms: fitted interval confirm overturn prior assumption decision criterion

query_terms: NASA heritage cost assumption self-evident quantified


q: Construct a direct codification indicator from NTRS + cFS docs coding each episode as documented reusable component versus bespoke re-implementation and show empirically whether it diverges from the raw flight count across the panel; if they diverge a flat beta tells us nothing about learning. The per-episode coded data is the candidate's own and was not retrievable.

raised_by: mokyr

query_terms: codification indicator reusable component bespoke re-implementation coding

query_terms: instrument validity flight count versus codified knowledge stock

query_terms: Mokyr propositional prescriptive knowledge cFS reusable framework


q: Assign each capability class an ex-ante propositional-maturity rank fixed before any cost figure is seen and test whether class-specific slopes order by that rank, so a pooled within-class beta does not confound a non-learning class with averaging a steep curve over a mature base with a flat one over an immature base; the maturity-ordered slope test is the candidate's own un-retrievable estimation output.

query_terms: ex-ante propositional maturity rank class-specific slope ordering

query_terms: heterogeneous learning rate mature versus immature base

query_terms: Mokyr widening propositional base extensible self-correcting technique


q: Measure whether the expected cost decline tracks team and institutional continuity (same JPL group, shared codebase, personnel overlap) rather than the abstract flight count, contrasting overlapping-team reuse against arms-length adoption; if a steep slope appears only where people and code carry over, the design measured tacit co-location not a transferable experience-curve parameter.

query_terms: team continuity codebase overlap tacit knowledge co-location slope

query_terms: knowledge spillover geographic localization arms-length adoption

query_terms: transferable experience curve parameter cross-center contractor


q: State now, before estimation, the minimum effective within-class sample the decision rule requires to detect a codification-by-heritage interaction at the pre-committed significance level, and commit to withdraw the codification-moderator claim entirely rather than report it as a suggestive non-finding if the panel cannot support the interaction. The candidate currently defers the power analysis and pre-commits to the suggestive-heterogeneity report instead; this rests only on internal dissertation pointers and needs the executed power number.

query_terms: minimum effective sample power interaction codification heritage

query_terms: withdraw moderator claim suggestive non-finding pre-commitment

query_terms: interaction term power budget degrees of freedom small panel


q: Demonstrate the NICM imputation inputs are orthogonal to the codification indicator by cross-tabulating the NICM input variables against the codification coding rule; if a codified class is mechanically assigned a lower imputed cost by the cost model, the steeper-slope-where-codified finding is a regressand-construction artifact. No operationalized codification coding rule currently exists, so the cross-tabulation cannot be exhibited.

query_terms: NICM input orthogonal codification indicator cross-tabulation

query_terms: regressand construction circularity cost model codification cheaper

query_terms: maturity orthogonality versus codification orthogonality imputation


q: Exhibit from NTRS lessons-learned and cFS dependency documentation at least one within-class successor episode whose development team had no personnel or codebase overlap with the predecessor yet drew on the predecessor's codified components; if every documented cost reduction tracks intra-JPL personnel continuity, the design measures labor-hoarding inside one institution not a transferable Mokyrian access-cost decline. No zero-team-overlap reuse case is exhibited and live retrieval surfaced none.

query_terms: zero team overlap arms-length codified component reuse case

query_terms: Core Flight System reuse economics cross-team cost saved

query_terms: labor hoarding intra-JPL continuity versus access-cost decline


q: Code each panel episode on the 1-10 level for each of the four Parasuraman-Sheridan-Wickens stages (information acquisition, analysis, decision/action selection, action implementation) and test whether same-class episodes share the same stage-level vector; if within-class stage-level variance is large the cumulative-heritage count sums non-comparable units and the slope is uninterpretable. The four-stage authority vector was never coded.

query_terms: Parasuraman Sheridan Wickens four stage authority level vector coding

query_terms: levels of automation within-class variance non-comparable units

query_terms: stage-level autonomy vector capability class unit of analysis


q: Add decision/action-stage authority level as a regressor alongside cumulative heritage and report whether the heritage coefficient survives; the marginal V&V cost concentrates at high decision/action authority, and because no authority-level term is in the model any negative heritage slope is confounded with an unmodeled level effect that would be mislabeled as learning.

query_terms: decision action authority level regressor V&V cost confound

query_terms: authority level competing regressor heritage coefficient survives

query_terms: out-of-the-loop verification burden high automation authority


q: For each within-class heritage pair, extract whether the successor operated at a higher decision/action authority level than its predecessor, and show the falling cost is not a level change priced as heritage; if cost rose or stayed flat precisely where authority rose, that is a rival the forward-only counting rule does not address. The authority-level delta was never extracted.

query_terms: authority level delta heritage pair successor predecessor cost

query_terms: EO-1 closed-loop retasking decision authority increase

query_terms: forward-only counting rule level change rival learning


q: Build an authority-weighted qualification-burden index per episode from the documented V&V record (Remote Agent, AEGIS, AutoNav) and show the heritage slope is identified holding action-stage authority fixed, not confounded by authority entangled inside the regressand; a Level-7+ action-implementation autonomy committing an irreversible burn/landing demands categorically heavier V&V than a Level-2/3 advisory.

query_terms: authority-weighted qualification burden index V&V record episode

query_terms: action-stage authority fixed heritage slope identification

query_terms: verification validation cost space autonomous systems authority


q: For the AEGIS Opportunity-to-ChemCam pair and Remote Agent, state whether any documented descope of off-nominal coverage, deferred fault cases, or operations-phase anomaly attributable to the autonomy occurred (the lumberjack effect pushing the un-handled exception into operations), and show the falling slope is not partly successors qualifying a narrower exception envelope more cheaply. No specific descope or anomaly record was returned this turn.

query_terms: lumberjack effect off-nominal coverage descope exception envelope

query_terms: operations-phase anomaly autonomy deferred fault case narrower scope

query_terms: AEGIS Remote Agent exception envelope scope reduction cost


q: Re-tag every episode with its dominant Parasuraman-Sheridan-Wickens stage, report the cross-tabulation of capability class against dominant stage, and state which within-class heritage pairs survive a same-stage restriction; pooling an acquisition/analysis-stage demonstration with an action-implementation-stage successor sums non-commensurable learning objects that the within-class fixed effect does not purify.

query_terms: dominant PSW stage cross-tabulation capability class same-stage restriction

query_terms: non-commensurable learning objects acquisition analysis action implementation

query_terms: AEGIS AutoNav Remote Agent stage profile decomposition


q: MODERATOR MISSING ANGLE: no panelist tested the construct validity of the dependent-variable deflation/constant-year normalization itself (the third cost layer), namely whether the price index applied to multi-decade autonomy NRE introduces a deflator-choice bias that correlates with calendar time and hence with cumulative heritage; the cross-class and authority-level critiques attacked the heritage regressor and the imputation layer but left the deflation step's index selection unexamined as an independent threat to beta.

raised_by: moderator

query_terms: constant-year deflation index NASA cost real dollars NNCI

query_terms: deflator choice bias correlated calendar time experience curve

query_terms: price index multi-decade NRE normalization sensitivity