[Verse 1] Every bid starts sanguine, engineer's heart bright, swears the number's solid before the ink dries tight, but titanium don't care about your PowerPoint, overrun's the ghost that camps at every joint. Ninety percent confidence, that's the interval quoted, missed a wiring harness, now the budget's bloated, unknown unknowns creeping like a stowaway, scope creep whispers "just one more," that's how the millions stray. Contingency ain't cowardice, it's arithmetic done right, pad the reserve or watch the program bleed at night. [Chorus] Cost then path then parts then people, that's the five I ride, Risk's the quiet passenger sat sixth man by my side, Likelihood times consequence, tattoo it on the chart, Burn it down to green before the rocket ever starts. Cost then path then parts then people, count them on your hand, Miss one pillar, watch the whole damn launch tower in the sand. [Verse 2] Now the schedule's a river, but only one lane's critical, float on the sidelines, slack ain't hypothetical, integration flow's the wedding, subsystems gotta vow, avionics meets the airframe, ain't no arguing "not now." Miss the critical path by a day, you lose the month, every downstream task queued up waits its turn at once, Gantt chart's a battlefield, dependencies drawn tight, merge point's where the software and the hardware reunite. [Chorus] Cost then path then parts then people, that's the five I ride, Risk's the quiet passenger sat sixth man by my side, Likelihood times consequence, tattoo it on the chart, Burn it down to green before the rocket ever starts. [Verse 3] Supply chain for the aerospace grade, it ain't off the shelf, single-source valve twelve weeks out, better mind yourself, these parts ain't fungible — that's interchangeable, plain and true, swap a bolt for a bolt and the whole qual campaign's brand new. Team's split by discipline: structures, thermal, propulsion crew, guidance nav and control speaking a language all their own too, interface control documents keep the tribes in sync, one missed decimal on a drawing, watch the whole stack link. [Bridge] Draw the grid: likelihood along the side, consequence climbing up, nowhere left to hide, red square screaming loud, amber holding steady, green means mitigated, calculated, ready. Burndown ain't for calories, it's for open threats, watch the risk count dwindle as the mitigation sets, every week review it, retire what's been tamed, a program with a static chart's a program that's inflamed. [Chorus] Cost then path then parts then people, that's the five I ride, Risk's the quiet passenger sat sixth man by my side, Likelihood times consequence, tattoo it on the chart, Burn it down to green before the rocket ever starts. [Outro] Five pillars, one countdown, no room for guessing games, sanguine gets you funded, discipline gets you flames.
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