[Boatanchors] Space Shuttle (OT, kinda)

[mikea]

On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 08:09:59PM -0500, David Stinson wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Gary Pewitt" <garypewitt at centurytel.net>
> To: <W9RAN at oneradio.net>
> >....  Congress on the other hand cut NASA's budget so much
> > that we ended up with the inferior design that gave us two 
> > catastrophic
> > failures in the Shuttle fleet...
> 
> I had a very minor ground support role for the Challenger flight.
> One of the data trailers had a big mural of Challenger on the outside
> and all kinds of  well-wishing messages written on it.
> I will never forget the call from my boss, or the looks on the faces
> of my fellow techs and engineers that day.
> 
> In fairness, I think it was incompetant management, rather than faulty 
> design,
> that caused those terrible events.  It wasn't the foam strike on 
> Columbia that
> caused the disaster; system problems are one of the things we have to
> expect on "the cutting edge" and working them out is supposed to be
> part of the job (rather than pretending they're not a problem).
> Just as with Challenger, it was (mis)managers wanting
> to polish their own apples, ignoring techs and engineers who
> told them what would happen and being told to shut up.
> Whenever something like this happens,
> you can usually find some glad-handing back-side kisser in authority
> at the root of it, and some poor lower-level tech or engineer
> to take the blame. 

I had a minor ground support in the Gemini and Apollo programs. When we
got the word of the fire in the spacecraft, it was as though someone had
struck each of us *HARD* in the solar plexus. It was (mis)management there,
too. People had been reporting electrical problems and comms problems for
literally weeks. People had expressed concerns about flammability in pure
O2. Electrical problems and pure O2 atmosphere, as things turned out, are a
*very* bad mix, and three people died.

The same thing holds true, mutatis mutandis, for Challenger and Columbia:
management decided that even though problems had been reported, nothing bad
was going to happen -- because nothing bad had happened so far. 

NASA managers appear to not learn. 

I'll get off my soapbox now. These three failures are a real hot-button
for me, but that doesn't mean I should take it out on you folks. 

Very 73, de

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin