Here is a chilling story of how the best engineering and design can go horribly wrong in the face of test after test. Wayne Hale relays this story about how Space Shuttle Discovery was nearly lost after a complete redesign and safety overhaul. Highly recommended – Anthony
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Put me in mind of the de Havilland Comet.
http://www.dmflightsim.co.uk/dh106_comet_history.htm
I find it a perplexing contrast between the pure professionalism of NASA’s spacecraft engineers and the attitude of some of their staff involved in climate studies.
From:
http://www.storymusgrave.com/journal_quotes.htm
“When the solids light, you are going somewhere, hopefully to orbit.”
It is a strange contrast between this intensely emotional account, and the dismissive, even derisive public attitude of NASA at the time of Columbia, to anyone who even suggested they check the possibility of a problem with the foam.
After reading the whole article at his site, I read a couple of his other posts. One dealt with his meeting with the *cough* Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, and he very politely stated how she just wasn’t understanding him, so he changed gears to mention how NASA does great work with jobs and the kiddies. I was quite tempted to ask if she had enquired whether the Shuttle was going to fly to Mars and retreive the flag the Apollo astronauts left. Mr. Hale’s site seems a bit more serious crowd, so as Archie Bunker would say, I stifled myself.
Oh, great read, and thanks for sharing, Anthony!
“Fate is the Hunter”. Thanks, Anthony…
I reached a sad conclusion from this. Krautheimer said the other night that the Discovery flight over DC was funeral flight for the US space activities. Others, say, no…we’ll go with the private sector.
I don’t think so. Too risky, complicated to stake the future of space travel on the private sector. CK said we’ll have to beg rides from the Russians/Chinese. Maybe, for a while. But, not over the long term. No one will be in space in the long term (aside from un-manned vehicles)….too costly, too complex, too risky
Wayne Hale concludes: “You see, this is how I found out that we were never really as smart as we thought we were. Maybe that is a lesson that applies to you, too.”
Boy oh Boy, does it ever! I have a big, fat ego, and this mean, old world has left it with more holes than a pin cushion, and more deflated than a rim with no tyre!
I think anyone who has ever attempted to forcast the weather has seen had their own short-comings made especially obvious. If you don’t believe me, try to predict the weather yourself. Eating crow is a common diet of weathermen. I think this is what makes the antics of Hansen and Mann especially infuriating. They have no inkling of what the word “humble” means.
How the same organisation can have people as good as this guy who openly admits when he was wrong, who worked hard to correct the actual cause of the problem and not cover them up … and then you have Hansen. For whom phrases like “economical with the truth” and words like “coverup” spring to mind.
Hale … someone whose openess gives me the highest confidence …. in a situation when the risks are real and substantial.
Hanson … someone for whom I have absolutely no respect, someone who I believe hides and distorts the truth and someone I feel makes assertions for which there is zero correlation with the truth … i.e. I feel the truth and what hansen says are two independent variables.
The real pity, is that it only takes one idiot to bring down an organisation. Only one charlatans to ruin its reputation. So, for all Hale says, he is tarred with the Hansen brush… and if NASA permits even one person like Hansen, then it doesn’t really care about quality, and that is enough to damn the whole operation.
Unfortunately, there has been a series of ‘enviromental’ issues that have led to billions of dollars of losses and possibly even life:
http://digitaljournal.com/article/217344
Probably the most important lesson one learns as they change from a child to an adult —
You are not as smart as you think you are, and things you believe may not be true.
Adults figure this out some who never get past their teenager stage do not.
Larry
When I worked in LA as a regional vice president for a large Native American consulting firm, I remember I had two accounts that used to build parts for the shuttles and NASA. Harvey Hewin was a breed Cherokee and made nuts and bolts for the shuttles. All QPL, quality products listed meaning every bit and piece had to be test individually for strength and integrity. Chuck Owen used to make the fiberglass molded parts for the interior of the shuttles also. Awesome!
The shuttle was a disaster waiting to happen from the get-go. Manned ships using solid fuel boosters that couldn’t be shut down if there was a problem, no escape mechanism, fragile heat shield, crew compartment mounted right next to the fuel tanks. Notice that the Air Force backed out of it and used their own launch systems. Brave men and women lost their lives because of a bureaucracy that had become more interested in it’s own survival and expansion than its original mission. (Hansen for example). Consider that no lives had been lost during any mission for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo when space flight was new and operating in the unknown. Consider what the head of NASA (James Fletcher) promised for the Shuttle (mulitple flights per month low cost) and what we got. The real story of the Shuttle is going to be a sordid one, but thats for another time. Let’s toast those who looked to the stars and hope for a rebirth of space exploration with the new pioneers like Space X.
Caleb: Sure they know what ‘humble’ means: It’s how others should approaching them.
Unbelievable. Some of you just can’t ever dial down the Hansen-Mann hate-oric.
Do you operate on a quota system?
DMarshall,
No, we just have a low tolerance for self-serving climate charlatans who have both front feet in the public trough.
Too bad some of GISS’s money couldn’t have been diverted to the manned space program. Maybe, just maybe we would still be flying something and wouldn’t have to deal with proclamations of “Death Trains” from certain NASA faux scientists.
rk says: “No one will be in space in the long term (aside from un-manned vehicles)….too costly, too complex, too risky”
Anyone involved in the industry would laugh their a$$ off at this silly statement!
With the retirement of the Shuttle (finally!), entire divisions within NASA no longer have turf to protect, this means that things that should have been funded 30 years ago – real science about mitigating the effects of micro-gravity on the well being of humans – will finally get the attention they deserve.
The shuttle was an albatross around the neck of human space flight, and those of us who have a passion for seeing progress in HSF are overjoyed to see it come to an end. Wayne Hale is a hero of many, not for his experience working at NASA, but for his honest appraisals of NASA once he’d retired.
@BarryW: We didn’t lose any on orbit in those programs, but the Apollo 1 launchpad fire certainly killed three fine men. Don’t mean to pick nits, but…
Martin A. My sentiments exactly!!
A perplexing contrast indeed! Engineers and applied physics types’ function is to make things work. Same with surgeons. They intervene for good and mostly get it right. These people generally aren’t guessing, hand waving and making loose associations. They have to know a great deal about the physical world for real and are among the smartest people alive.
Then we have the eco green population… and all of their psyche baggage. Never do they have to get anything right…to them it is all about intent, results don’t matter.
Why do we listen to greens?
BarryW says:
April 18, 2012 at 5:03 pm
“Consider that no lives had been lost during any mission for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo when space flight was new and operating in the unknown. ”
Have you forgotten Apollo 1 and the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee?
Although nothing of this magnitude involving lives, I have had the experience of working on technical problems where the “solution” didn’t quite explain the symptoms only to have the problem reoccur later, and then finally isolating the real cause of the problem. It’s a gratifying feeling when you finally understand the real cause and know the fix is the correct one. The lesson I’ve taken away from these experiences is to trust that little nagging feeling that lingers when the solution doesn’t fully explain the problem.
As an ex-NASA-contractor, I can say with authority that Mann and Hansen are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NASA in-house stupidity. However there is a big culture difference between NASA Research Centers and NASA Space Flight Centers. (The Space Flight Centers push the stupid folks out to the Research Centers.)
I lost all respect for the letters “PhD” during my tenure at NASA because I met too many idiots with those letters after their name.
Want better government? The key is Civil Service reform, imho. We need mandatory firings in the civil service, like they do at GE. Cull the bottom 2% every year.
Wasn’t there an issue of where NASA was required to adhere to environmental standards thereby requiring them to use environmentally friendly replacement material (insulation?) that turned out to be faulty?