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Space United States

Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety 232

Posted by timothy from the spaceflight-so-far-not-perfectly-safe dept.
Tsalg writes "The final report from the Stafford-Covey Commission concludes that out of the 15 recommendations they made, the 3 toughest technically are not met. The news was not official on the return-to-flight website but has been widely commented elsewhere. Says one of the task members: "It is NASA's job -- not the task force's -- to determine whether the risks are acceptable and whether it's safe for Discovery to fly." The commission said risk remained that pieces of foam and ice could break off and hit the shuttle at lift-off. It also said the orbiter had not been sufficiently hardened and it lacked an in-flight repair system.Nasa has been aiming to launch shuttle Discovery as early as 13 July."
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Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety More

Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety

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  • Do we wait, or what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kid Zero ( 4866 )
    and honestly, does NASA have the billions it'll take to fix the shuttles up again? Will the public even care to pay for a program that would be down another two to three years? Five years between shuttle launches?

    Why bother, I say.

    • If Discovery fails, it will be the end of the shuttle program, and may well be a fatal blow to NASA. I look on this launch with a great deal of trepidation. I sorely want NASA to get back on track, and I fear what will happen if the mission fails for whatever reason.

      This country needs real government support of space exploration. So far, the only thing private enterprise seems to be interested in as far as space is concerned is tourism. We need NASA to do those things in space whose goals are grander t

      • Re:Do we wait, or what? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by seti ( 74097 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:52AM (#12939400) Journal
        Private companies will almost always pursue goals that will make them money in the long run. Corporate moguls are now catching on to the fact there's a lot of rich people out there willing to spend $250K for a quick flutter into orbit.

        Space programmes with ulterior motives than profit will likely always have to be finianced by the people, through governments.
      • Define failure

        Are we talking a complete mission loss? An abort leading to reduced mission capability? What about a return to launch site abort? Technically an abort is a failed mission, but if it is dealt with, it is, to paraphrase Apollo 13 somewhat, a successful failure, because a problem is dealt with and everyone is safe.

        What problems do you think would be bad enough to consider this mission "fucked", so to speak :)

    • The shuttle missions assume that manned flight is required for research in space - in this day and age, that supposition should be questioned.

      If the US government can not regularly and reliably put and retrieve people from orbit, we need to look at the alternatives such as private missions or a return to exclusively unmanned research - both of these have tradeoffs, but the cost to the taxpayers and the beauracracy involved goes WAY down as soon as you take people out of the equation.
    • The shuttle flew for years without any burnups or crashes.

      Wow, you lost ONE after decades of GOING INTO SPACE where meteor showers and solar flares are always possible, and then returning to earth WHILE YOUR SHIP'S OUTSIDE IS HEATED TO THOASANDS OF DEGREES while trying to land a "flying brick" on a landing strip built on a fricken marsh.

      I guess I'm not really phased.

  • If we wait (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KD5UZZ ( 726534 ) <{moc.temruogmaps ... 5dk.02.todhsals}> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:31AM (#12939315) Homepage
    If we wait until there are no risks the shuttle will never fly again. If we wait until everyone agrees with the risks, the shuttle will never fly again. We gave NASA the task to explore outter space, lets give them the ability. They understand the job at lot better than most people. The people who want to fly understand the risks. Lets let them take the risks if they think its worth it.

    • Re:If we wait (Score:5, Insightful)

      by william_w_bush ( 817571 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:57AM (#12939428)
      yes... well 2 shuttles with crew have died so far. I mean a: yes going into outer space is risky, but 2: if they are going to go we should stop forcing them to use the technology that really isn't fit for the task. The shuttle system is a reagan remnant, like star wars and the stealth bomber and a lot of other things that were designed PURELY to scare the russians with our way overengineered tech. seriously, that was their job, they were made with the design principal "oh and put a bunch of sharp black pointy things on the front to scare the shit out of anyone who sees it" (note the soviet's tried to come up with a copy, they never really could get it to work, and it cost so freaking much they stopped trying, and they are arguably better at space than we are). The SR-71 was made in a similar vein with the only difference being it actually worked, check out combat ready ratings on B-1's sometime.

      I think we should let NASA make their own call, but we aren't, we're forcing them to play gay govt accounting games so the investment in the current shuttle program, and all its maintainance look good, and costs us over $1B a flight. Commercial sat launches go for under $50 most of the time, and are much more flexible regarding orbits. Create a new heavy-lifter, or even bring back the Saturn V, because even at $1B a shot, and counting all the cash we put in for upgrades and maint it's still way way way down the line in terms of launch vehicle capabilities. A Soyuz system is actually safer for docking with the ISS, and half the other things you need to do in space.

      The shuttle was well designed in the beginning, but all the modifications to baselines due to budget pork, politcal conprimises, and simple age have made it unfit for it's duties. You wouldn't ask jet pilots to patrol the skies in p-51 mustangs because we already had some, and north american aviation was an important constituent of the chair of the commitee for armed services, why are we sending our astronauts up in vehicles that are unable to perform their real requirements, and are also designed for size and looks over safety and functionality? Also, would you rather have 1 big ship that can be launched twice every year or 10 small ships that can be launched monthly with the same overall benefit?

      • Re:If we wait (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:23AM (#12939548) Homepage

        Also, would you rather have 1 big ship that can be launched twice every year or 10 small ships that can be launched monthly with the same overall benefit?
        You're asking the wrong question. The proper question is: Would you rather have one ship that has a 2% risk of complete destruction, or no ship at all? This is the question we're trying to answer. Bringing up some theoretical ship that doesn't exist is interesting, but not relevant to the discussion right now.

        Try to understand that right now the main focus of the US (for better or worse) right now is Iraq. We're pouring money into the war right now, and no one wants to consider giving a ton of money to NASA to develop a new vehicle.

        • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Insightful)

          by william_w_bush ( 817571 )
          Bringing up some theoretical ship that doesn't exist is interesting, but not relevant to the discussion right now.

          we have soyuz, last i checked they had the launch capability to handle 20+ launches a year if we kept the lines running, and a loss-less record for the 15 -odd years they've been in service, even nasa considers them the most reliable human launch vehicle available. Oh, excuse me, you wanted the one with the "made in the usa" label displayed prominently.
          • They're looking for something that can finish the Station (different discussion entirely). Soyuz doesn't have the carrying capacity for that.

          • Re:If we wait (Score:2, Informative)

            by cbcanb ( 237883 )
            Soyuz *had* the ability to launch 20 times a year. It doesn't now (currently 2 per year). Ramping up the production rate would be costly, and require a lot of new workers, who would have to be trained, etc.

            And although Soyuz hasn't killed anyone for a long time, there have been several occasions in the last few years where it came uncomfortably close. Soyuz's record isn't significantly better than the shuttle's.

      • Re:If we wait (Score:5, Informative)

        by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:38AM (#12939594)
        The shuttle system is a reagan remnant

        The shuttle predates Regan.

        Richard M. Nixon initialized the shuttle program on January 5, 1972.
        The Enterprise prototype was delivered on September 17, 1976.
        The Columbia was delivered on March 25, 1979.

        note the soviet's tried to come up with a copy, they never really could get it to work

        The Soviet Buran shuttle's first orbital flight was on November 15, 1988. It made a fully automatic landing with no issues.

        • Re:If we wait (Score:5, Informative)

          by Jarnis ( 266190 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:58AM (#12939667)
          And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing - Shuttle can't pull up for another landing attempt, Buran could. It also had no main engines - they were in the huge booster that mimic the shuttle main fuel tank. Buran also had no firecrackers (solid rocket boosters), and instead used only liquid fuels - making challenger-style boom impossible.

          Yes, it was an aerodynamical copy out of stolen blueprints - so they saved a ton of wind tunnel testing and other stuff, but the innards were all russian tech, and they make good solid space tech.

          What didn't work out was the funding. Shuttle is expensive, and so was Buran. Collapsing USSR decided to save SOME kind of space program, and picked MIR and the trusty old rockets they had already in service, and canned Buran. It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.

          Considering how expensive Shuttle is to operate, I'd say they made a smart financial call :)

          But there were no technological obstacles. It was only the lack of money. A real shame what they allowed to rust in the former USSR - they had the biggest booster (Energiya) and the 'better' Shuttle, but both are now pretty much gone due to lack of funds.

          • Re:If we wait (Score:5, Interesting)

            by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @04:31AM (#12939744) Homepage Journal
            Its a pity the US doesn't ask the russians to give them the plans, if they are so advanced and only money was the limiting factor then it would seem the perfect conbination if the US supplied the money and the russians did the work.

            • Re:If we wait (Score:4, Insightful)

              by william_w_bush ( 817571 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @04:35AM (#12939757)
              congressmen... pride... apathy towards real science and research... sad
            • For the most part, US tax money can't be given to foreign governments... NASA can only barter for things. ESA gives us an instrumnet for this spacecraft, we give them an instrument for another. Combined with ITAR this makes international cooperation very hard.

              On top of this with Russia you have the Iran Non-proliferation Act (INA) which bars NASA from doing business with Russia or Russian companies because of Russia's support for Iran's nuclear weap^H^H^H^H energy program. (However, the white house rec

            • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Jarnis ( 266190 )
              It's also over ten years out of date already.

              It *was* great back then. Nowdays they would have to start from scratch again since the production lines are no longer there. Besides, advancement in many technologies mean that 10+ years old prototype is nothing but a curiosity today.

              They might gain something from hiring smart russians, but I think they already do that to some extent...

            • It is a bad idea to use technology you do not understand. You never know what they did to it [gasandoil.com]. When you create something yourself you can be sure you won't end up with the worlds largest non-nuclear explosion and fire.

          • Re:If we wait (Score:5, Informative)

            by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @06:21AM (#12940020)

            And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing

            Actually, the Buran didnt contain jet engines, but it did have engines that could be attached to the airframe for flight testing, transport and research purposes.

          • Buran was not better than shuttle (Score:5, Interesting)

            by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @08:29AM (#12940405) Journal

            And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing - Shuttle can't pull up for another landing attempt, Buran could.

            The shuttle has at least proved that an unpowered landing is perfectly safe. It would be absurd to add the weight cost of engines and fuel just for a go around capability. A robust flight control system is far more efficient. Buran also had no viable electrical power generation. The vehicle was stuffed with batteries on its only flight! That is why it only ever flew a single orbit. So much for the "better" shuttle. It was a child's replica initiated by a paranoid Leonid Brezhnev. The Russians still do not use fuel cells 40 years after they were introduced on American Gemini spacecraft.

            It also had no main engines - they were in the huge booster that mimic the shuttle main fuel tank.

            ..Making Buran one of the costliest and wasteful launch systems ever conceived. Each Energia flight threw away the 4 main H2O2 engines and 4 Kerosene/O2 boosters none of which was reused. Compare this to the shuttle where the SRB motor casings and the SSME's can be used many times.

            Buran also had no firecrackers (solid rocket boosters), and instead used only liquid fuels - making challenger-style boom impossible.

            Since Challenger, the SRBs have flown 176 times with a perfect safety record. I have always questioned why solid fueled boosters are looked down apon for human space flight. The new NASA administrator is almost certain to favor a derivative of the SRB for a CEV launch capability. You often hear that liquid fueled rockets are safer because they can be shut down. As a passenger in hypersonic I would not be happy to be flying hypersonically next to a highly pressurized fuel tank and have a malfunctioning engine shut down. That was ok on the Saturn because of the series staging and spare thrust capacity. But on the shuttle with parallel staging such a booster shutdown would be deadly. Such "firecrackers" will very likely be the basis of a launch abort system as well. That alone says something about the safety and reliability of solid fuel.

            It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.

            Another foolish and oft repeated misconception. The only reason the shuttle doesn't fly unmanned is the polical clout of the astronaut corps. Do you think a shuttle commander has a hand on the stick at anytime from launch to landing? NASA basically gives the stick over to the pilot when the shuttle is lined up with the runway and has enough energy to reach its end. If humans were not aboard the shuttle would be happy and capable of landing and rollout as well.

            • ..Making Buran one of the costliest and wasteful launch systems ever conceived. Each Energia flight threw away the 4 main H2O2 engines and 4 Kerosene/O2 boosters none of which was reused. Compare this to the shuttle where the SRB motor casings and the SSME's can be used many times.

              Actually the Energia booster was designed to be recovered by parachute so they could be overhauled and reused. I believe they planned to reuse each engine a dozen times. Not the same as a SSME but still more cost effective than
            • Each Energia flight threw away the 4 main H2O2 engines and 4 Kerosene/O2 boosters none of which was reused. Compare this to the shuttle where the SRB motor casings and the SSME's can be used many times.

              Sure. And overhauling them after each flight has turned out to cost far more than building new single-use engines. US taxpayers have been soaked for countless $Billions over 3 decades in this epic demonstration of the phrase "penny wise, pound foolish".

              • Sure. And overhauling them after each flight has turned out to cost far more than building new single-use engines. US taxpayers have been soaked for countless $Billions over 3 decades in this epic demonstration of the phrase "penny wise, pound foolish".

                All true. Your only highlight that the Buran design was even more deficient than the shuttle, which is my point.

                • How so? The Buran used expendable engines, which would have been cheaper to operate than the shuttle's reusable design.

                  The Soviets building an airplane-shaped spacecraft was as stupid and pointless as the US doing the same, but at least they didn't waste a lot of effort and money on trying to make the booster "reusable".

          • And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing

            Actually the jet engines were bolt-on and not used in space missions, but rather for shipping the shuttle around between sites. As for the copy, well I've heard that it was an independent design. They had the same main-mission profile (single-orbit observational) for the military and had the same requirement for a substantial cross-range capability. It therefore

            • Well, what I've read is that they took a shortcut by copying the aerodynamical shape of the Shuttle, but did some tweaks to it later, and the whole innards are completely different.

              It's a testament to the well-designed shape of the Shuttle (considering it's mission parameters) - why bother spending years and $MegaRubles to test out a new shape, when you can nab a pre-tested aerodynamical shape and work your way from there?

              Open source aerospace engineering...? :)
          • You know that it was the liquid fuel that went boom on Challenger, right?
            • Ignited by a failing SOLID ROCKET booster that burned a hole into the liquid fuel tank.

              SOLID ROCKET booster that cannot be turned off in case of a problem. SOLID ROCKET booster that, due to being reusable, was made out of sections - and one joint failed...

          • Yes, it [Buran] was an aerodynamical copy out of stolen blueprints - so they saved a ton of wind tunnel testing and other stuff,

            Um... No. There are significant differences between the moldline of the Shuttle and that of Buran - most noticeably in the wing/body blend and in the leading edge of the wing.

            but the innards were all russian tech, and they make good solid space tech.

            Yah - so solid that their safety record is not noticeably different from NASA's on the manned side of the house, and is deci

        • Re:If we wait (Score:2, Informative)

          by m4dm4n ( 888871 )

          According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] : "The U.S shuttles landings are also mostly automated (there has only been one manually flown re-entry so far), but deployment of the landing gear requires a human to physically press the button. The manual step was added at the insistence of the astronauts, who claim that early deployment of the landing gear due to a computer error would be fatal."

        • The shuttle system is a reagan remnant

          The shuttle predates Regan.

          Richard M. Nixon initialized the shuttle program on January 5, 1972.

          Actually - the Shuttle program is older than that. Nixon gave the go-ahead to buy (build) the design we have now, the earliest studies started in 1968.

      • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ctr2sprt ( 574731 )

        if they are going to go we should stop forcing them to use the technology that really isn't fit for the task.

        You're illustrating the difference between the perfect world and the real world. In a perfect world, the tools we have would always be the best tools for the job. But in the real world, it never quite works out that way. At work I have to do a fair bit of disassembly and reassembly of servers, most typically hot swap trays and drives. Those things are in there tight, and we only have like

        • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Insightful)

          by william_w_bush ( 817571 )
          you are correct, it is also what distinguishes a system of government based on citizen apathy towards political goals, and the acceptance of the futility of trying to effect change in any way versus the ideal system of government conceived by our fore-fathers which says that the will of the people is more important than the personal will of our representatives, and the concept that all government is acheived via a mandate from the people.

          Saying "yes but government is always like that", while true, is also
        • >So many times I'm there putting about 600lbs of force trying to get the too-small screwdriver to turn the screw without stripping it.

          Buy the damn screwdriver, and a small belt to hold it (so your co-workers don't walk off with it) before you jam the blade right through your hand. I've done it... it kinda hurts.

          Use the proper tool.
      • yes... well 2 shuttles with crew have died so far.
        Well, one Apollo burned on the launch pad. There were...8 Apollo launches? So, our glorious Apollo had a failure rate higher than the space shuttle.

        How many 747's have crashed/been crashed, yet we still fly them today.

        The shuttle system is a reagan remnant
        Actually, the idea for the shuttle started floating around Nixon's era. The extra mission capabilities were added later, which compromised the design, of course. But this has been beaten to death in o

    • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NetSettler ( 460623 )

      If we wait until there are no risks the shuttle will never fly again.

      Hear, hear! Space travel is dangerous. So what's the alternative? If we keep all the astronauts at home and they die of old age are they going to feel we "saved" them? They want to go, even if there's some risk. And they know that the people who've invested money in this are not going to send them up with frivolous levels of risk.

      Here's my test for acceptable risk:

      If there no astronauts can be found who are willing to take

    • When each shuttle costs billions, and each launch millions, is it any surprise that bean counters get in the way. One may as well be describing the process that is used to make a hollywood blockbuster. Everyone has to cover thier ass, so in the end we avoid risks like the plague. We don't just need people who understand the risks, we a cheaper launch vehicle, and people who understand, that the way to space will be snatched from tragedy and built on not a few lives.

    • Very true - with one proviso (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:30AM (#12939575) Homepage Journal
      When NASA engineers decide a risk really is unacceptable, NASA beurocrats have to stop and listen. I have no problems with NASA taking risks - space is a risky business. Life is a risky business. It is when politics override those engineers on the ground that I get concerned.


      Think - when are the two times the Shuttle has been dsestroyed? Challenger, when NASA bosses decided that freezing temps were fine, because they had a propoganda coup going with the school teacher, even though engineers were screming at them, left, right and center, to postpone the launch and check for damage.


      Columbia was lost - when? During NASA's other attempt at a propoganda coup, with getting an Israeli into space. Engineers wanted images of the wing, to check for damage. The intelligence agencies even offered to produce the pictures for free. But the NASA bosses - again - put the risk of bad publicity as being more important than the risk of a disaster.


      Take risks - take as many risks as you want or need, to get the space program into a functional state - but please don't take risks with other people's lives because you want your photo on the front page of a newspaper. If it works, it achieves nothing and is lousy management. If it fails, it sets everything back and is catastrophic management.


      I don't agree with the NASA bosses deciding that they should overrule the safety monitors, because the safety monitors' chief objection is that NASA bosses keep overruling things they shouldn't. It somewhat defeats the purpose of the exercise, if NASA repeats the very worst "crime" of all, in an effort to move forward.


      I do agree, though, that the shuttle won't ever be 100% safe. It is a 1960s concept, built around 1970s technology (and having spoken to people who have built components for it, not very good technology at that), and it urgently does need retiring with something better. It's a pity Congress has cancelled all the replacement Shuttle programs, through budget cuts, or we'd have one by now.


      Hey, Congress isn't the only bad boy. If Britain hadn't scrapped HOTOL, we would have had a replacement shuttle program years before the Columbia disaster, the ISS would likely have already been completed, and space technology would be easily a decade ahead of where it actually is. (We would also have commercial space travel by now, as HOTOL would have been damn good at that, as it was a design consideration.)


      I also agree that NASA has made all the changes that are going to make a substantial difference, so that any further delay would be pointless.


      There ARE a few things NASA could do to improve things, though - ice buildup is only a problem if there's enough humidity in the air for the water to form ice. It shouldn't be too hard to build what would be basically oversized hair-dryers to blast warm dry air over the top of the tank. At worst, there would be less ice, at best there would be none at all.


      How long would it take to plug a hair-dryer in at the top of the launch tower? My guess is not very, even if it is very large. Switch it off before launch, so there's no weird air currents, and you should be fine.


      This simple addition would not only cut back on ice, but should also cut back on foam risks, because the foam wouldn't be rigid and unusually heavy by being blocked up by ice.


      I'm sure NASA engineers have proposed - if not this scheme, then countless others that are similar in nature. They're not dim, even if it seems that way at times, and know perfectly well that ice is water, and therefore if there's no water, there's no ice. They also know that warm air will expand into cold air far more readily than the other way round. (Pressure * Volume / Temperature = Constant, so if you double the temperature, you double the pressure. Air flows from high pressure to low pressure, on average. The rest, as they say, is obvious. :)


      Leave space exploration to NASA and agencies and private organizations like it. Yes. Definitely. But PLEASE, will NASA and the others PLEASE leave the technical decisions to the technical experts and NOT to the P.R. crew? Doctors of spin are not necessarily doctors of physics or aeronautics.

      • If Britain hadn't scrapped HOTOL, we would have had a replacement shuttle program years before the Columbia disaster, the ISS would likely have already been completed, and space technology would be easily a decade ahead of where it actually is. (We would also have commercial space travel by now, as HOTOL would have been damn good at that, as it was a design consideration.)

        Nah, HOTOL had big problems. Not enough payload; CofM was too rearward.

        Still, son-of-HOTOL: Skylon is looking mighty fine, it has avo

    • The shuttle is a low earth orbit vehicle. It's a billion-dollar-a-trip Ford van, and not a very big one at that. What, exactly, are they "exploring" up there?

      If we're going to put things in orbit, put things in orbit. If we're going to explore outer space, explore outer space. The shuttle does the first badly, and the second not at all. Let it go.

      • That sort of raises an interesting question. Is manned space exploration really useful at this point? How many in orbit experiments do we have left to do? Can't we do most of them with just satellites and probes shot into orbit? Anything else should just get delegated to the space station, since we've spent so much time and money on it. Might as well use it for something. And we've got a cheaper way to send people there than the shuttle.

        As for spacecraft that operate outside of earth's orbit, when does tha

    • Re:If we wait (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nothings ( 597917 )

      The people who want to fly understand the risks.

      No, they don't. Some engineers may understand some risks, but no single individual understands them all, and there is lots of evidence that NASA is not very good at synthesizing all the risks. Instead, further unrealized risks occur, such as those introduced by schedule pressure:

      During the course of this investigation, the Board received several unsolicited comments from NASA personnel regarding pressure to meet a schedule. These comments all concern

    • If we wait until there are no risks the shuttle will never fly again. If we wait until everyone agrees with the risks, the shuttle will never fly again.

      Why don't we just admit that Americans are too pussy to conduct any more space exploration and leave it to those brave Chinese.
  • Is it me, or is all of this making a great case for developing transporter technology...?

    Heisenburg won't mind...

  • Feynman: "nature cannot be fooled" (Score:5, Informative)

    by xmas2003 ( 739875 ) * on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:36AM (#12939335) Homepage
    The last sentance in Dr. Feynman's Appendix F on the Challenger Shuttle Accident Report: [nasa.gov] For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
    • very good read by the way, i recommend it to anyone, and his "Pleasure of finding things out" book which has some too. Awful smart guy for a advanced theoretical quantium physicist.
    • Very interesting read, Between this and the article I read on the engineer's excellent job during the Apollo 13 incident, you do get the impression that NASA has some of the most intelligent people, but that they are plaged with unresonnable timeline and politics (not to mention management)...

      From the report

      Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and

  • Similar to Disaster Recovery (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:41AM (#12939354) Homepage Journal
    The press reporting this and taking the "glass half-empty" is similar to a conversation I had during a Disaster Recovery audit and almost every planning meeting about it.

    Auditor: So what do you do with your computer data?
    Me: We back up everything to tape.
    Auditor: But what happens if the tape is bad?
    Me: No problem, we have a sophisticated backup system where we use multiple tapes.
    Auditor: But what if there was a fire?
    Me: We have a halon suppression system in the server room, plus the tapes are stored off-site.
    Auditor: What if a tornado takes out the off-site storage facility?
    Me: Uh... we've got a backup hot co-lo with SBC a few miles away.
    Auditor: Yeah, but what if a EMP takes out the city?
    Me: The hell? But the chances of that happening are...
    Auditor: But it could happen right?
    Me: Well, sure it's possible but...
    Auditor: (Checks FAIL on his report)

    For space travel you can't make everything 100% certain. There's managed risk, which is really what's going down here. NASA is going to launch, but that isn't going to stop the media from focusing on those three areas that didn't have PASS checked off on the sheet. Expect every talking head to hone in on this during launch day.

    • Re:Similar to Disaster Recovery (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You: In case of global emergencies we now have an off-planet backup site, and an agreement with NASA to shuttle us out there"
      Auditor: But what happens if a piece of ice or foam breaks off and hits the shuttle..?
    • In security, as in space safety, there is a relationship between how secure you can get things and how much you want to spend. In your example, if you considered the loss of an entire city to be a risk that you should compensate for, than you would store things in a facility away from that city. This costs money of course, and the decision is whether or not the expenditure is worth it, based on your limited resources and the probability of that happening. This is similar to many things on the shuttle, wh

    • Re:Similar to Disaster Recovery (Score:4, Funny)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:04AM (#12939829) Journal
      Auditor: Yeah, but what if an EMP takes out the city?
      Me: Well, then the tapes will survive. And if they don't I'll be too busy dying myself from the effects of the nuclear explosion to care!

  • Flying Bricks... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:41AM (#12939355)
    NASA really needs to move on with the space shuttle. The only reason they been kept around so long is because NASA promised too much with the 1970s technology while shutting down competing technologies (e.g., space capsule and Saturn rockets) and that the shuttle contractors needed corporate welfare payments. They put all their eggs in one basket and the eggs are cracking. The NASA space monopoly should be broken before they lose the rest of their flying bricks.
    • Don't forget the top secret replacement shuttles that we'll use to save the world. [imdb.com] You know they're just sittin' around thinkin' shit up!
    • Agreed about the corporate welfare payments, but don't forget the bureaucracy welfare payments to NASA's current management staff.

      Dump NASA, or get a decent mandate in place to get out of the way of the Phoenix and its developers, and watch a Shuttle built the right way within 10 years. I'm wildly impressed by the Phoenix developers, they're doing all their basic engineering and most of their bureaucracy correctly.
  • The shuttle is not "safe", but it's safer than it's ever been before. Everybody knows it's not as safe as a 747, and it's never going to be. But surely, given that the astronauts flying on it are all highly intelligent volunteers who understand the risks, it's safe enough to get the ISS Contractual Obligation Tour (and a manned Hubble service mission, with any luck) out of the way before they get sent off to the Smithsonian and a new, safer CEV is built.
    • little irony: originally the shuttle was supposed to be launched horizontally from piggyback position on what would be similar to a 747. The risks were lower, and the shuttle would be far more capable than the current system using a giant tower of cryo-o2 and 2 giant solid-boosters strapped on. This hybrid space-plane design was scrapped near the end for essentially design conflicts, the army wanted something it could use for different purposes without needing the piggyback launch facility, and considered u
      • amending comment, the second loss was caused by a failure in the shuttle's heat shielding mechanism which was caused by the foam tank, so that sentence was inaccurate.
      • Do you have any references for this? The space shuttle has been a vertical take of vehicle since 1970: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttle.htm [astronautix.com]
        I guess that you talk about the early configuration shown in the first picture on
        http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld029 .htm [www.abo.fi]
        But that configuration was also meant for a vertical takeoff, as can be seen in the third picture. The wings on the booster part is only for the return flight.
      • This is absolutely correct; the CAIB report, in one of its chapters, does a good job of going through the history of the design, and how crappy compromises were done to try to satify several different parties (congress, army, nasa itself) whose requirements conflicted with each others', and lead to this (clearly flawed) design.

        And I stronly agree with its statements that they don't believe in the end that nasa will really change its ways and really 'fix' things (I guess we'll see with the next launch syst
        • It would be helpful if you could cite the chapter, because I can not find any statement about that the horisontal takeoff concept existed after 1970 in the development of the shuttle...

          (In hindsight it is always easy to see how an accident could have been avoided. The trick is to in advance make sure that every accident is avoided...)
          • It was the parent that discussed the vertical launch concept, there a link s/he provided. The chapter I spoke of only talks about the design desicions, etc... though the other volumes might go into more details.

            (In hindsight it is always easy to see how an accident could have been avoided. The trick is to in advance make sure that every accident is avoided...)

            Agreed; it's impossible to predict every eventuality. But in both shuttle losses, a known problem manifested itself (again), engineers raised thei

  • NASA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Godman ( 767682 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:52AM (#12939405) Homepage Journal
    I think NASA takes way too much crap.

    Think about how horrible underfunded everything is, and that they are still sending people up into space in a vehicle built in the 80s. They were underfunded at the time, and made do with what they had, and that's what they have to do now.

    Because its so technically difficult, it takes money to solve, and money is pouring elsewhere instead of into making it safer (Iraq, SS, etc...). Space exploration has taken sort of a backseat here.

    Nasa still has an exemplary record. Only 2 crashes in 20 years. I have no idea how many missions that is, but it's not a few. If you want the people we send up to be safe, give NASA some money, and stop whining about how unsafe it is.

    My $.02
    • Who's blaming nasa? If you told the army they had to use rifle X even though it jammed every 5 shots and couldn't penetrate light body armor you couldn't blame them if they couldn't complete their mission objectives. Maybe congressional oversight of nasa should be limited so nasa can make their own calls, but I suspect their funding would suddenly and suspiciously disappear if that happened.

      Ironically I'm finishing more and more of my posts with "congress is the problem" lately, bad sign.

  • CURE: Competition and Lawsuits (Score:3, Insightful)

    by reporter ( 666905 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:55AM (#12939417) Homepage
    What NASA needs most is a good dose of competition. It worked wonders for Detroit. Ford, GM, and Chrysler produced shoddy vehicles for nearly a decade until Toyota, Nissan, and Honda drove the American companies to the verge of bankruptcy. Then, they transformed themselves into competitive powerhouses that producing outstanding products. The quality of American autos now approaches that of Japanese autos. (American cars continue to lose marketshare to Japanese cars due to poor ergonomics and ride feel, not due to quality.)

    So, who or what could serve as competitors to American companies bidding on NASA-funded projects? The answer is Japanese companies that build Japan's rockets and satellites. In the future, NASA should open up future missions to competitive bidding among both Japanese companies and American companies. NASA maintains a hands-off approach. Future missions will be mostly private ventures run by private companies but subsidized by government funding.

    The mostly-private approach also involves one additional element: lawsuits. If future space mishaps occur, the company running the space mission or building hardware for the mission will be subject to lawsuits by the families of the victims.

    Private companies will bear the responsibility for the success of the mission. NASA acts only as the funder. Competition and lawsuits can do wonders in producing a reliable product. Just look at American automobiles with their high quality and vast arsenal of safety features: air bags, crumple zones, etc.

    • How bout congress has the hands-off approach to it's oversight of nasa. stop senators from deciding which projects to support based on the contractors coming from their state. stop forcing them to support a plan like the iss when they only have part of the launch capability available and even that is specced to be retired before completion (yes i know the russians were supposed to help, but just putting it all on nasa when they(RKA) have problems isn't a solution either).

      The oversight commitees for nasa do

  • Analysis of Risk (Score:4, Insightful)

    by netsphinx ( 619340 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:03AM (#12939459)

    Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the panel head (RIchard Covey) himself (were he younger and still in the flight program) wouldn't hesitate to fly on the revamped shuttle. So NASA fails the appointed checklist of improvements, but doesn't fail a former astronaut's 'gut instinct' test.

    (While we're on the subject, let me recommend to anyone who is, has been, or ever will be interested in the subject of NASA's decision-making--under crisis conditions, or in conditions leading to crises--the work of Edward Tufte. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/ [edwardtufte.com] His analyses of the data graphics used in the launch decision of the Challenger, the investigation of the Challenger disaster (Feynman's experiment), and the Columbia in-flight decisions are a must-read take-no-prisoners statistical firefight. Also, well-written and heartbreaking.)

    Now I'm asking, given NASA's bright-dark history in these matters, Covey's professed take, and the lacunae in the checklist...Would you be willing to fill a seat on the next Shuttle mission?

    (Or would I, supposing the sudden need arose for a hack novelist/graphic designer/wicked dancer in space, of course...)

    On the contrary side, would you be willing to send up a $$$$$ shuttle, $500 million in launch costs, and 7 astronauts (each representing maybe $3 million in sunk training costs, and more importantly, people, skilled, experts in their fields, brave, etc--not to mention the international incident factors if one of the crew is non-US)--with a higher-than-requested, but amorphously lower-than-previous risk of ever returning?

    (Here I reveal my ace-in-the-hole for getting onto a mission someday, despite being the hack novelist, graphic designer, etc--no sunk training costs; I'm worthless, so if I don't come back, the taxpayer is getting an awesome deal.)

  • Risk goes hand in hand with riding rockets (Score:4, Interesting)

    by A Dafa Disciple ( 876967 ) * on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:05AM (#12939465) Homepage
    Prior to the Columbia Disaster [google.com], NASA's fleet made numerous flights while being pelted with enormous chunks of foam as the shuttles were in their previously thought safe and stable condition. I'm still not convinced that the incident wasn't just a fluke.

    Now, in order to ensure/improve the safety of a few dozen future rocket riders, should the government allocate millions of tax payer dollars?

    I think that astronauts getting blown to smithereens shouldn't be unexpected, nor should it enrage anyone, no matter what the NASA chooses to launch astronauts into space in. It goes with the territory; risk goes hand in hand with riding rockets.

  • Excerpt from the Executive Summary (Score:4, Informative)

    by colonist ( 781404 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @03:16AM (#12939518) Journal

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

    It has been 29 months since Columbia was lost over East Texas in February 2003. Seven months after the accident, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) released the first volume of its final report, citing a variety of technical, managerial, and cultural issues within NASA and the Space Shuttle Program. To their credit, NASA offered few excuses, embraced the report, and set about correcting the deficiencies noted by the accident board. Of the 29 recommendations issued by the CAIB, 15 were deemed critical enough that the accident board believed they should be implemented prior to returning the Space Shuttle fleet to flight. Some of these recommendations were relatively easy, most were straightforward, a few bordered on the impossible, and others have been largely overcome by events, especially with the decision by the President to retire the Space Shuttle by 2010.

    The Return to Flight Task Group (RTF TG) was chartered by the NASA Administrator in July 2003 to provide an independent assessment of the implementation of the 15 CAIB return-toflight recommendations. An important observation must be stated up-front: neither the CAIB nor the RTF TG believes that all risk can be eliminated from Space Shuttle operations; nor do we believe that the Space Shuttle is inherently unsafe. What the CAIB and RTF TG do believe, however, is that NASA and the American public need to understand the risks associated with space travel, and make every reasonable effort to minimize such risk.

    Since the release of the CAIB report, NASA and the Space Shuttle Program have expended enormous effort and resources toward correcting the causes of the accident and preparing to fly again. Relative to the 15 specific recommendations that the CAIB indicated should be implemented prior to returning to flight, NASA has met or exceeded most of them - the Task Group believes that NASA has fully met the intent of the CAIB for 12 of these recommendations. The remaining three recommendations were so challenging that NASA could not completely comply with the intent of the CAIB, but conducted extensive study, analyses, hardware modifications, design certifications and made substantive progress. However, the inability to fully comply with all of the CAIB recommendations should not imply that the Space Shuttle is unsafe.

  • I suppose all the engineers walk around the building wearing helmets and kneepads.
  • Doesn't this whole thing seem like a waste? The shuttles will be permanently grounded in 2010 because its flight certification will expire, and it is generally agreed that it would be ridiculously expensive to get it re-certified. We're half-way through 2005, so they have 4.5 years left of flying. It seems like they have a tough time getting more than a few flights a year out of them. So, being optimistic, they might get another fifteen flights out of these shuttles. They have so far lost aprox. one in
  • That champion shall have the honor-- no, no-- the privilege... to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona... from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make. Let the tournament begin!

    -- Lord Farquaad.
  • With the completion of the X Prize I am much more confident in private companies improving space access then NASA. Rather then spend endless amounts of time, effort and money reworking the 1970's shuttle design, NASA's efforts would be better spent researching new and improved vehicles. They seem to not want to do this though...

    Go Virgin Galactic!

  • Safety culture (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BlightThePower ( 663950 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:41AM (#12939902)
    I wonder if the reporting here has been a bit skewed by concerntrating on specific technical safety recommendations. Surely those are just symptoms that may or may not be addressed (and may or may not cause problems even if they aren't), the real compelling question is do NASA have an appropriate degree of safety culture [iee.org]? I know this is probably a less interesting issue for the Slashdot crowd to discuss than technical details but as anyone working in a safety-critical engineering area will appreciate, its really whats at stake here. And IMHE, whilst I appreciate to some it may sound like management wankery, safety culture is both absolutely vital and also damn hard to inculcate in an organisation. Whilst I understand the President was making rash claims about missions to mars, he was really needed here to make some very clear statements and devise policies to encourage NASA to change. It would seem to me if NASA are failing to meet clearly defined 'action points' they certainly haven't a safety culture which bodes ill for the future frankly. Seems in 2003 quite a few people called it correctly ("Experts say NASA's safety culture may be too broken to fix" [rustcom.net])

  • the real risk (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rctay ( 718547 )
    If they loose another ship, it will shut down NASA manned flight for 20 years. NASA has always been a difficult sell in Congress, and world is still too immature for international cooperation in projects of this magnitude. If you don't believe that, spend a day at the UN.

  • no news here, move on (Score:4, Informative)

    by pease1 ( 134187 ) <bbunge@NOSPAM.ladyandtramp.com> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @08:28AM (#12940398)
    Having sat through a briefing by a technical staff member of the Columbia review board and seen just what a freakin mess the shuttle program was in, this doesn't surprise me in the least.

    They couldn't document even the placement of wires in the wings. I got the impression most of the IT projects I've worked on have better documenation, and that's scary. This guy compared NASA's documenation to the US Navy's documentation of reactors on submarines. Where the Navy has a record of every piece of plumbing that's ever been changed on any of their reactors, NASA didn't have hardly anything.

    My first reaction at the end of the briefing was to think "that thing shouldn't fly again".

    And I'm a raving space exploration nut and think the US should withdraw from the Space Treaty and claim half of the Moon and offer homestead rights to private citizens and companies.

    And I fully accept there is always risk in space travel, but not THAT much risk.

    And as others have pointed out, the risk is higher then ever now. One more accident and...

    • "And I'm a raving space exploration nut and think the US should withdraw from the Space Treaty and claim half of the Moon and offer homestead rights to private citizens and companies."

      So you suggest just talking half of it because you are strong enough to do it? Do you have any idea of provoking this idea would be towards the rest of the world?

      This kind of action often leads to war and a war over something that is currently not quite worth it.
      • So you suggest just talking half of it because you are strong enough to do it? Do you have any idea of provoking this idea would be towards the rest of the world?

        No, not because we are strong and can do it, but because current treaty/agreements mean the Moon will never be developed or occupied. It means we'll continue to have our DNA in this single basket forever and thus doom the long term future of mankind. This needs to happen so a precedent is set for Mars.

        That said, there is historical precedent

  • Since NASA is having so much trouble with rocket science, here's some free advice on something tough: math.

    3 is 20% of 15. That's a lot.

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