NASA Contractor Fired for Blowing Whistle 16
TOTKChief writes "NASA Watch reported on this the other day, but now the Huntsville Times has dug into the firing of a NASA contractor charged with radiation safety at Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA is so serious about safety and redundancy that they're sending two probes nearly simultaneously to Mars, but it's apparent here that they don't give a rip about the safety of their employees."
Whistle blowing. (Score:3)
Currently, though IANAL, IIRC there are laws already on the books that make it illegal to fire someone for being a whistleblower. There are certainly some laws regarding OSHA standards, according the the training I just recieved. Unfortunately, this does nothing to help the guy who, despite successfully suing to get his job back, now has to work in a negative environment, as will often happen in those companies that have enough to hide to want to fire whistleblowers.
Heck, I've been warned not to spread around our OSHA violations at work...
-cajun
fired by his company not NASA. (Score:2)
Re:fired by his company not NASA. (Score:2)
I never said he was fired by NASA. As far as complaints from NASA contractors go, in cases where you're stuck with management at the contractor level that doesn't give a damn, when it's a safety concern, you go to the IG.
FWIW, I'm a member of the MSFC contractor community myself. I'm still appalled at AJT's decision and NASA's apparent lack of action in kind to AJT. This is a mindless, kill-the-whistle-blower attitude on AJT's part, and I hope to hell that they don't get their option renewed on their contract.
You can bet your ass I'll watch my ass next time I go into a radiation area out there. I don't know when that will be, but it will play a part in my thought processes, unless this problem is fixed.
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NASA had better practice their preachings (Score:1)
For those who don't know, safety is always spelled with a capital S [nasa.gov] in and around NASA. Their homage to this sacred cow -- mandatory monthly meetings with cliff-hanger videos that make the American Red Cross look like Cannes Film Festival triumphants, monthly inspections by overbearing site safety managers, some inane safety tip in email at least weekly from same -- borders on asinine.
If AJT doesn't get a sound smacking, there's probably a rat somewhere in the chain of their contract.
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Oh I don't know... (Score:1)
Re:Whistle blowing. (Score:2)
"Hey, Johnny, remember when we told you that failing to put a cover-sheet on those tps reports was a terminable offense? Well..."
"Hey, Susan, our records indicate you've been working %0.05 less effifiently than your coworkers..."
Forget the sexual harrassment suit, wage dispute or other internal conflict you may be enjoying. If a Corp. in Fl. wants you gone, you can count on it happening. Myself and friends have been let go for reasons like "not showing enough initiative", "poor sales"(I was doing stock work at the time), "layoffs due to poor quarterly performance"(company posting record profits, I was hired there a week after my friend was let go, along with 30 other new employes.)
One would think that being involved with NASA would make for better accountability in human resource matters: I'd be willing to bet this guy would never win a suit, and nothing will come of this other than as much bad press as folks can muster about the company that did this
Whistle Blowing (Score:2)
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Re:Whistle blowing. (Score:1)
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Re:Whistle blowing. (Score:1)
Hey bud, Marshall Space Flight Center [nasa.gov] is in Alabama, not Florida, and while IANAL, I don't know that right-to-work statutes would apply here. I don't even remember if AL is right-to-work.
GFM -- who can see a big-ass Saturn V from his bedroom window . . . I live two miles down the road and have to go out there today. =)
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Re:12 POST!!!! (Score:2)
- most people have never heard of the Cassini, launched to Saturn in October 1997 and carrying 34.7 kg of plutonium, a substance so carcinogenic that 1/1,000,000th of a gram will give you cancer;
- therefore most people do not know that an explosion of this ship in the atmosphere would give cancer to tens of millions of people (depending on where it was when it blew up) as well as disrupting a number of ecosystems;
- the press has been surprisingly nonchalant about future plutonium-bearing missions, including ones to the Outer Solar System like the Comet Nucleus Mission carrying 25.5 kilograms of plutonium (2002 launch date) and the Pluto Flyby carrying 25.5 kilograms of plutonium (2003 launch date); missions to Mars by the Mars SR in 2007 & 2009 with a total of 6.5 kilograms of plutonium; and missions to the moon by the Network in 2001 and 2002 with total of 9 kilograms of plutonium.
Furthermore, I don't think people are relating these future dates to the Challenger, which proceeded in spite of internal warnings about safety issues, or to the two recent Mars satellites, one of which cleared numerous levels of NASA management in spite of including calculations based on the metric inch.Maybe people in general just find it comforting to believe that the people in charge claiming to know what they're doing do in fact know what they're doing. Certainly evidence is amassing to the contrary. I'm sorry if this sounds like flamebait, but i'm sure we all have pet issues we can point to; elimination of dissent happens to be one of mine. Not very democratic, IMHO....
Re:12 POST!!!! (Score:1)
Re:12 POST!!!! (Score:2)
Actually it appears you are trolling, but I'll bite anyway (its late :) ).
1) I have heard of Cassini, it is an intersting exploration probe of the Saturn system. As an aside where do you get your Pu toxicity data? Here's a link to a paper [powerup.com.au] on the subject by Bernard Cohen [pitt.edu]. Do you have information from a radiation health researcher to back your claims?
2) In order to expolore the outer solar system there are good reasons to use plutonium as a power source (in an RTG [doe-md.gov], Radioisotope Thermal Generator). It is compact (low mass/energy), long lived, and reliable. Other possible power sources have inherently serious problems.
3) Also they do contain [nasa.gov] the Pu in many layers of protection in case of an accidental reentry to prevnt the release of the Pu in the atmosphere. Perhaps the press has been "nonchalant" because the danger is miniscule and only the extremists are upset by a non-existant danger.
Space Shuttle (Score:1)
-- The fight's not over, until the winner is tired.
Skipping eight levels of command (Score:1)
Sigh. He was responsible for radiation safety. He would be fired as well if he had reported it through the chain of command, and they had sat on it. In those roles, you're supposed to go to the person that has the biggest chance of effecting a change (and by the way, that person will be the first to tell the safety officer to go do something useful if there's no good reason to bother the top brass).
In most companies, the folks responsible for doing computer security auditing report directly to the board for this precise reason. I know that I would be both eligible for and deserving dismissal if I kept my mouth shut about a security risk that is so big I honestly believe it shouldn't be done -- even if my entire chain of command doesn't like the idea.
Re:12 POST!!!! (Score:2)
i got my data from Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, regarded by some as an extremist (read: aggressively radical), regarded by others as aggressively logical, regarded by many as an irritant. I could not re-find the original citation, & so was forced to make do with information from the Agency for Toxic Substances and disease Registry [cdc.gov]. This site does paint a much less grim picture: it states that 1400 pCi/kg body weight causes bone cancer in 4 years. A pCi is equivalent to one-billionth of an mCi; one mCi of plutonium 239 weighs
nonetheless, that same site lists the Annual Limit on Intake of Pu-239 as 20,000 pCi, which is equivalent to 3.2-7 g, or three millionths of a gram. It does not, however, say what the result of exceeding this limit would be.
Yet NASA's Final Environmental Impact Statement [nasa.gov] warns of the dangers of "inadvertent reentry," stating that if the Cassini disintegrates, dispersing the plutonium, "5 billion of the estimated 7 to 8 billion world population at the time
Originally I had thought that solar power was a viable alternative. Visiting the European Space Research and Technology Centre [estec.esa.nl] shows that it is not.
I suppose that now is the time to hang the tie-dyed dancing teddy bears, but it seems to me that if the best safe option is not feasible, perhaps the mission should not be flown at all. The risk of a necessary "permanent relocation" of entire urban areas seems unacceptable to me, especially if we are still theoretically practicing democracy.
As far as the media goes, I think media outlets--especially the conglomerates, or the ones owned by conglomerates--generally hesitate to dig into little-known government scandals, since the government is one of its main sources of information. For instance, a reporter can simply report verbatim what a government agent has said, and feel secure in not verifying it. (I have done the same thing above, perhaps naively).
Civilian reports, on the other hand, require research and verification, which is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore reporters lean towards government sources since it is more expedient and generally puts them in a better light with their bosses, since they don't have to authorize unusual expenditures. Smaller for-profit venues don't have the funds for extensive investigations; not-for-profits are anomalies to be commended.
I do not think this is a conspiracy theory; i think it is simply the result of businesses doing what businesses do, which is attempt to make money. I'm probably safe in saying that media corporations are still corporations, which have as their explicit goal the accumulation of capital.
NASA & Whistle-blowing (Score:3)
If you take it higher up the chain, such as to the officer responsible, at a security or safety meeting, there's a good chance you'll be looking for other work in a surprisingly short space of time.
Documentation, there, is also fascinating to behold. ISO 9000 compliancy is easy, if you reword the requirements and downgrade your project. Safety isn't an issue, when you can blame a technician or metal fatigue.
Whistle-blowing at NASA is further complicated by the strict security regulations. Anyone with an alternative lifestyle, "unapproved" sexual orientation, or even just plain enthusiasm, is classed as a Security Risk, according to the Red Tag safety/security briefings. Co-workers are encouraged to watch these Potential Subversives, in an NSA documentary designed to instill terror and fear in the Unwashed Masses.