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Space Science

Entire NASA Safety Board Resigns 39

Posted by michael from the starting-over dept.
identity0 writes "All nine members and two consultants of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have resigned today, reports CNN. The Panel was responsible for advising NASA on the safety of its spacecraft and facilities, and was set up in 1967 following the Apollo 1 fire. Recently, it had been criticized by the Congressional investigation into the Columbia accident. Here is the NASA press release, and the official home page of the ASAP."
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Entire NASA Safety Board Resigns More

Entire NASA Safety Board Resigns

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  • Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by krist0 ( 313699 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @05:56PM (#7038116) Homepage Journal
    I dont like it when people cock up and then resign....i always feel that they should stay and fix the mess they created....

    well, kinda hard with the shuttle and all, but you get my drift...

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rekkanoryo ( 676146 ) *
      You have to consider something though. What if these people aren't capable of cleaning up their mess--what if they screwed it up so bad they can't possibly fix it? It's not entirely impossible to do, after all.
      • then i reckon they should have to learn. Kinda reminds me of my sister in law, always getting herself in crappy "relationship problems"....biggest basket case this side of ikea....she gets in stupid situations, then her family needs to bail her out...rinse and repeat....i say, let them stay until they figure it out (or get lynched)
        • I disagree. When someone proves they are inadequate for a task, do not continue to give them responsibility. Not everyone is able to do the work they are assigned.
      • If that's the case, then there's a good chance they won't have the decency to quit either...

        Which can lead to situation where the not-so-good guys stay, while the good guys quit...

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sahrss ( 565657 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @06:23PM (#7038406)
      What if they were not *allowed* to do their job well? That's a good reason to resign as a group, if management won't let you do your job...
      • What if they were not *allowed* to do their job well?

        Then (presuming good faith) they would have resigned at the time their advice was rejected - i.e. long before the accident.

        If NASA was not allowing them to do their job well, and they kept doing the job, they must have been content to do the job badly.

        This reminds me of a couple of years ago when the whole EU commission resigned after the publication of a report on corruption. It is a beurocrat's response to incoming shrapnel from an investigation.

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)

      by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @10:15PM (#7040006)
      I see it the other way.

      Their resigning makes the statement that "we failed in our mission. we take responsibility. we're now going to step aside so that you can implement new policies with a new safety board."

  • reorganization? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zonx lebaam ( 688779 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @05:59PM (#7038160)
    A resignation letter that says "we have a lot of hard work in front of us"? Perhaps they aren't resigning from their jobs but merely from the board. Perhaps when the reorganization takes place they will return to doing exactly what they were doing before? This article seems to be saying something that you've got to read between the lines.

  • NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @06:01PM (#7038177)
    Shortly after the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, a sick "joke" started circulating. NASA was reported to mean, "Need Another Seven Astronauts."

    Unfortunately, as news reports come in about disregard for safety for Shuttle Columbia, it appears that such "joke" has a major element of truth. NASA bureaucrats (and probably politicians up to and including at the White House, as well) disregarded Morton Thiokol engineers in 1986, and we're now hearing that engineers warned NASA officials and the President prior to Columbia's launch that the Shuttle system itself was prone to such a disaster as witnessed yesterday. We know that Columbia was hit with "something" ("foam" or more likely, ice) during its launch on January 16th, and apparently, officials didn't take it seriously enough (Cain slew Abel; did Leroy Cain slay Columbia?). The excuse that "Columbia's crew was doomed from the start because they couldn't make repairs" is both silly and illustrates the current "can't do" attitude of today's NASA, which is far different than the NASA which both put humans on the Moon AND safely returned a crew to Earth after Apollo 13 had a "major malfunction" way up there.

    For NASA's bureaucrats (and some politicians), it appears that risking astronauts' lives, NOT for the "unknown variables," but for glamour, expediency, and selfishness, is "acceptable." Perhaps this is to be expected in today's America where "style" and "appearance" are far more valued than substance and tangibility.

    The "joke" way back in 1986, "N.A.S.A. = Need Another Seven Astronauts," has tragically turned out to be 2003's reality.

    • challenger statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @06:32PM (#7038477) Journal
      The Morton Thiokol presentations regarding the O-rings were utter crap. Edward Tufte has an excellent deconstruction [asktog.com] of their major slides, and shows how little information they contiained. He redrew the graphs, and showed that it was almost certain that the rings would fail at the Challenger's launch temperature.

      The link I gave is just a summary & leaves out some parts - the original graph was organized by serial number, not launch temperature, and is filled with cutesy pictures of rockets (chartjunk in Tufte terminology). The new graph shows temperature vs. problems-found-on-recovered-orings. The Challengetr's launch temperature, 40 degrees F, is highlighted at the left of the graph, showing how different this one was versus all others.

      The book has a much better presentation, and it's an excellent excellent book. This example is something that I think back to when I make any presentation ... a good chart could have saved lives.
      • I find it curious that the web page slams presentations that are made in a form that is unclear, but the web page saw fit to produce their presentation slides in a tiny size that is completely unreadable on my 19 inch LCD screen.
      • Edward Tufte might be great at "envisioning information," but he's no statistician. His plot contains as much misleading information as Tiokol's graph contained hidden information.

        Here's why: That pretty curve-fit line in Tufte's graph is crap. It is based on an incredibly small number of samples, especially at lower temperatures. The curve fit is completely useless unless it is presented with error bars. Furthermore, the curve fit is misleading since attracts the eye and leads attention away from the fact

    • Re:NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts" (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The excuse that "Columbia's crew was doomed from the start because they couldn't make repairs" is both silly and illustrates the current "can't do" attitude of today's NASA, which is far different than the NASA which both put humans on the Moon AND safely returned a crew to Earth after Apollo 13 had a "major malfunction" way up there.

      Apollo 13 lost one of the spacecraft, but they were fortunate to still have the one with the heat shielding to use for reentry. The "can do" attitude would not have saved

    • Re:NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts" (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      [quote]
      The excuse that "Columbia's crew was doomed from the start because they couldn't make repairs" is both silly and illustrates the current "can't do" attitude of today's NASA, which is far different than the NASA which both put humans on the Moon AND safely returned a crew to Earth after Apollo 13 had a "major malfunction" way up there.
      [/quote]

      *ahem* Bull Shit.
      Colombia only had a few opportunities to avoid destruction, and they were all during lift-off. If NASA took the impact seriously, the orbiter c

      • Re:NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts" (Score:4, Informative)

        by applemasker ( 694059 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @09:29AM (#7043020)
        No one knew about the foam impact in realtime during the shuttle's 8-minute ascent seqeuence. It wasn't seen until the next day when engineers were reviewing post-launch film. At that point, the shuttle was in orbit. There was no data available at the time of ascent (though some was later found in the form of sensor readings from the left wing that suggested the foam strike) warranting an abort.

        Second, Columbia had two EVA suits onboard as all shuttles do. The suits are a moot point unless you can get another shuttle up there in time.

        As pointed out in the CAIB report, if NASA had concluded early in the mission that Columbia was mortally damaged, there was a possibility that Atlantis (which had already been mated to its ET/SRB stack in anticipation of an upcoming mission) could be launched before consumables aboard Columbia ran out. Once in proximity, the Columbia crew, using the two EVA suits and others brought by Atlantis, could have been transferred to Atlantis. Columbia would have (presumably) been de-orbited ito the ocean or brought down on autopilot (unlikely).

        Also as CAIB noted, there was PLENTY that could have been done, aside from as one engineer said, "crossing our fingers and hoping for the best." None of it was ever done, however, becuase NASA managers failed to appreciate the possibility of damage to the thermal protection system. Even if it was detected and Atlantis couldn't be launched in time, there were ideas to stuff all sorts of junk (like water-filled bags which would freeze prior to reentry) into the breach in an attempt to fortify the structure just enough to allow for re-entry and bailout (the shuttle needs to be subsonic and in level flight for bailout), even if a landing would be impossible.

        As it is, the wing held together (rather impressively) through most of re-entry and the computers worked like mad to compensate for the asymmetrical drag. Eventually, however, the wing's deformity induced yaw forces that the control surfaces and steering rockets could not compensate for - when Columbia lost this tug of war, the left wing dropped, the nose swung hard to the left (relative to the path of travel) in a "skid" -all adding up to a very bad day at hypersonic speeds.

        To say that there was "nothing" NASA could have done (had they appreciated the extent of the damage) is just not true.

  • Looks Like NASA Admin. O'Keefe Engineered This (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @06:31PM (#7038471)
    Reading between the lines, it looks like NASA Chief Administrator Sean O'Keefe fired the safety board because it was ineffective at stopping him and his management team from crushing attempts by engineers to put safety first, amd now he's making the safety board the fall guys in the Columbia Tragedy.

    This from the guy who, barely hours after the accident, with astronauts' bodies still smoldering in half a dozen states, announced that he was forming an "independent" review board, under his terms, subject to his time frame, and under his budget control.

    When Congress talks about the "NASA Culture", the finger is clearly pointing in his direction. O'Keefe should have resigned ages ago.

  • Will it do any good ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @06:32PM (#7038476)
    Safety officers in general are expected to make hard decisions and take hard and unpopular stands, theyre not supposed to coast through their tenure hoping nothing bad happens. That said you have to ask will this do any good.

    The report on the shuttle disaster cited cultural problems at NASA. I don't see how changing 9 faces at the top will change the culture. What NASA could probably use isn't just a few sacrificial lambs at the top but someone to go through the agency and decimate its ranks. This is a life and death matter for the people that ride pillars of fire into the sky, it should be for those on the ground as well.
    • It's not. It looks like the Senate Appropriations Committee blames them, when they don't have the influence that they should.
    • Firstly it's not 9 faces at the top, it's the Advisary board which is independant. Actually it looks like a good move. My disolving the board NASA and govenment can change the authority and responsability of the board without having to pander to people already inplace. And when done the board can be reformed with members better suited to it's revised role.
      • My understanding is that this Advisory Board was (or had become) a bunch of managers who were afraid of making anything more than "recommendations." For example, they recommened a full-envelope crew escape system, an idea which has been considered and shelved as too costly and heavy for the shuttles.

        Beyond things like that, they would never issue a "No go" edict (particulaly with the Administrator and the ISS Schedule hovering over them) and risk their careers.

        This Board should be dissolved, and rep

  • They did the only honorable thing.
  • Not to paraphrase politically incorrect humour from the eighties... but...

    NASA = Need Another Nine Advisors?

    Q.

  • Pass the parcel (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Nyphur ( 514992 )
    NASA have been playing pass the parcel with the blame for a while, referring accident reports and probability assessments of things going wrong from one committee, to a sub-committee to the next committee and to independant researchers in order to try to prove that their incompetance was not the cause of any wrongdoings. So far, their attempts to blame the government of the USA for causing safety problems by underfunding the project and pressing for results too soon, just so that they could have something t
  • For anyone still following this thread, the Washington Post reports today that the ex-panel members fault Congress for inadequately funding NASA and NASA itself for sweeping their recommendations under the rug. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40 8 70-2003Oct3.html

    Particularly scathing is the following: "'Rather than committing to an adequate budget for the space shuttle, NASA and its congressional allies found it easier to get rid of those raising the alarm,' the former panel members said i

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