
Mail from the NASA Administrator
This is a letter from Dan Goldin to all NASA employees. Generally I consider submitting e-mails to be in poor taste, but this one is to several tens of thousands of people, so its rather public already. I found it to be thought-provoking and inspirational.
MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR
I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how proud
I am of the NASA family. Thanks to all of you, we have had
an incredible string of successes this year. Since last
October, we've launched 13 missions, with 10 successes.
The list of accomplishments is impressive: Deep Space One,
SWAS, Stardust, LandSat 7, Quikscat, FUSE, the first space
station assembly mission, and Chandra, just to name a few.
Although I know I shouldn't single out specific groups
because the success of any one mission depends on the entire
NASA team, I do want to point out the extraordinary efforts
of two groups.
First, I would like to commend the Shuttle team for its
commitment to making safety our number one priority. The
Shuttle team is absolutely right in its decision to examine,
reexamine and reexamine again until we are confident that
the Space Shuttle is as safe as possible. Our astronauts'
lives depend on the diligence of the Shuttle workforce. We
must be driven by safety, not schedule.
Second, the Mars teams have demonstrated the true meaning of
character and the pioneering spirit of exploration. The
Mars program had two spectacular successes under its belt
with the Mars Global Surveyor and the Mars Pathfinder. But
what makes this agency strong and vital is not how we react
to success, but how we learn from failure. The Mars Polar
Lander team was asked to perform the most difficult task in
the history of Mars exploration - landing on the red
planet's south pole. The odds are staggering: three
different countries have tried to go to Mars 32 separate
times, and only 11 missions have succeeded.
The American people are behind you. They know how difficult,
and how important, it is to explore. They know that risk,
failure and setbacks are part of that journey. A USA Today
poll taken on Monday showed an overwhelming 72 percent of
respondents want us to continue our Mars exploration
program. President Bill Clinton and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner,
Chairman of the House Science Committee, expressed support
for the Mars program and the "faster, better, cheaper"
philosophy during separate press conferences this past week.
Rep. Sensenbrenner plans to visit the Jet Propulsion Lab
next week to talk with employees.
What we cannot do is return to a time when it took 10 years
and one billion dollars to build a spacecraft. We all
remember when one such spacecraft blew up - the Mars
Observer - and we had no other Mars missions on the books.
We also cannot ask our scientists and engineers to do what
others only dream about doing -- take incredible risk, try
new ideas and technologies, then point fingers and play the
blame game when failures occur. As I said when we started
"faster-better-cheaper" if we launched ten missions and lost
two or three, we would still be wildly successful.
What we can do, however, is learn from our mistakes. We
have to find out why two Mars missions under "faster,
better, cheaper" were incredibly successful, and why two
others failed.
I am in the process of appointing a blue ribbon commission
to look into the failure, to make recommendations, and to
help us build a better, stronger program. I know it is never
easy to have others looking over your shoulder, second
guessing, analyzing, and criticizing. But when you work for
>>the Federal Government, you are held to a higher standard.
We owe it to the American taxpayers to let them know what
went wrong and how we intend to fix our problems. NASA is
the boldest, most open agency in the Federal Government. The
whole world watches what we do. We've wowed them before, and
we will do it again.
Daniel S. Goldin
NASA Administrator
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Mail from the NASA Administrator
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