Nasa chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings [BLAMING BUSH AGAIN? DOUBLE B.A.]

http://www.observer.co.uk/ ^ | Sunday February 2, 2003 | Peter Beaumont

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Nasa chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings

Peter Beaumont
Sunday February 2, 2003
The Observer

Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety issues had been addressed.

In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with Nasa for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'.

During his last 11 years at Nasa, Nelson served as a mission operations evaluator for proposed advanced space transportation projects. He was on the initial design team for the space shuttle. He participated in every shuttle upgrade until his retirement.

Listing a series of mishaps with shuttle missions since 1999, Nelson warned in his letter that Nasa management and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have failed to respond to the growing warning signs of another shuttle accident. Since 1999 the vehicle had experienced a number of potentially disastrous problems:

· 1999 - Columbia's launch was delayed by a hydrogen leak and Discovery was grounded with damaged wiring, contaminated engine and dented fuel line;

· January 2000 - Endeavor was delayed because of wiring and computer failures;

· August 2000 - inspection of Columbia revealed 3,500 defects in wiring;

· October 2000 - the 100th flight of the shuttle was delayed because of a misplaced safety pin and concerns with the external tank;

· April 2002 - a hydrogen leak forced the cancellation of the Atlantis flight;

· July 2002 - the inspector general reported that the shuttle safety programme was not properly managed;

· August 2002 - the shuttle launch system was grounded after fuel line cracks were discovered.

Nelson's claims - which The Observer could not independently verify yesterday - emerged against a background of growing concern over the management of safety issues by Nasa.

They followed similar warnings in April last year by the former chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory panel, Richard Bloomberg, who said: 'In all of the years of my involvement, I have never been as concerned for space shuttle safety as I am right now.'

Bloomberg blamed the deferral or elimination of planned safety upgrades, a diminished workforce as a result of hiring freezes, and an ageing infrastructure for the advisory panel's findings.

His warning echoed earlier concern about key shuttle safety issues. In September 2001 at a Senate hearing into shuttle safety, senators and independent experts warned that budget and management problems were putting astronauts lives at risk. At the centre of concern were claims that a budget overspend of almost $5 billion (£3bn) had led to a culture in Nasa whereby senior managers treated shuttle safety upgrades as optional.

Among those who spoke out were Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who warned: 'I fear that if we don't provide the space shuttle programme with the resources it needs for safety upgrades, our country is going to pay a price we can't bear.

'We're starving Nasa's shuttle budget and thus greatly increasing the chance of a catastrophic loss.'

Although Nasa officials said that improvements were being made they admitted that more needed to be done.

A year earlier, a General Accounting Office report had warned that the loss of experienced engineers and technicians in the space shuttle programme was threatening the safety of future missions just as Nasa was preparing to increase its annual number of launches to build the International Space Station.

The GAO cited internal Nasa documents showing 'workforce reductions are jeopardising Nasa's ability to safely support the shuttle's planned flight rate'.

Space agency officials discovered in late 1999 that many employees didn't have the necessary skills to properly manage avionics, mechanical engineering and computer systems, according to the GAO report.

The GAO assembled a composite portrait of the shuttle programme's workforce that showed twice as many workers over 60 years of age than under 30. It assessed that the number of workers then nearing retirement could jeopardise the programme's ability to transfer leadership roles to the next generation to support the higher flight rate necessary to build the space station.

[Lancey Howard]

You said what I was thinking - - Sick Willie must be smacking himself again and wondering why stuff like this couldn't happen when he was President.

[virgil]

Delays, cancellations, and inspections that find bad wiring are NOT "mishaps".

Bad wiring, heh. How much bad wiring is in the average airliner that so many of us less extraordinary people fly in? I hear there's a lot and I don't see where the gov't or the airlines, etc are climbing over themselves to fix it.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Heck, they could even try to launch the things in a hurricane if they wanted to, and if it crashed then the only concern would be how much money they've lost

And how many people it killed when it hit the ground in a major city ?

[cubreporter]

Wow, they now have something new they can try to pin on our dear President. They are so stupid. The American people hear nothing but Bush bashing from the dems/libs. The American people can see for themselves what a good man George Bush is and the dems/libs are only digging themselves a deeper hole. I hope they keep it up. It's coming back to bite 'em in the ole behind.

[Vinnie]

Most dems silent today. They are huddling, working on the 'blame Bush' talking points.
Just wait, it's coming.

[pttttt]

Here's a link to the GAO report: GAO Report on Space Shuttle Workforce. The report came out while Clinton was still President.

There are broader problems. In the US, the incentives aren't there to take up or stay in aeronautical engineering or space program work, yet these are important elements of our national strength. There's too much downside if you're trying to support a family. The people left doing it are often doing it out of pure patriotism and hanging on by their fingernails.

No one should blame Bush; he's had a lot on his plate lately and maybe the NASA management has failed him by not briefing him on the true situation with an aging shuttle fleet and an underfunded program.

For other GAO reports, go to GAO and e.g. search under "NASA".

[Alberta's Child]

And how many people it killed when it hit the ground in a major city?

They don't launch these things in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. They launch them in Florida for two reasons: 1) so the rocket can get out over the ocean on their way up, and 2) so the spacecraft can be launched as far south as possible, since most spacecraft end up in some kind of equatorial orbit.

[CyberAnt]

It's 8:43 here in San Diego, and I'm surprised it took them this long.

[The Duke]

There will always be casualties when intrepid men and women push the envelope for the betterment of mankind. Fingerpointng and witch hunting are the perrogatives of lesser individuals who are unworthy of breathing the same air as the wonderful people who crewed the ill-fated Columbia this day.

[GrandMoM]

bump

[texastoo]

For whatever this is worth, I searched google using the words space shuttle repair. I came across this web site which may explain some of the problems NASA was having last summer. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/020719203237.xy8qxftk.html

Columbia was to have been launched in July 2002, then pushed back til December 2002. Evidently there were cracks along the fuel liners. These cracks were also found in Atlantis and Endeavor.

Also, I found another article about the ISS that was interesting. Towards the end of the article it mentions the fact that Clinton had cut the funding for NASA for 7 straight years. Also from 1993, 25,000 jobs were cut to 17,000 jobs by the year 2000.

[Porterville]

Well didn't you know that Bush is responsible for the dry-rot in my house; I know it is his fault because when Clinton was in office I never had dry-rot.

[DaBroasta]

A B-52 does not re-enter the atmosphere at 12,500 miles per hour.

Yes that's true. And the space shuttle doesn't get SAM missiles fired at it. The point was proper maintenance can keep an aging vehicle in the same safe working condition it was in when it was new.

[Steven W.]

FYI - report on NBC - Clinton NEVER increased the budget for NASA a single dollar, not even matching inflation, during his 8 year tenure. $15 billion budget when he came in, $15 billion when he went out. Bush authorized $200 million additional funds allocated in last years budget for specific safety programs.

[Sparta]

Agreed. Clintoon and the Congress are to blame for not funding the replacement for the shuttle.

[wretchard]

The B-52 is flying out of necessity, not preference. And it has been relegated to less and less demanding roles as the threat increases. Once, the B-52 was the premier penetrator of defended airspace. Then it became a cruise missile carrier when it could no longer be relied upon to penetrate. Today, it is useable only where there are no significant air defenses. On the first night over Baghdad it will be B-2s, not B-52s. The fact that it continues to be viable is a testament to the ingenuity of the service, but an indictment of the procurement policies of the last decades.

Now we will have to fly the shuttle for the next decade out of sheer necessity. To keep the ISS going. To get oversized payloads up. To keep things going. Even if the damn thing now has an empirical time to failure of under 150 flights.

Now the B-52 is not inherently less safe as an airframe than the B-2, although it may be less survivable now in combat. But no airforce personnel should be forced to fly in an airframe that crashes every 150 flights. Now, this is no criticism of those who designed the shuttle back in Nixon's day. Apollo, after all, had two lethal accidents (Apollo 13 survived by a miracle) in less than 2 dozen outings. That was 1 to 12. So 1 to 150 isn't so bad. But today we have the technology to build a vehicle that will go 1 for 15,000. We will keep the shuttle going, and it will be testament to the bravery of its crews and the ingenuity of the engineers, but it will say nothing good about the politicians and suits who are supposed to procure the best spacecraft that money can buy.

[ffusco]

I agree that astronauts should have the best vehicles available. The Space Shuttle is old technology combining the risks of rockets with the landing characteristics of a plane. It never actually leaves the atmosphere, so we couldn't fly the shuttle to the Moon. As for the B-2 and B-52, The 52 is a stategic bomber and still performs well able to deliver huge payloads at a safe altitude. Without the need to carpet bomb the USSR, they can be flown less and keep flying. The B-2 is a tactical bomber like an F-111 with a much smaller payload. It's stealth allow it to engage an enemy that still has air defense capability.

[Jael]

Reading these two comments gives one a different slant on the whole issue. I came across them in two differnt threads, or maybe the top one I found at Spacenews, I can't remember and I am too tired to go back and read through all of my history. But just think, if they took out the freon, and it caused this problem??????

AEDC Performs Shuttle Materials Test for NASA/Lockheed Martin

ARNOLD AFB, Tenn.
-Arnold Engineering Development Center is assisting the National Aeronautics Space Administration with improvements in existing Space Shuttle materials. According to NASA, during several previous Space Shuttle flights, including the shuttle launched Nov. 29, 1998, the shuttle external tank experienced a significant loss of foam from the intertank. The material lost caused damage to the thermal protection high-temperature tiles on the lower surface of the shuttle orbiter.
The loss of external tank foam material and subsequent damage to reentry tiles is a concern because it causes tile replacement costs to significantly increase,,u. however, it is not a flight safety issue. As a result, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center selected AEDC to perform flight hardware materials tests on the shuttle's external tank panels in the center's von Karman Facility Supersonic Tunnel A.

The purpose was to establish the cause of failure for the tank thermal protection materials at specified simulated flight conditions. "NASA chose AEDC due to its technical expertise and historical program successes," Steve Holmes, a NASA-MSFC technical coordinator, said

A review of the records of the STS-86 records revealed that a change to the type of foam was used on the external tank.
This event is significant because the pattern of damage on this flight was similar to STS-87 but to a much lesser degree. The reason for the change in the type of foam is due to the desire of NASA to use "environmentally friendly" materials in the space program.
Freon was used in the production of the previous foam. This method was eliminated in favor of foam that did not require freon for its production. MSFC is investigating the consideration that some characteristics of the new foam may not be known for the ascent environment."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834139/posts?page=54#54

[Jael]

good post bump