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As a former test conductor, I was never expected to personally know everything. But I was expected to know whom to ask.

Occasionally, I would get some bad information and pass it up the line as if it were true. Oops. So I learned early on how to cover my a$$.

I would sometimes couch my pronouncements in weasel-words. When somebody would ask me, "When will such-and-such be ready?, I would respond with something like, "I'm being told that whatever-it-was will be ready by 14:30", or "The schedule says 14:30".

Also, we were very careful what we said on the recorded net. Lot's of times we would say one thing on the net for public consumption, then call the person on the telephone and give them the real story. There were a whole bunch of people around KSC that had nothing better to do than pull voice tapes and look for violations of test discipline.

There was nothing sinister about all this, and nobody would knowingly pass on incorrect information. There was just a lot of uncertainty and many times we just didn't know the answer.

I don't fault the guys at Houston for telling the Astronauts that there was nothing to worry about. That was true as far as they knew. Everyone there told them so. I do fault the insular culture there that leads them to believe they know everything and nobody else knows anything.

The engineers and flight controllers in Houston just do not speak to the experts at KSC. It's beneath them, apparently.