[anymouse]

Space ping.

[RightWhale]

they couldn’t have done anything wrong because of their pure intentions.

Way to go, Oberg. We know karma is unaffected by intention. The action counts, nothing else matters.

Results matter, NASA. You didn't want to kill the astronauts?

Page One news. NOT.

[mrb1960]

“Kraft or Kranz would never have let it go by,” one of them told MSNBC.com by e-mail, referring to the legendary Apollo-era flight directors Christopher Kraft and Gene Kranz. “They would have demanded to know on what basis this impact was considered safe — or demanded a way to determine whether there was any damage or not.”

Both these guys are class acts.

[hopespringseternal]

“None of us felt that the analysis was faulty,” Ham said Tuesday. “We do rely on the systems experts. That is the way that we operate.”

There was a time when this sort of thing ended careers. What you feel is moot, what you know and what happens counts.

Now, all we care about is subjectives like sincerity and intentions.

No wonder NASA thinks getting off the ground qualifies as an eighth wonder of the world. They are midgets standing on the shoulders of giants imagining themselves to be giants. Without the foundation and framework laid down by their predecessors, they would have as much chance of getting to space as an eighth grade B-team has of winning the superbowl.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

“We lost the crew and we lost the vehicle,” he conceded, “... but it is not because of lack of good intent or lack of effort on anybody’s part. ... It’s really difficult to me to attribute blame to any individual personalities or people. We can find mistakes in analyses and we can find places where we weren’t good enough. But it’s not because of malice or ill intent.”

"Aviation in and of itself, is not inherently dangerous. But, to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect."

[SteveH]

"None of us felt that the analysis was faulty,” Ham said Tuesday. “We do rely on the systems experts. That is the way that we operate."

This philosophy would never get anyone close to the moon. It would not even get anyone safely airborne above their belly button.

This is indicative of a design philosophy that came into vogue during the '80s IMHO, in which development time and costs were cut via cutting safety and system testing, effectively letting the customer be the beta tester. This philosophy has a proven track record for companies such as Microsoft, but then no one proposed using DOS or Windows to control anything life-critical on the order of shuttle flights or nuclear reactors.

It definitely represents IMHO a change in design philosophy, and a change for the worse.

[mabelkitty]

Bring it on! The POLITICALLY CORRECT culture of NASA is what is wrong.

That foam was changed to a more ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE composite in order to satisfy the special interest flunkies who run this country from behind the curtain.

Will the public be allowed to see what really goes on at NASA, or will they be lied to again.

[dasboot]

Kranz would have said "I screwed up; no excuses: here's my resignation."

[Helms]

Posted by dasboot to anymouse; TLBSHOW

TLBSHOW can be found in the Valley of the Damned/Banned at Liberty Post

[Movemout]

The crux of the problem is easy to understand. Insulating foam from an external tank was never meant to peel off and strike the shuttle. This is an anomaly. It should have been addressed as an anomaly that presents a risk to the shuttle. NASA convinced itself that such an anomaly was harmless. Kraft or Kranz would have been on it in an instant. Anything that deviates from predictive analyses warrants corrective action. The fact that it wasn't recognized as such is indicative of where NASA is today.

Bill Readdy promulgated a letter last week to shore up the troops. It essentially said, "Don't be defensive. Do your job and lets get on with the process." The whole tone of the letter was defensive. Anybody see anything wrong with this picture?

[Boundless]

“I don’t believe anyone is at fault for this,” said Ham.

Translation: "I just saw a draft of the CAIB report"

“Nobody wanted to do any harm to anyone.
Obviously, nobody wants to hurt the crew.”

Translation: "We aren't malicious, just incompetent,
but we don't even know it."

_________

If we don't fire managers for losing two orbiters,
and two crew, for the same reason*, then what DO
we fire managers for?

* "same reason": continuing to fly with out-of-spec
launch anomalies, and not bothering to accurately
assess the risks (until fully realized).

[thepainster]

The officials also said they thought it was important that they had good intentions and tried hard.

Sounds like the PC pablem that current generations are being spoon fed in our public school systems. As demonstrated by this trajedy, good intentions will get you killed in space flight.

[gwmoore]

ping.... your comments are invited.

Greg

[Bob J]

Tonight, UNSPUN with AnnaZ and Guest Hostess DIOTIMA!

This Thursday
July 24th, 2003 ~ 10pmE/7pmP

with
Guest Hostess
Diotima

"Of Bias and Babes"

Matthew Scheffield
of
RatherBiased.com
discusses SeeBS's latest scandalous behavior

and

Tom Schneider
of
JerseyGOP.com

will discuss the latest Republican Babes
(and other less frivolous things, maybe)

Plus
as always

CRB's
and
Bone-headed Lieberals

Click HERE to LISTEN LIVE while you FReep!

Click HERE for the RadioFR Chat Room!

Miss a show? Click HERE for the RadioFR Archives!

[Rudder]

But when it came time to assess the hazard of foam impact on the special high-temperature leading-edge panels — the reinforced carbon-carbon, or RCC — they had no test data, no analysis tools, no database of flight experience. So they just guessed. They assumed it would be OK. And NASA officials — particularly Linda Ham, who was in charge of that meeting — let them get away with it.

I had thought the "they" and "them" meant NASA officials, then the text says that "...NASA officials...let them (who them?) get away with it."

MSNBC wrote this mess?!!