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Entire NASA Safety Board Resigns
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."
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...
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
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.
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.
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.
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 to their name (much like the first man on the moon thing) have failed. The US Government will never accept that they were the cause of any safety issues, directly or indirectly, and I can say with complete certainty that the citizens of that huge country won't see how underfunding and budget cuts can lead to problems with safety.
"Safety First, as it seems," applies only when it's affordable to do so.
They need to make sure that word gets around that a certain believable group of people to take the blame, and of course, having exhausted all other options and O'Keefe wanting to keep his nice highly paid job, there was but one option... Go back and admit that it was their Safety Advisory Council's incompetance which caused the problems in safety. The Council would obviously be reluctant to admit that it was their fault and as such never have, but I belive O'Keefe has used this opportunity to bolster the group into resignation, hinting at the possiblity of them having been the cause. This is further indicated by the fact that strong review is going into the old council's contract and practices.
Of course, the press release only says that they are resigning, not what from. They mya still be employees of NASA but be resigning from their post on the Council in order that after review, perhaps another be set up that is mroe to O'Keefe's liking. Motives, I am unsure of, but it seems that the council did have problems in putting safety before cost consideration of the dafety procedure implementation. Perhaps a new council who are more willing to conisder the issue of safety as of the utmost importance could help, but only after stringent review of the practices, methods and objectives of the old Council.