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."

Comments

NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts"

[applemasker]

No one knew about the foam impact in realtime during the shuttle's 8-minute ascent seqeuence. It wasn't seen until the next day when engineers were reviewing post-launch film. At that point, the shuttle was in orbit. There was no data available at the time of ascent (though some was later found in the form of sensor readings from the left wing that suggested the foam strike) warranting an abort.

Second, Columbia had two EVA suits onboard as all shuttles do. The suits are a moot point unless you can get another shuttle up there in time.

As pointed out in the CAIB report, if NASA had concluded early in the mission that Columbia was mortally damaged, there was a possibility that Atlantis (which had already been mated to its ET/SRB stack in anticipation of an upcoming mission) could be launched before consumables aboard Columbia ran out. Once in proximity, the Columbia crew, using the two EVA suits and others brought by Atlantis, could have been transferred to Atlantis. Columbia would have (presumably) been de-orbited ito the ocean or brought down on autopilot (unlikely).

Also as CAIB noted, there was PLENTY that could have been done, aside from as one engineer said, "crossing our fingers and hoping for the best." None of it was ever done, however, becuase NASA managers failed to appreciate the possibility of damage to the thermal protection system. Even if it was detected and Atlantis couldn't be launched in time, there were ideas to stuff all sorts of junk (like water-filled bags which would freeze prior to reentry) into the breach in an attempt to fortify the structure just enough to allow for re-entry and bailout (the shuttle needs to be subsonic and in level flight for bailout), even if a landing would be impossible.

As it is, the wing held together (rather impressively) through most of re-entry and the computers worked like mad to compensate for the asymmetrical drag. Eventually, however, the wing's deformity induced yaw forces that the control surfaces and steering rockets could not compensate for - when Columbia lost this tug of war, the left wing dropped, the nose swung hard to the left (relative to the path of travel) in a "skid" -all adding up to a very bad day at hypersonic speeds.

To say that there was "nothing" NASA could have done (had they appreciated the extent of the damage) is just not true.

Re:Hmmm

[sahrss]

What if they were not *allowed* to do their job well? That's a good reason to resign as a group, if management won't let you do your job...

Will it do any good ?

[Crashmarik]

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.

challenger statistics

[morcheeba]

The Morton Thiokol presentations regarding the O-rings were utter crap. Edward Tufte has an excellent deconstruction of their major slides, and shows how little information they contiained. He redrew the graphs, and showed that it was almost certain that the rings would fail at the Challenger's launch temperature.

The link I gave is just a summary & leaves out some parts - the original graph was organized by serial number, not launch temperature, and is filled with cutesy pictures of rockets (chartjunk in Tufte terminology). The new graph shows temperature vs. problems-found-on-recovered-orings. The Challengetr's launch temperature, 40 degrees F, is highlighted at the left of the graph, showing how different this one was versus all others.

The book has a much better presentation, and it's an excellent excellent book. This example is something that I think back to when I make any presentation ... a good chart could have saved lives.

Re:Looks Like NASA Admin. O'Keefe Engineered This

[DerekLyons]

When Congress talks about the "NASA Culture", the finger is clearly pointing in his direction. O'Keefe should have resigned ages ago.

Right. A guy that's barely been in office two years is responsible for things whose roots stretch back over a decade.

Can you 'knee-jerk'?