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Why Hubble Broke and How It Was Fixed
angry tapir writes "I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Charles (Charlie) Pellerin, who was NASA's director of astrophysics when the Hubble Space Telescope launched with its seemingly fatally flawed optical system. Pellerin went on to head up the servicing mission that finally fixed the telescope and for that was awarded NASA's highest honor, a Distinguished Service Medal. Since Hubble he has done a lot of thinking about the problems that led up to the error and how organizations can best avoid making similar mistakes."
The real hero of that project was a man called Story Musgrave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_Musgrave There was a lot of planning put into fixing it, but without him actually up there in space improvising when stuff went south, the Hubble would be useless today.
I worked at Ball Aerospace years ago and found out the real story. NASA cut the budget for Hubble so that a final optical train alignment task was never done. The engineers had designed a laser test to check the optical path but NASA wanted to save the $50000 the test would take. So until it was turned on, in space, they had no clue how bad it was. Working with NASA was tough mostly due to their arrogance.
The article mentions that the contractor was afraid to bring up problems.
That, plus the mentality from management that people who bring up problems are "troublemakers," "negative," "not team players," etc. (because they've put too much of their ego or political capital into a project) has got to be responsible for more disasters, large and small, than any other deadly combination.
I worked for a large nonprofit that blew money on doomed projects as though money grew on trees. Each time, it started with somebody, usually a contractor or somebody else who stood to gain from it, flattering the leadership that this was huge and visionary and would make or save them millions. Then the organizational mind control started, where everybody was saying that it was the greatest thing ever. Then the flawed project management started. Then when the cracks were obvious, people who pointed them out were vilified as naysayers. It was only the lower-downs who said anything because to rise, one had to be a "team player," and the organization was hierarchical enough that lower-downs were ignored. Then denial that there were problems, together with tossing more money at it (including adding more people to a software project at the last minute because that always works). Then even when the leadership [sic] team [sic] all realized there were problems, they all waited until the person responsible for the project was willing to concede defeat. because in a political environment, nobody wants to confront somebody who might retaliate
Those elements are the inevitable recipe for disaster for any project, but it's fear that drives virtually all of them. Fear of not looking good (note that the Congresscritter didn't yell about wasting taxpayer money, she yelled about being made to look bad), loss aversion, fear of admitting a mistake, fear of speaking up.
Pellerin was brave enough to do something technically illegal and scrape up the funds for servicing it.
That is what a leader does.
I wanted to joke about the PhDs getting drunk at their desks, but there are a couple of gems in the text:
We see this very clearly when discussing evoting.
Then towards the end there is an interesting analogy of the Shuttle accidents with a Korean airline company having an extreme crash rate, referring to people put under too much pressure, and irrational .
It's actually a good read for people interested in managing.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Mars Impactor was designed to hit the Red Planet at 600 mph, but because of The French, it hit the planet at 1000 kph instead, ruining the mission.
This is the core of real engineering work, and it's one of the reasons I loved working at NASA under great management. I mostly squandered the opportunities I had there, and yet I still learned more from that time than anything else in my career. I actually started there working for a brilliant optics guy who was at Perkin Elmer during the Hubble years. Later, my direct supervisor went on to play a key role in the servicing mission, and (last I heard) was part of the JWST team.
Later, worked in private industry for the team the (essentially) discovered the hole in the ozone layer. We got into it verbally from time to time, but I really respected his knowledge of the physics we were involved in. I once joked about getting fired if the part I was working on failed. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Oh, I won't fire you. I'll make you stay here and fix it." I smile a bit every time I think about that meeting.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You should read the article, because your comment is exactly the kind of thing he is talking about. Technical people who think they have found a technical problem, therefore the solution is to correct that problem. If the problem was really that measurement system the US uses is 'wrong', then how can the US have so many successful space missions? The problem is not that there are multiple measurement systems, or that one is somehow superior to the other. The problem is that the teams did not communicate successfully - not a technical problem at all. And don't say 'well, if the stupid US would use the same system as the rest of the world it wouldn't be a problem', because that just shows you completely missed the point. The point is that there was ineffective communication - a leadership problem - not simply a technical problem.
I attended an astronomy conference a year ago that included a presentation from a NASA guy on the mars rovers. He had a few disparaging things to say about Lockheed-Martin, including blaming them for the Mars Climate Orbiter failure. He said their contract included a statement to recalibrate the thruster in the metric system but they failed to do so. (Of course, he neglected to mention that NASA was managing the project and failed to catch the error.) He also said one of the rovers drove by the heat shield (built by Lockheed-Martin) from the rover landing and there was a big disagreement over examining the heat shield up close to see how well it held up. Lockheed-Martin wanted the data but wanted to keep it secret on the grounds it was a proprietary design. NASA said all their data is public so it's either we drive by without looking, or we take a look and release all the data. They eventually did the latter.
One more thing -- the same conference included a presentation by a professional astronomer who had overseen the building of an observatory in Chile. He had disparaging things to say about NASA -- that their cost estimate was 10X over what he eventually spent on the project. Guess it all depends on your point of view.
NASA specified SI.
Supplier did not supply SI, since it bases its measurements on US system.
Problems.
Yes, it was a communication and management error, but not entirely. It has been standard in scientific settings to use SI units for years and years. Failure to use them *especially when specifically outlined by the design brief* is not just a "communications problem" - it's a fundamental error in the product that was delivered unfit for purpose.