Re: TONIGHT ABC News TV Special

[Matt B \(MB\)]

Just watched it. Thought it was a pretty good program for TV that is.

--
A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.
Columbia loss FAQ: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html
Email: (remove the obvious)


"ElleninLosAngeles" > wrote in message
om...
> Charlie Gibson hosts a full-hour Columbia special, a Primetime TV
> special report. 10 PM Pacific. Check your local listings. He
> interviewed some of the engineers that wrote the infamous emails. Also
> Leroy Cain in Mission Control. Astronaut family members + footage from
> onboard the flight.
>

[Terrence Daniels]

"Matt B (MB)" > wrote in message
om...
> Just watched it. Thought it was a pretty good program for TV that is.

Agreed

Not too terribly over-dramatized, a good bit of behind-the-scenes video and
some things I hadn't seen. Like the video from today's foam shot... I came
out into the living room and set up the internet stream to watch the Mars
launch right when they showed it. My first reaction was something like "Holy
F$cking Hell!!!"

[Ron]

He also said a rescue mission should have been done.

R

Kent Betts > wrote in message
m...
> "Matt B \(MB\)" > wrote
>
> > Just watched it. Thought it was a pretty good program for TV that is.
>
> Not a bad show at all. Lotsa facts. Not too much....."what if" bs.
> The thing that stood out was ol' Story Musgrave. He said that viewing
> the wing would have been the easiest space walk in the 106 space walks
> he had designed, and that he could have gotten the EVA folks to where
> the RCC was six inches in front of their face. I think he also said
> that the EVA should have been done, IIRC.
>

[Lynndel Humphreys]

>
> > Just watched it. Thought it was a pretty good program for TV that is.
>

Is it going to be shown again. I got off onto NASA TV for the Mars Delta
launch. Night shot with onboard video.





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[Mark Lopa]

> If anyone taped this and would be willing to make a copy for me, please
> e-mail me at . I'm really upset that I missed this.

Thanks,
Mark

[ElleninLosAngeles]

I thought Story M. was getting a bit riled up and perhaps
exaggerating. Everyone else has said it would be a very difficult
spacewalk without handholds, etc planned out. Plus, when he said it
would be within 6 inches of their face he used his finger to show the
distance and he spanned a distance of more like 4 inches. Wouldn't
their big space helmets keep their eyes more than 4-6 inches away from
the missing item?!

[ElleninLosAngeles]

What did you all think of the portrayal of Rodney Rocha the JSC
engineer who emailed to beg for photos but didn't speak up (by his own
admission) at a management meeting? I can see his point of not wanting
to be the lone person speaking up in a meeting but I keep wondering
why he didn't send his emails directly to the top... couldn't he have
just copied the very top managers?? This seems far less scary and
intimidating and it seems like it would have at least gotten his
initial uneasiness up to the top level.
I'm also still wondering how many other people at NASA had any
concerns whatsoever that the foam would cause a tragedy. It seems like
everyone was truly OK with it, beyond the engineers emailing each
other which maybe WAS just themselves chatting about the issue. At
least no one else is going in front of the media to say they weren't
surprised the shuttle didn't make it.

[Barry]

On 8 Jul 2003 10:51:44 -0700,
(ElleninLosAngeles) wrote:

>I thought Story M. was getting a bit riled up and perhaps
>exaggerating. Everyone else has said it would be a very difficult
>spacewalk without handholds, etc planned out. Plus, when he said it
>would be within 6 inches of their face he used his finger to show the
>distance and he spanned a distance of more like 4 inches. Wouldn't
>their big space helmets keep their eyes more than 4-6 inches away from
>the missing item?!

Can you really blame him for being a bit riled. These people were his
friends and colluges.He was not even given a chance to try and come up
with a plan . The people who were making all the decions just wrote
his friends off.

Better to try and fail than never to try at all

[Terrell Miller]

"Kent Betts" > wrote in message
m...
> "Matt B \(MB\)" > wrote
>
> > Just watched it. Thought it was a pretty good program for TV that is.
>
> Not a bad show at all. Lotsa facts. Not too much....."what if" bs.
> The thing that stood out was ol' Story Musgrave. He said that viewing
> the wing would have been the easiest space walk in the 106 space walks
> he had designed, and that he could have gotten the EVA folks to where
> the RCC was six inches in front of their face. I think he also said
> that the EVA should have been done, IIRC.

And he also said there's no chance a repair EVA would have worked, they were
only looking at a rescue mission. And I would take everything that Story
says with a grain or two of salt just on GP.

--
Terrell Miller


"We pay for love, but the hate comes free"
-Gordon Sumner

[ElleninLosAngeles]

I taped it but don't have a way to make a copy. I looked into buying
the video from ABC News, and it isn't listed yet on their store page
which is at:
http://www.abcnewsstore.com/
Other shows, like a few Nightline specials about the Columbia disaster
which I never did see myself, sell for $30.
(By the way, the store page only worked on my MAC if I looked it up in
MIE, not Netscape, browser.)

[Michael Kent]

Herb Schaltegger > wrote:

> In article >,
> (Michael Kent) wrote:

>> You obviously worked in a very different part of Boeing than I do. I
>> can't even imagine such a response to a safety related issue by either
>> my management or my co-workers. That is not to say that an engineer
>> won't lose a technical argument with his peers or even be over-ruled
>> by a manager -- even on a safety-of-flight issue, but suffer such crass
>> retribution? Never.

> It's all in the approach to the problem and interpretation of the
> top-level requirements. If you institutionally define the problem away
> by fiat (as Linda Ham and others appear to have been doing -- "Now,
> we've agreed there is no safety of flight issue, correct? Okay, next
> item on the agenda . . .") it becomes very hard for a guy out in the
> cubes' to stand up in the meeting when his own supervisors are putting
> on the institutional blinders that are being handed them.

"Hold it! Not so fast. There's a point we may be overlooking."

It's not that hard to interject a technical issue into a meeting that's
moving too fast for its own good. And if the technical point is valid,
the meeting stops and the issue is discussed. The preponderance of the
data may go against our courageous engineer, or he may be overruled by
management, but I've never seen retribution against valid technical
concerns raised in meetings, especially on safety-of-flight issues.

Now, that is not to say that someone like hallerb would be allowed to
hijack each and every meeting with a continuous unsubstantiated whine,
but that's more of a case of The Boy Who Cried Wolf than putting on
institutional blinders.

I guess it comes down to institutional culture. I've worked for
Boeing Seattle and Boeing St. Louis, and I've worked on Long Beach
and Philadelphia programs, but I never worked for Boeing Huntsville.
It's interesting to hear how "Boeing" Boeing Huntsville is, that's all.

Mike

-----
Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
St. Peters, MO

[Herb Schaltegger]

In article >,
(Michael Kent) wrote:

> I guess it comes down to institutional culture. I've worked for
> Boeing Seattle and Boeing St. Louis, and I've worked on Long Beach
> and Philadelphia programs, but I never worked for Boeing Huntsville.
> It's interesting to hear how "Boeing" Boeing Huntsville is, that's all.

Bear in mind this was the former Boeing Missiles and Space Division of
the early '90's. Things could well have changed. Don't get me wrong:
people weren't cavalier about safety but safety for safety's own sake
wasn't the priority, either. The design and systems people tended to be
the most confident folks, convinced of the worth of their designs and
their abilities to get them to work. One could call it hubris except
that (so far) their work hasn't failed spectacularly. The Safety
people, however, WERE okay, by and large, and the ECLSS safety people
were damned sharp and very much on the ball.

On the other hand, I personally didn't have too much confidence in some
of the managers (first level managers, in particular). Most of them had
lots of time with the company, perhaps too much. The ECLSS second-level
guy (who reported to the program Chief Engineer) was very good, both
technically and as a manager. However, when he retired he was replaced
by a guy who had come over from Ham Standard, Windsor Locks. THAT guy
was a kiss-ass suck-up who apparently was hired because someone very
high up at MSFC said he should be hired. In fact, when Ham Standard
laid off lots of folks in around '92 Boeing hired more than a dozen of
them (including this mid-level mananager; the Ham Standard folks didn't
like him there and they certainly didn't like him at Boeing).

My theory of SSF people at Boeing (especially many of the ones who were
there for Phase "A" and "B" studies) is this: through the '80s,
Huntsville was pretty much the ass-end of the company with the POSSIBLE
exception of Boeing Philadelphia. My theory is that senior people who
weren't too great at their jobs but who were nonetheless too senior to
be just let go were often transferred there in hopes that they'd either
quit or, failing that, at least there wasn't anything too much for them
to screw up. I think that Boeing's win of the Work Package 1 contract
on SSF surprised lots of folks; when they started to staff-up for the
contract, they had a few dozen of these folks they had to pretty much
keep around and many of them ended up as first-level managers and
engineering leads. As the staff-up continued some truly outstanding
people came in to the program, both new-hires and transfers. However, a
lot of the hold-overs stayed around to dilute the talent pool!

Of course, this is just one former engineer's opinion; others may very
well disagree. I will note that MOST of the Boeing designed and built
stuff is working very well (including my small pieces :-) so it couldn't
have been all that bad.

--
Herb Schaltegger, Esq.
Chief Counsel, Human O-Ring Society
"I was promised flying cars! Where are the flying cars?!"
~ Avery Brooks