Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight

[Greg Kuperberg]

Maybe because people smell blood in the forthcoming CAIB report, it has
been fashionable lately to bash NASA management for the Columbia disaster.
This seems to be the exceedingly rare point on which Oberg, the New York
Times, CAIB, and many other parties all seem to agree. But not me.

(Curiously, relatively little anger is directed at NASA director Sean
O'Keefe, even though he calls himself a "bean counter". Does "bean
counter" sound like "flight safety"?)

I'm no fan of the NASA manned spaceflight program or its management, but
people are turning one single wart in the ugly picture into a mountain
of blame. People are talking as if Linda Ham personally hurled foam
at Columbia's wing in a fit of total incompetence. (But they grant
her "good intentions".) That's not what those meetings were about.
They were about MAYBE discovering the hole in the RCC panel and MAYBE
saving the astronauts, and even so probably not Columbia itself.
It would have been an expensive long shot and it's not the real problem.

The real problem is that the shuttle is not safe for astronauts and
never will be. Granted, bad management is the immediate cause of that.
But behind bad management lies a bad mandate, namely, the mandate
of manned spaceflight. A manager with a good mandate may be good or
bad; a manager with a bad mandate is going to look bad no matter what.
It is a fantasy of public opinion that space travel is kind-of like air
travel and kind-of like continental exploration. (For most people it's
not even strongly held opinion, just ill-informed.) It's actually more
like ocean-floor exploration, which by common sense is almost entirely
done by remote control. But NASA and its elected patrons have spent
decades catering to public naivete about manned spaceflight. Now they
face a reckoning.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:43:29 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>Maybe because people smell blood in the forthcoming CAIB report, it has
>been fashionable lately to bash NASA management for the Columbia disaster.
>This seems to be the exceedingly rare point on which Oberg, the New York
>Times, CAIB, and many other parties all seem to agree. But not me.
>
>(Curiously, relatively little anger is directed at NASA director Sean
>O'Keefe, even though he calls himself a "bean counter". Does "bean
>counter" sound like "flight safety"?)

Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.

>The real problem is that the shuttle is not safe for astronauts and
>never will be.

No, the real problems are that the Shuttle is too expensive, too
fragile, and every accident make a fleet that's already too small
smaller, by an increasing percentage.

Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue. NASA has too many of
them, and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble
find more who will. This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
be placed.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

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[Paul F. Dietz]

Charleston wrote:

> A little cavalier are we?
>
> Maybe the value of human life is different where you are from. In the U.S.
> we place the value of human life up there in the stratosphere. We
> especially do this when people voluntarily put heir lives on the line for
> their country.

The value of a life in the US is on the order of millions of dollars.
This is small compared to the cost of a shuttle launch, or to the cost
of an orbiter.

If the shuttle were an order of magnitude less expensive, but no safer,
it would be worth flying. If it were an order of magnitude safer, but
no less expensive, it would not be.

Paul

[Cardman]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 00:55:38 GMT, (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

>No, the real problems are that the Shuttle is too expensive, too
>fragile, and every accident make a fleet that's already too small
>smaller, by an increasing percentage.

Well there is always the option to buy more, not that they would.

>Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue.

To space travel and space exploration, then yes, but it is clear to
see that the Shuttle was never designed for safely.

No ejection seats, no option but to die in many launch failure
scenarios. And even those forward facing seats can cut them in half in
an extreme event.

>NASA has too many of
>them, and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble
>find more who will.

True, but they also won't like you if you keep blowing them up. Still
the day when Astronauts refuse to ride on it due to safety concerns,
then you have problems.

>This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't even at risk) that
>human life takes precedence over all other considerations is absurd.

That is not the problem.

Such extreme deaths only goes to get people thinking about death, them
in that situations, their families and loved ones, where they almost
make this personal.

And as people do not like thinking about their own mortality, then
that is why they get annoyed and upset.

So if you don't blow them up and put this all over the news services,
then people won't get so upset.

>It's not true of any other human endeavor,

Those other human endeavors do not make big media headlines for weeks
following.

>and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
>be placed.

Certainly, but plan for safety in the design.

Cardman.

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>(Curiously, relatively little anger is directed at NASA director Sean
>>O'Keefe, even though he calls himself a "bean counter". Does "bean
>>counter" sound like "flight safety"?)
>Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
>there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
>he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
>hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
>cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.

"But no one *told* me that safety was a problem!"

That's just crazy. First off good management always means learning
an organization's real problems rather than walking in the door with
"perceptions", which is to say, preconceptions. This is especially true
if catastrophic risk is one of the underlying problems.

Second, if O'Keefe didn't know that flight safety is a problem, then
where has he been? Was he in a coma when Challenger crashed? Did he not
learn when he started that STS-93 was saved by a prayer on launch in 1999?

Third, O'Keefe *was* told that safety was a problem, after at most
five months on the job. In April 2002 testimony to Congress, Richard
Blomberg, the outgoing chair of NASA's safety advisory panel, said,
"In [15 years of] involvement, I have never been as concerned for
Space Shuttle safety as I am right now." And he said, "All of my
instincts suggest that the current approach is planting the seeds for
future danger." And what did Blomberg mean by "the current approach"?
He was referring in particular to deferred repairs and privatization
without adequate safety oversight, both of which were consequences of
*cost cutting*.

So what was O'Keefe's response to that blunt, public warning? As far
as I know, he was still Mr. Bean Counter, determined to cut costs.

Now I personally don't care how O'Keefe manages manned spaceflight
at NASA. At this point cost-cutting for the shuttle and the space
station is like advising a cancer patient to avoid cholesterol - it just
doesn't matter any more. The point is that blind finger-pointing
at "management", but not at specific top managers like O'Keefe, actually
speaks for a bad mandate.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[MasterShrink]

>Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
>there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
>he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
>hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
>cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.

I don't really blame O'Keefe...these management issues seem to become a problem
when Dan Goldin took over the job of NASA administrator...that seems to me to
be the point where safety became a secondary issue and NASA became a way for
the US to make nice with the non-communist Russia.

>This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
>even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
>considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
>and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
>be placed.

Dude...it's not even YOUR ass atop a rocket...we've been giving the best this
nation has to offer four (now down to three) beat up birds to fly in with
almost no safety assurances. Because of what the astronauts do, the simple
nobility of what they do, they deserve the best support from us and we give
them ****.

-A.L.

[Charleston]

"Paul F. Dietz" > wrote in message
...
> Charleston wrote:
>
> > I qualified my statement. I said it was way up there in the
stratosphere as
> > a sarcastic reference to the point at which the Columbia crew may well
have
> > perished. You OTOH, immediately qualified your value system in terms of
> > money alone. Money is not the only thing of value in life, hence my
> > reference to the word cavalier.
>
> When you grow up, you will discover that the value of a life is regularly
> measured in dollars. This is done routinely in torts, in making
regulations,
> and in establishing government policy. This isn't cavalier, it's business
> as usual.

When you grow a heart perhaps you will see that there is more to life than
money and lawsuits and...

Look Paul, there is no reason to insult each other and I only responded as I
did above to make a point. There are some intangible things in life that
are bigger than the dollar. My job often involves environmental disease
investigations. In the end a judge often assesses the value of human pain,
suffering, and death. When a two year old child is maimed permanently by an
undercooked hamburger, the value in terms of a normal life are often
difficult to assess. An 81 year old man who has six months to live, but
then dies due to the negligence of others some three months earlier, may be
a lesser loss, but there is still loss. When negligence is involved, judges
often weigh and attach punitive awards to the damaged or their surviving
kin. When human suffering or death is caused by the deliberate acts of
others and sometimes just their plain stupidity, people are often placed in
prison for a life lost through negligence. When the loss of one life alters
the life of others in the form of suffering, what is that indirect cost? I
dare say it often goes unmeasured. All of these items add to the value of a
life. While you can average out the value of a human life, in strictly
financial terms in a court of law, you can't place a tangible price on the
very real damage done to the victims families, and those colleagues who
sometimes unknowingly send others off to death. I hope that makes sense. I
certainly know where you are coming from. I just hope you can see my points
too.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Charleston]

"MasterShrink" > wrote in message
...

> Because of what the astronauts do, the simple
> nobility of what they do, they deserve the best support from us...

Yes they do. They deserve better, but better costs a lot of money and sadly
we are preoccupied right now spending our money on the "other things".

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC
..

[MasterShrink]

>Then on the STS-95 launch the drag chute door came off during SSME
>ignition, which struck the outside of the center nozzle.

Of course on THAT flight they could ask the air force for images of the shuttle
to check the damage...I mean, John Glenn was aboard...

Even though I doubt possibly losing the drag chute is as bad as losing thermal
protection seeing as NASA didn't use drag chutes till STS 49.

-A.L.

[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 18:19:35 -0700, in a place far, far away,
"Charleston" > made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>> This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
>> even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
>> considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
>> and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
>> be placed.
>
>A little cavalier are we?

No, just realistic.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 21:57:45 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" > made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

>When you grow up, you will discover that the value of a life is regularly
>measured in dollars. This is done routinely in torts, in making regulations,
>and in establishing government policy. This isn't cavalier, it's business
>as usual.

Not just business as usual (a phrase that can carry negative
connotions), but business as necessary.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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[Cardman]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 20:28:10 -0700, "Charleston"
> wrote:

>When you grow a heart perhaps you will see that there is more to life than
>money and lawsuits and...

Well I hate to get involved in this, but...

A part of nature is about death and often being eaten by some other
animal, which means that death is inevitable.

So had a billion people died tomorrow, then it is like "whoops", but
as a species we could handle the knock.

Yes death is sad and all that, but after all I am sure that like a
million people die each day for one reason or another.

So it is unfortunate this has happened, but well they knew what they
were getting into when they climbed into it. And I do not see that we
should be more upset for them than with other Astronauts who return
alive, when they are equally brave and well... death is inevitable.

And so it is like **** happens, they rolled snake eyes, but the show
has to go on. Not that we should not feel for their families of
course, when they are the ones here who suffer the most.

One great loss about this is the delay in human spaceflight and the
launch of the next brave people willing to ride on it. As sure enough
had they launched the following mission on schedule, foam and all,
then these people would queue up to ride on it.

The only thing you can do in such cases is to fix the problem so that
no one else has to die the same way. And at the end of the day as this
was a freak accident, then no one is really to blame for it.

Also I was thinking some time ago that if you had to die and wanted
this to be quick and painless, then the Colombia disaster does come
close to ideal, when humans are not well designed for super sonic
flight.

Anyway, one of you is annoyed at the delay in spaceflight, where one
of you is overly concerned with this death. And in the end I can only
feel that you are both wrong, when the only thing that is important
here is to fix this problem and to then blast off.

Cardman.

[Rand Simberg]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 03:30:45 +0100, in a place far, far away, Cardman
> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 00:55:38 GMT, (Rand
>Simberg) wrote:
>
>>No, the real problems are that the Shuttle is too expensive, too
>>fragile, and every accident make a fleet that's already too small
>>smaller, by an increasing percentage.
>
>Well there is always the option to buy more, not that they would.

No, because it would be a foolish expenditure.

>>NASA has too many of
>>them, and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble
>>find more who will.
>
>True, but they also won't like you if you keep blowing them up.

Who cares? There are plenty more where they came from. No one's
holding a gun to their head to make them be astronauts.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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[Rand Simberg]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 03:23:13 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>>>(Curiously, relatively little anger is directed at NASA director Sean
>>>O'Keefe, even though he calls himself a "bean counter". Does "bean
>>>counter" sound like "flight safety"?)
>>Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
>>there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
>>he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
>>hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
>>cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.
>
>"But no one *told* me that safety was a problem!"
>
>That's just crazy. First off good management always means learning
>an organization's real problems rather than walking in the door with
>"perceptions", which is to say, preconceptions. This is especially true
>if catastrophic risk is one of the underlying problems.

And again, no one at the time knew that "catastrophic risk is one of
the underlying problems." How would they, when there had been no
losses in almost two decades, and the fleet had been shut down a
couple of times in the interim to fix potential problems? How would
one know (particularly someone new to the agency) that there was a
serious safety problem at the agency?

>Second, if O'Keefe didn't know that flight safety is a problem, then
>where has he been? Was he in a coma when Challenger crashed? Did he not
>learn when he started that STS-93 was saved by a prayer on launch in 1999?

The Challenger was destroyed over seventeen years ago. How would he
have learned the latter? He was brought in to focus on what was
perceived to the be the major problem--schedule delays and cost
overruns.

>Third, O'Keefe *was* told that safety was a problem, after at most
>five months on the job. In April 2002 testimony to Congress, Richard
>Blomberg, the outgoing chair of NASA's safety advisory panel, said,
>"In [15 years of] involvement, I have never been as concerned for
>Space Shuttle safety as I am right now." And he said, "All of my
>instincts suggest that the current approach is planting the seeds for
>future danger." And what did Blomberg mean by "the current approach"?
>He was referring in particular to deferred repairs and privatization
>without adequate safety oversight, both of which were consequences of
>*cost cutting*.

And how did those contribute to the Columbia disaster? How would
spending more money have prevented it? How would privatization have
caused it? What did he say specifically that Mr. O'Keefe should have
responded to, and how should he have responded, and how would it have
prevented what happened on February 1st?

>So what was O'Keefe's response to that blunt, public warning? As far
>as I know, he was still Mr. Bean Counter, determined to cut costs.

No, determined to get costs under control. There is a difference.

>Now I personally don't care how O'Keefe manages manned spaceflight
>at NASA. At this point cost-cutting for the shuttle and the space
>station is like advising a cancer patient to avoid cholesterol - it just
>doesn't matter any more. The point is that blind finger-pointing
>at "management", but not at specific top managers like O'Keefe, actually
>speaks for a bad mandate.

You are apparently utterly clueless as to the realities of working in
a political bureaucracy.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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[Charleston]

Rand, you wrote the following.

Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue. NASA has too many of them,
and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble find more
who will. This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't even at risk)
that human life takes precedence over all other considerations is absurd.
It's not true of any other human endeavor, and opening a frontier is the
last place in which that emphasis should be placed.

and I responded.

A little cavalier are we?

and now you respond.

No, just realistic.

I guess I am wrong, it is far beyond cavalier.

Cavalier: Showing arrogant or offhand disregard; dismissive: a cavalier
attitude toward the suffering of others.

From Dictionary.com.

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Dave O'Neill]

"Charleston" > wrote in message
news:IGkUa.42107$zy.9234@fed1read06...
> "Rand Simberg" > wrote in message
> ...
> (Greg Kuperberg) wrote:
> > >
> > > Does "bean counter" sound like "flight safety"?
>
> No. and I have to wonder if anyone at NASA HQ can count beans very well
> after seeing the cost versus effectiveness of their Silent Safety Program.
>
> > Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
> > there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
> > he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
> > hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
> > cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.
>
> Yep.
>
> > Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue.
>
> Ow.
>
> > This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
> > even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
> > considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
> > and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
> > be placed.
>
> A little cavalier are we?
>
> Maybe the value of human life is different where you are from. In the
U.S.
> we place the value of human life up there in the stratosphere. We
> especially do this when people voluntarily put heir lives on the line for
> their country.

But they chose to put their life on the line.

Rand has an excellent point. In reality the death rate in space exploration
is much lower than you would expect.

Even with the risk, there will always be astronaut candidates.

At this rate, however, there will not always be shuttles.

[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 21:34:27 -0700, in a place far, far away,
"Charleston" > made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>Rand, you wrote the following.
>
>Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue. NASA has too many of them,
>and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble find more
>who will. This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't even at risk)
>that human life takes precedence over all other considerations is absurd.
>It's not true of any other human endeavor, and opening a frontier is the
>last place in which that emphasis should be placed.
>
>and I responded.
>
>A little cavalier are we?
>
>and now you respond.
>
>No, just realistic.
>
>I guess I am wrong, it is far beyond cavalier.
>
>Cavalier: Showing arrogant or offhand disregard; dismissive: a cavalier
>attitude toward the suffering of others.

Suffering has always to be balanced against the goal for which the
suffering occurs.

Needless suffering is a tragedy.

Suffering for a purpose is not necessarily. If the highest value is
the prevention of human suffering, then we may as well shut down the
space program right now.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>And again, no one at the time knew that "catastrophic risk is one of
>the underlying problems."

No, Richard Blomberg knew. And he told NASA and Congress. Since he
was head of a NASA outside safety panel, they had asked him.

>>Second, if O'Keefe didn't know that flight safety is a problem, then
>>where has he been? Was he in a coma when Challenger crashed? Did he not
>>learn when he started that STS-93 was saved by a prayer on launch in 1999?
>The Challenger was destroyed over seventeen years ago. How would he
>have learned the latter?

Well, he could have read about it on the Internet. For example,
he could have read Bill Readdy's testimony to Congress about it:

http://legislative.nasa.gov/hearings/readdy9-23.html

In general, NASA directors might want to know about past launches in
which the shuttle almost crashed. And legislative.nasa.gov could have
other useful information too.

I really don't think that O'Keefe was unaware of the hydrogen leak on
STS-93. He'd have to be incompetent beyond belief not to know about it.

>>And what did Blomberg mean by "the current approach"?
>>He was referring in particular to deferred repairs and privatization
>>without adequate safety oversight, both of which were consequences of
>>*cost cutting*.
....
>What did he say specifically that Mr. O'Keefe should have
>responded to, and how should he have responded, and how would it have
>prevented what happened on February 1st?

No one is saying that Blomberg's sage advice about safety would
*necessarily* have prevented the Columbia disaster. The point, on
which a lot of people are harping now, is that NASA's entire safety
culture is bad. That's basically what Blomberg said 10 months before
the fact. And yes, his testimony and the committee report did include
recommendations, which you can read about here:

http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/space02/apr18/blomberg.htm

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Henry Spencer]

In article <ezmUa.42206$zy.19121@fed1read06>,
Charleston <charlestonchewschocolatecandycandidly @youarekiddingright.spam> wrote:
>...While you can average out the value of a human life, in strictly
>financial terms in a court of law, you can't place a tangible price on the
>very real damage done to the victims families, and those colleagues who
>sometimes unknowingly send others off to death...

Unfortunately, in practice it is necessary to place a value on such
things. Moreover, you aren't really refusing to do so -- you clearly *do*
value them to some extent, but not an unlimited extent. So there *is* a
finite value in there somewhere. What you are refusing to do is to assign
a number (even an uncertain and approximate one) to that value... thus
making it impossible to assess that value objectively, to discuss how it
compares to other values, to rationally decide *how much* should be done
to prevent repetitions of such damage.

Such decisions must be made. To refuse to make them rationally guarantees
that they will be made irrationally.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
MasterShrink > wrote:
>>Then on the STS-95 launch the drag chute door came off during SSME
>>ignition, which struck the outside of the center nozzle.
....
>Even though I doubt possibly losing the drag chute is as bad as losing
>thermal protection seeing as NASA didn't use drag chutes till STS 49.

If the chute had deployed during launch, that would have been a real drag.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Charleston]

"Dave O'Neill" <dave @ NOSPAM atomicrazor . com> wrote:
> "Charleston" > wrote:
> > "Rand Simberg" > wrote:
> > (Greg Kuperberg) wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Does "bean counter" sound like "flight safety"?
> >
> > No. and I have to wonder if anyone at NASA HQ can count beans very well
> > after seeing the cost versus effectiveness of their Silent Safety
Program.

Anybody wonder what I meant above?

> > > Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
> > > there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
> > > he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
> > > hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
> > > cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.
> >
> > Yep.
> >
> > > Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue.
> >
> > Ow.
> >
> > > This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
> > > even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
> > > considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
> > > and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
> > > be placed.
> >
> > A little cavalier are we?
> >
> > Maybe the value of human life is different where you are from. In the
> U.S.
> > we place the value of human life up there in the stratosphere. We
> > especially do this when people voluntarily put heir lives on the line
for
> > their country.
>
> But they chose to put their life on the line.
>
> Rand has an excellent point. In reality the death rate in space
exploration
> is much lower than you would expect.

Well what would you expect? Let me just say that NASA bragged at
Congressional hearings that the risks of loss of crew and vehicle were
getting better (1 in 483 to 1 in 556, IIRC) depending on what you believe.
So if we go by what NASA led Congress and the public to believe, and what
the crew therefore believed that is one thing. However when Mission Control
e-mails you in your orbiter and tells you not to worry, but in reality
literally has no idea what they are talking about, that is quite another
thing.

> Even with the risk, there will always be astronaut candidates.

Correct and astronauts will always be willing to fly when there are
significant risks because it is what they live for. It is up to management
to control the program risks, not the astronauts. I will never forget the
foolhardy statement astronaut Robert Crippen made after Challenger. He said
he'd go fly a shuttle out of Vandenberg AFB, the incompleteWest Coast
Spaceport. That site was not ready, the filament wound SRB cases failed a
structural loads test, and Discovery, the orbiter supposed to go fly from
there was sitting at KSC as a cannibalized hangar queen. Don't confuse an
astronaut's "what me worry let's go fly" attitude with what it takes to run
a safe program. Astronauts are by their nature eternal optimists. It does
not cheapen their lives. It does not make them less valuable either.
>
> At this rate, however, there will not always be shuttles.

I am hopeful that NASA will move forward and get through the rest of the
current fleets missions without another loss. One more loss of crew type
accident though, and it is over.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Cardman]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 04:14:36 GMT, (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

>On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 03:30:45 +0100, in a place far, far away, Cardman
> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
>>True, but they also won't like you if you keep blowing them up.
>
>Who cares?

Do you want the long or the short list?

>There are plenty more where they came from. No one's
>holding a gun to their head to make them be astronauts.

There are also people out there who want to be killed and eaten by
others, rapists, murders, etc, etc.

If you want low-life to ride your space craft, then I only hope that
you ride along with them.

Your view is only acceptable if the rewards were also high, like with
bases on the Moon and Mars, then stations around many planets
including the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

Yes, very many people would be willing to risk their lives to see that
happen, where we could certainly kill more than a few of them to see
it happen and get it within budget.

On the other hand 14 people dead for rather lame trips to orbit seems
like 14 lives too many to me.

Cardman.

[Joann Evans]

Cardman wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 03:30:45 +0100, in a place far, far away, Cardman
> > made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
> >>True, but they also won't like you if you keep blowing them up.
> >
> >Who cares?
>
> Do you want the long or the short list?
>
> >There are plenty more where they came from. No one's
> >holding a gun to their head to make them be astronauts.
>
> There are also people out there who want to be killed and eaten by
> others, rapists, murders, etc, etc.
>
> If you want low-life to ride your space craft, then I only hope that
> you ride along with them.

Those willing to take informed risk = low lifes?

One hopes that's not what you're implying.

Remember the concept of 'test pilot?'

Now of course, the shutle is allegedly an 'operational' vehicle, but
even limiting it to systems like the rocket powered X-Planes (because
even the first guy to put daylight under the wheels of a 747 was still a
test pilot), we the public accepted that there was a signifigant risk in
what they did. So did they. Most are still around (Chuck Yeager being
the best known example.) I'll ride with low-lifes like that, any day....

The respect for the risk-taker is highly dependednt on the goal. I
don't have much for the mere masochists you describe.


> Your view is only acceptable if the rewards were also high, like with
> bases on the Moon and Mars, then stations around many planets
> including the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.
>
> Yes, very many people would be willing to risk their lives to see that
> happen, where we could certainly kill more than a few of them to see
> it happen and get it within budget.
>
> On the other hand 14 people dead for rather lame trips to orbit seems
> like 14 lives too many to me.
>
> Cardman.


Which is an argument for a better vehicle. We *all* admit this one
is too fragile and expensive. There's plenty to do in LEO, and flight
there *should* have been reliable, cheaper and mundane by now, so those
of a lower risk-taking inclination can apply.

But trust me, someone, clearly not you, but with arguments like
yours, will appear when the first crewmember dies even on a 'cutting
edge' mission somewhere beyond Earth orbit. (And inevitably they will.)
They'll not see the same risk/benefit ration you do, even in that
scenario. (And they may well be soomeone who prefers all-unmanned deep
space exploration....then, of course, will be those [and there are
plenty today] who don't see the value of spending money on *that*
endavour, even in the total absence of risk to life. Note that when a
probe fails, the news stories *always* state the cost of the mission.)

[Joann Evans]

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
>
> In article >,
> MasterShrink > wrote:
> >>Then on the STS-95 launch the drag chute door came off during SSME
> >>ignition, which struck the outside of the center nozzle.
> ...
> >Even though I doubt possibly losing the drag chute is as bad as losing
> >thermal protection seeing as NASA didn't use drag chutes till STS 49.
>
> If the chute had deployed during launch, that would have been a real drag.

It likely would've been ripped right off, but that's still not good
news....

[Doug...]

In article <IDqUa.42249$zy.28812@fed1read06>,
says...
>
> <snip>
>
> As an example, automobiles have gone up dramatically in price. A car that
> could be paid off in three years now takes five years. The safety
> expectations of our society no longer allow for the 35 mph fatal accidents
> as a norm. Enginering has advanced as a requirement of our society, ever
> increasing that life value discussed on this thread. Without a similar
> advance in our manned space program from a flight safety perspective it will
> either slow down or end as our society decides it is not worth it. I would
> note that is has slowed down alot already.

Interestingly, I heard a good editorial piece this morning on NPR about
America's changing attitudes about death. It was prompted by the
publication of photos of Saddam Hussein's two sons in death, and the
American public's reaction to them.

The point was made that Americans used to look death straight-on. We
kept pictures of our loved ones in death -- pictures taken of them in
their coffins, or even posed in life-like poses. We kept keepsakes of
their hair with these pictures. Before photography, we had paintings and
death masks made of our dearly departed. We used to die at home, and our
loved ones would gather around our dead bodies, saying goodbyes and
achieving a sense of closure.

Now, death is something that we shy away from. We don't look at it
directly. We see death as something that happens in places reserved for
it -- hospitals, battlefields and highways. We find the death of a
single individual, regardless of cause and regardless of the
person's achievements, as a tragedy of proportions never seen before in
the history of man.

We have, as a culture, inflated the importance and desirability of
avoiding death. In some ways, this is unnatural. Our denial of death is
a denial of the cycle of life that has always existed.

People die. They die for good reasons, for noble reasons, and for
stupid and useless reasons. They die while accomplishing great things,
and they die for no purpose whatsoever. The common factor is that they
die. And there's nothing we can do to change that most basic fact of
life.

It's time to admit the possibility that putting such an unnaturally large
emphasis on avoiding all death is hampering us, keeping us from taking
risks that are necessary to accomplish things as a race and a culture.
I'm not saying that the two shuttle accidents which took 14 lives should
be accepted as necessary and inevitable -- I'm just saying that you will
*never* make some inherently risky activities totally safe, and that we
shouldn't let an unnatural focus on death avoidance (i.e., refusing to
fly until there is ZERO chance that anyone will ever get killed again
during spaceflight) get in the way of at least TRYING to continue to fly
in space.

--

It's not the pace of life I mind; | Doug Van Dorn
it's the sudden stop at the end... |

[Jorge R. Frank]

(MasterShrink) wrote in
:

>>Then on the STS-95 launch the drag chute door came off during SSME
>>ignition, which struck the outside of the center nozzle.
>
> Of course on THAT flight they could ask the air force for images of
> the shuttle to check the damage...I mean, John Glenn was aboard...

And the pictures turned out to be of insufficient resolution to be useful,
which is why Dittemore didn't think they'd be useful for STS-107 either. It
had nothing to do with Glenn - STS-95 was the flight that convinced the
current generation of NASA program managers that on-orbit images weren't
useful.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[Charleston]

"Doug..." > wrote in message
...

> It's time to admit the possibility that putting such an unnaturally large
> emphasis on avoiding all death is hampering us, keeping us from taking
> risks that are necessary to accomplish things as a race and a culture.
> I'm not saying that the two shuttle accidents which took 14 lives should
> be accepted as necessary and inevitable -- I'm just saying that you will
> *never* make some inherently risky activities totally safe, and that we
> shouldn't let an unnatural focus on death avoidance (i.e., refusing to
> fly until there is ZERO chance that anyone will ever get killed again
> during spaceflight) get in the way of at least TRYING to continue to fly
> in space.

Sure, that makes sense, but then you don't put people in a shirt sleeve
environment, put teachers onboard as publicity stunts, etc., for such risks
either. That is folly and invites criticism. You do the best you can
whether its racing cars or X-15s.

I took a class on death and society. I understand your points. We will
continue to stretch our wings to do new things. When NASA sets unrealistic
expectations of its vehicles to sell them to Congress and the public, that
is when the failure becomes less acceptable. Had NASA called the Shuttle
what it is, a grandly underfunded experimental vehicle, it might be a little
different. A lot of our acceptance of death is about expectations. I think
we all agree on that.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>No, Richard Blomberg knew. And he told NASA and Congress. Since he
>>was head of a NASA outside safety panel, they had asked him.
>Did he quantify it in such a way as to move it to a higher priority
>than getting a multi-billion-dollar ISS program under control?

As Blomberg did imply, attention to safety could be part of getting ISS
under control. The point is that ISS construction plans are so bloated
that they eat into *all* related spending: Spending on safety, spending
on ISS science (which is a pathetic irony), spending on the shuttle,
spending on unmanned spaceflight, you name it.

>>Well, he could have read about it on the Internet.
>You expect the NASA Administrator to be surfing the internet, rather
>than getting info from the people who are supposed to provide it to
>him?

You are going to bizarre lengths to defend a NASA director who is not
an engineer, who explicitly renounces "vision", who boringly promotes
the status quo, and who downplayed and delegated safety issues until
disaster struck; in short a director who has exactly the qualities that
you ordinarily criticize in the space program.

But your defense in this case is worse than the accusation. I'm sure
that O'Keefe knows that STS-93 almost crashed on launch. Even if he
were only spoon-fed information by advisers, which I don't think is
the case, then I'm sure that he would know. Arguing that he can't be
expected to know when the shuttle almost crashed, moreover that he can't
be expected to read Congressional testimony from William Readdy (a direct
subordinate), would be far more embarrassing than any plausible criticism.
O'Keefe may be boring and he may not be an engineer, but he is reasonably
intelligent as a manager. He's not Dan Quayle.

>>No one is saying that Blomberg's sage advice about safety would
>>*necessarily* have prevented the Columbia disaster.
>Then, given the priorities of the time, I think it unreasonable to
>blame the NASA Administrator for it.

But on the other hand, it might well have made a difference.
The fundamental problem was foam coming off the bipod mounting, which
could well be caused by a contractor cutting corners on quality control.
Quality control is *always* the concern when you outsource to save money.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Rand Simberg]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 01:06:00 -0700, in a place far, far away,
"Charleston" > made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>As an example, automobiles have gone up dramatically in price. A car that
>could be paid off in three years now takes five years. The safety
>expectations of our society no longer allow for the 35 mph fatal accidents
>as a norm. Enginering has advanced as a requirement of our society, ever
>increasing that life value discussed on this thread. Without a similar
>advance in our manned space program from a flight safety perspective it will
>either slow down or end as our society decides it is not worth it. I would
>note that is has slowed down alot already.

There's no doubt that safety must, and will improve as we develop new
vehicles, but we aren't at a state right now in which it should be the
highest priority, because we simply can't afford it (almost literally,
based on the fact that safety budgets were apparently cut...)

Safety is a primary consideration in automobiles, because compared to
a human life, an automobile is cheap (though even there we do a
cost/benefit analysis, in order to keep them affordable).

But when a launch system costs billions to build, and we only have a
few, and people are lined up to be astronauts (or at least they were,
until they come to realize what a slim chance they have of actually
flying), the calculus has to be different. One *cannot afford to lose
vehicles* regardless of whether they have people aboard or not.

The blow to the program was from the loss of Challenger and Columbia,
and the long down time that those losses entailed, not the loss of
their crews. The latter is a blow only to their friends and families
(though it's certainly one harder to bear, for them). And given the
nature of things, if more had been done to prevent the loss of those
vehicles, loss of the crew would have been prevented as well.

That's what I mean by it being a secondary consideration, and why the
notion of "man rating" a reusable vehicle is (or at least should be)
nonsensical.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:04:21 -0700, in a place far, far away,
"Charleston" > made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


>I am hopeful that NASA will move forward and get through the rest of the
>current fleets missions without another loss. One more loss of crew type
>accident though, and it is over.

Because they'll have too few orbiters remaining, not because they lost
a crew.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

"MasterShrink" > wrote in message
...
> >Then on the STS-95 launch the drag chute door came off during SSME
> >ignition, which struck the outside of the center nozzle.
>
> Of course on THAT flight they could ask the air force for images of the
shuttle
> to check the damage...I mean, John Glenn was aboard...
>
> Even though I doubt possibly losing the drag chute is as bad as losing
thermal
> protection seeing as NASA didn't use drag chutes till STS 49.

The concern was the damage done by the door coming off.

And premature deployment might have caused it to pitch up at a bad time on
re-entry.


>
> -A.L.

[Lynndel Humphreys]

Consider the Roman way and be burned like rubbish as per Cleopatra starring
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. BTW Richard was not put on a funeral
pyre. But art does not follow real life.


"Doug..." > wrote in message
...
> In article <IDqUa.42249$zy.28812@fed1read06>,
> says...
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > As an example, automobiles have gone up dramatically in price. A car
that
> > could be paid off in three years now takes five years. The safety
> > expectations of our society no longer allow for the 35 mph fatal
accidents
> > as a norm. Enginering has advanced as a requirement of our society,
ever
> > increasing that life value discussed on this thread. Without a similar
> > advance in our manned space program from a flight safety perspective it
will
> > either slow down or end as our society decides it is not worth it. I
would
> > note that is has slowed down alot already.
>
> Interestingly, I heard a good editorial piece this morning on NPR about
> America's changing attitudes about death. It was prompted by the
> publication of photos of Saddam Hussein's two sons in death, and the
> American public's reaction to them.
>
> The point was made that Americans used to look death straight-on. We
> kept pictures of our loved ones in death -- pictures taken of them in
> their coffins, or even posed in life-like poses. We kept keepsakes of
> their hair with these pictures. Before photography, we had paintings and
> death masks made of our dearly departed. We used to die at home, and our
> loved ones would gather around our dead bodies, saying goodbyes and
> achieving a sense of closure.
>
> Now, death is something that we shy away from. We don't look at it
> directly. We see death as something that happens in places reserved for
> it -- hospitals, battlefields and highways. We find the death of a
> single individual, regardless of cause and regardless of the
> person's achievements, as a tragedy of proportions never seen before in
> the history of man.
>
> We have, as a culture, inflated the importance and desirability of
> avoiding death. In some ways, this is unnatural. Our denial of death is
> a denial of the cycle of life that has always existed.
>
> People die. They die for good reasons, for noble reasons, and for
> stupid and useless reasons. They die while accomplishing great things,
> and they die for no purpose whatsoever. The common factor is that they
> die. And there's nothing we can do to change that most basic fact of
> life.
>
> It's time to admit the possibility that putting such an unnaturally large
> emphasis on avoiding all death is hampering us, keeping us from taking
> risks that are necessary to accomplish things as a race and a culture.
> I'm not saying that the two shuttle accidents which took 14 lives should
> be accepted as necessary and inevitable -- I'm just saying that you will
> *never* make some inherently risky activities totally safe, and that we
> shouldn't let an unnatural focus on death avoidance (i.e., refusing to
> fly until there is ZERO chance that anyone will ever get killed again
> during spaceflight) get in the way of at least TRYING to continue to fly
> in space.
>
> --
>
> It's not the pace of life I mind; | Doug Van Dorn
> it's the sudden stop at the end... |




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
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[Rand Simberg]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 16:20:42 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>>>Well, he could have read about it on the Internet.
>>You expect the NASA Administrator to be surfing the internet, rather
>>than getting info from the people who are supposed to provide it to
>>him?
>
>You are going to bizarre lengths to defend a NASA director

No, you are going to bizarre lengths to attack him, saying that if
he'd only surfed the web more, he'd have done a better job...

>who is not an engineer,

The (arguably) best NASA administrator (Webb) was not an engineer.
Being an engineer is not a job requirement, despite your attempt to
make it one ad hoc.

>who explicitly renounces "vision"

Not his job.

>who boringly promotes the status quo,

He was doing what he was hired to do. If you have a complaint about
"lack of vision" and "status quo" go complain to the White House.

>and who downplayed and delegated safety issues until
>disaster struck; in short a director who has exactly the qualities that
>you ordinarily criticize in the space program.

Unlike you, however, I understand the role of the NASA Administrator.
Your laying all of the blame of the program at the feet of an
individual who's only been on the job for a couple years is absurd.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Charleston]

"Rand Simberg" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:04:21 -0700, in a place far, far away,
> "Charleston" > made the phosphor on
> my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
>
> >I am hopeful that NASA will move forward and get through the rest of the
> >current fleets missions without another loss. One more loss of crew type
> >accident though, and it is over.
>
> Because they'll have too few orbiters remaining, not because they lost
> a crew.

Now you are sounding the Bob Haller alarm.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?D17221665

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H25212665

NASA flew with one or two orbiter for a few years with no problems even as
the flight rate was increasing. NASA could fly with one orbiter if
necesssary. If an orbiter is lost in transit or due to an accident in the
VAB or OPF where no crew is lost, the damaged orbiter will be cannibalized
for parts while the program continues. OTOH, if another crew is lost, it's
over. I'll even go out on a limb and say if they lose an orbiter in any
in-flight manner in which the crew survives and NASA can say we have had a
"successful failure", the program will continue. You are wrong. The crew
is primary, you are just too stubborn to see that NASA does put flight
safety above vehicle recovery. To say otherwise insults all of those at
NASA and its contractors who work crew and flight safety issues every day.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[LooseChanj]

On or about Sat, 26 Jul 2003 05:52:15 GMT, Rand Simberg > made the sensational claim that:
> On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 22:41:50 -0700, in a place far, far away,
> "Charleston" > made the phosphor on
> my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
>>One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
>>generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for the
>>current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
>
> Do you have any cite for that nonsense?

The bowl of alphabits he had for breakfast, no doubt.
--
This is a siggy | To E-mail, do note | This space is for rent
It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | Inquire within if you
No person, none, care | and it will reach me | Would like your ad here

[Charleston]

"LooseChanj" > wrote in message
. com...
> > "Charleston" > wrote:
> >
> >>One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
> >>generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for the
> >>current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
> >
> > Do you have any cite for that nonsense?

Notice I did not write CRV....

> The bowl of alphabits he had for breakfast, no doubt.

Start here, and over the next few weeks I'll bring you up to speed on the
rest if you are serious. The document below sustains as realistic, most of
the arguments I have made here recently.

Special note to Bob Haller:

Please really read the document below. Your questions have generally been
fair if not redundant at times. Perhaps many here don't see the future as
you would like to see it, but your ideas are more in line with where NASA
would like to be than many who post here. I hope you take some solace on
NASA's thoughts on acceptable flight safety risks in the future. I urge you
to research "human rating requirements" in the future to answer some of the
questions you have that go unanswered here. Then perhaps you can educate
those who live in today, but can not see tomorrow.

http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PG_8705_0002_&page_name=main

Now go away looschanj and come back when you know what you are talking
about. You too, Rand. I was going to post this later, but I have
personally posted enough of the concepts in the above referenced document
(and numerous other NASA documents, hint, hint) to demonstrate that the
ignorance on this thread is not mine.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Charleston]

"Rand Simberg" > wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 11:29:38 -0700, in a place far, far away,
> "Charleston" > made the phosphor on
> my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
>
>
>http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PG_8705_00
02_&page_name=main
> >
> >Now go away looschanj and come back when you know what you are talking
> >about. You too, Rand.
>
> I'm quite familiar with that document. I fail to see your point in
> posting it.

And that is why you fail. Your arguments are inconsistent with that
document among others. I can not help it if you do not see this fact. I
will guess then that you have also seen the 0.999 for LEO number as well and
reject it too. There is no further point in discussing this issue with you.

Good day. Have the last word if that makes you feel better. BTW, the 0.999
number is no longer on the web AFAIK.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>You are going to bizarre lengths to defend a NASA director
>No, you are going to bizarre lengths to attack him, saying that if
>he'd only surfed the web more, he'd have done a better job...

No, I think that he was long aware of basic facts that you said that he
can't be expected to know, for example the flights in which the shuttle
almost crashed. I think that he might have done a better job if he
had acted on known safety warnings. Merely interviewing the Navy about
safety is not enough.

>>who is not an engineer,
>The (arguably) best NASA administrator (Webb) was not an engineer.
>Being an engineer is not a job requirement, despite your attempt to
>make it one ad hoc.

I agree with your stance on this now. It was you who argued that John
Pike has no authority to be quoted in Wired on launch costs because
he's not an engineer or "even" a physicist. Well, thank goodness that
O'Keefe was appointed as NASA administrator rather than interviewed
by Wired!

>He was doing what he was hired to do. If you have a complaint about
>"lack of vision" and "status quo" go complain to the White House.

Well that does seem to lie behind this dispute. Personally I think that
NASA manned spaceflight needs a Dr. Kevorkian rather than a visionary.
Having a bean counter handle a shuttle crash could be as close as you can
get to that. So I don't mind O'Keefe. However, many other people seemed
to be really annoyed with Dan Goldin, for one, for his lack of vision for
manned spaceflight. I'm just wondering where all of these critics went
now that NASA is run by a self-described bean counter. Maybe they have
trouble believing that the Bush Administration doesn't care about space
flight.

>Your laying all of the blame of the program at the feet of an
>individual who's only been on the job for a couple years is absurd.

No, not *all* of the blame. I would only assign him *some* blame
for lack of commitment to safety. And since when is "a couple of years"
a grace period? The average term of a NASA administrator is
only four years.



--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Rand Simberg]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 18:59:23 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>In article >,
>Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>The blow to the program was from the loss of Challenger and Columbia,
>>and the long down time that those losses entailed, not the loss of
>>their crews. The latter is a blow only to their friends and families
>>(though it's certainly one harder to bear, for them).
>
>I half agree with this. The loss of the two shuttles is ultimately
>the greater concern. However, the celebrity status of the astronauts
>largely drives NASA manned spaceflight.

One of the many ill effects of a NASA manned spaceflight program.

>For that matter, violent death tends to scare away space tourists as well.

Not at this stage. Not enough to matter.

In fact, while I'm not glad it happened, I do think that the Columbia
loss was a blessing in disguise for the nascent industry. People are
finally realizing that NASA has feet of clay, and no longer inclined
to take their opinion as seriously any more. I don't know whether it
would have happened anyway, but the investment climate for such
ventures has seen a dramatic improvement in the past few months.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
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[Joe Strout]

In article >,
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

> The real problem is that the shuttle is not safe for astronauts and
> never will be. Granted, bad management is the immediate cause of that.
> But behind bad management lies a bad mandate, namely, the mandate
> of manned spaceflight.

That's a good mandate, not a bad one.

The Shuttle is a reasonably good vehicle, though it suffers both from
age and from being designed by committee.

But there is nothing inherently dangerous about manned spaceflight --
many more people were killed in the early history of aviation (or even
in the last couple of plane accidents) than have yet been killed in
space. Of course, our tolerance for loss of life is much lower now than
it was in the early 20th century, and our mass media is much swifter.

> A manager with a good mandate may be good or
> bad; a manager with a bad mandate is going to look bad no matter what.
> It is a fantasy of public opinion that space travel is kind-of like air
> travel and kind-of like continental exploration. (For most people it's
> not even strongly held opinion, just ill-informed.) It's actually more
> like ocean-floor exploration, which by common sense is almost entirely
> done by remote control.

If the purpose were exploration, then sure. But that's not the purpose.





It's learning to work and live in space, so that eventually large parts
of the population can live and work there. The best way to do that is
to do it -- remotes aren't much help.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

[Cardman]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 13:00:56 GMT, Joann Evans
> wrote:

>Cardman wrote:
>
>> If you want low-life to ride your space craft, then I only hope that
>> you ride along with them.
>
> Those willing to take informed risk = low lifes?

Rand wants to do space at all costs, where he is fully happy to use
people and kill them to get his way.

> One hopes that's not what you're implying.

No I am implying that no respectable person who values their life
would ride Rand's rockets, which is why the only people who will do so
are the desperate and the odd ones.

> Remember the concept of 'test pilot?'

Yes, where Rand would say "Get in that rocket or I will find someone
else. And yes I don't care if it has a poor safety record",

Then when it blows up Rand would go "next!".

> Now of course, the shutle is allegedly an 'operational' vehicle,

And still a test model I recall.

>but
>even limiting it to systems like the rocket powered X-Planes (because
>even the first guy to put daylight under the wheels of a 747 was still a
>test pilot), we the public accepted that there was a signifigant risk in
>what they did. So did they. Most are still around (Chuck Yeager being
>the best known example.) I'll ride with low-lifes like that, any day....

You missed my point, when if you read Rand's other postings you will
notice a pattern.

>The respect for the risk-taker is highly dependednt on the goal.

Exactly my point, when if you have to kill some people, then it had
better be for a damned good cause.

>I don't have much for the mere masochists you describe.

Welcome to Rand's astronaut training programme...

Maybe he can get some criminals on board, when murders would ride
Rand's rockets if given the option of release after the flight.

Well anyway Rand won't get far if he does not respect his pilots
instead to lining them up to be killed in his space or bust plan.

>> On the other hand 14 people dead for rather lame trips to orbit seems
>> like 14 lives too many to me.
>
> Which is an argument for a better vehicle. We *all* admit this one
>is too fragile

I personally do not have a problem in this area, when both disasters
were due to a combination of bad design and poor management.

Technically the Shuttle has never failed.

>and expensive.

That is the key problem.

>There's plenty to do in LEO,

Rubbish. LEO is empty. No resources to exploit.

The only worthwhile thing you can do with LEO is to put the public
there, when then you can get into the service industry.

London. Paris, Rome, New York and LEO.

>and flight there *should* have been reliable, cheaper

Yes.

>and mundane by now,

No. Soon, but not yet.

>so those of a lower risk-taking inclination can apply.

Well NASA is not exactly hot on human space exploration at this time,
when back in 1972 people would not have believed you had you said that
no astronaut would have walked on the Moon since, or even Mars by now.

> But trust me, someone, clearly not you, but with arguments like
>yours, will appear when the first crewmember dies even on a 'cutting
>edge' mission somewhere beyond Earth orbit. (And inevitably they will.)

Going beyond orbit would be good and worth some risks.

>They'll not see the same risk/benefit ration you do, even in that
>scenario.

Well I expect many of NASA's astronauts these days are there for the
view and to be called "astronaut".

I know the risks of the Shuttle and I would be willing to ride it
myself, had that been an option, but it is a awfully close choice,
when one of the next 50 odd flights won't be coming back.

>(And they may well be soomeone who prefers all-unmanned deep
>space exploration....

They can only do half the work.

>then, of course, will be those [and there are
>plenty today] who don't see the value of spending money on *that*
>endavour, even in the total absence of risk to life.

Maybe because they do not believe in space.

>Note that when a
>probe fails, the news stories *always* state the cost of the mission.)

Naturally, but I quickly forget that number and get annoyed that it
will be another couple of years before we see the nice pictures and
the science data.

The MERs cost $800 million by the way. Money well spent in my view,
when a successful mission will provide some very impressive results.

I am quite looking forwards to that varying terrain.

And hey even the Mars Express could find life...

Cardman.

[Charleston]

"LooseChanj" > wrote in message

> I fail to see his point in adressing me, I've had his Maxson ass
killfiled from the day he returned.
>
It's simple your response was worse than his. Limiting your post to SSH is
a bit cowardly as well. You two embarassed yourselves and don't even
realize that you did so.

Oops corrected group posting deleted by looschanj.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Cardman]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 16:31:29 GMT, (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

>On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 07:34:30 +0100, in a place far, far away, Cardman
> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
>such a way as to indicate that:
>
>>On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 04:14:36 GMT, (Rand
>>Simberg) wrote:
>>
>>>Who cares?
>>
>>Do you want the long or the short list?
>>
>>>There are plenty more where they came from. No one's
>>>holding a gun to their head to make them be astronauts.
>>
>>There are also people out there who want to be killed and eaten by
>>others, rapists, murders, etc, etc.
>>
>>If you want low-life to ride your space craft, then I only hope that
>>you ride along with them.
>
>That is an absurd interpretation of what I said.

I never mentioned what you said...

And my words certainly stand on there own, when if your response to if
one of your virtual astronauts died was "who cares?" (as mentioned
above) then so would your astronauts soon stop respecting you.

Should that go on, then certainly you will find that people won't want
to work for you any more, which limits your choices considerably.

>Are you really comparing dedicated and competent people who want to go
>into space to murderers and rapists?

No, but you can send murders and rapists into space as well.

Low-life attracts low-life.

Cardman.

[Rand Simberg]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 05:35:22 +0100, in a place far, far away, Cardman
> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>>>If you want low-life to ride your space craft, then I only hope that
>>>you ride along with them.
>>
>>That is an absurd interpretation of what I said.
>
>I never mentioned what you said...

Then everything else you say is irrelevant to the topic.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Rand Simberg]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:34:47 +0200, in a place far, far away, Jan C.
Vorbrüggen > made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>> >One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
>> >generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for the
>> >current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
>>
>> Do you have any cite for that nonsense?
>
>If you mean the last sentence of his paragraph with "that nonsense", that's
>straight from Feynman's appendix to the Commission Report, I would think.

Without seeing an actual quote in context, I can't address that, but
I've never known anyone in the industry (at least, anyone who was
knowledgable) who believed any such number, as either a requirement or
reality.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Jorge R. Frank]

Jan C. Vorbrüggen > wrote in
:

>> >One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
>> >generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for
>> >the current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
>>
>> Do you have any cite for that nonsense?
>
> If you mean the last sentence of his paragraph with "that nonsense",
> that's straight from Feynman's appendix to the Commission Report, I
> would think.

And then he (Daniel) exaggerated it by a factor of ten before passing it on
to us:

http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm

"It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the
probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The
estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000."
--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[Rand Simberg]

On 28 Jul 2003 15:14:23 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Jorge R.
Frank" > made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>Jan C. Vorbrüggen > wrote in
:
>
>>> >One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
>>> >generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for
>>> >the current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
>>>
>>> Do you have any cite for that nonsense?
>>
>> If you mean the last sentence of his paragraph with "that nonsense",
>> that's straight from Feynman's appendix to the Commission Report, I
>> would think.
>
>And then he (Daniel) exaggerated it by a factor of ten before passing it on
>to us:
>
>http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm
>
>"It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the
>probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The
>estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000."

Even without that inflation factor, I have trouble seeing how some
unnamed person's opinion translates into "set for the orbiter fleet,"
which I would take to mean either a reliability estimate or a system
requirement.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>Without seeing an actual quote in context, I can't address that, but
>I've never known anyone in the industry (at least, anyone who was
>knowledgable) who believed any such number, as either a requirement or
>reality.

According to Feynman, it was the party line among NASA managers (at least
some of them) that the probability of launch failure for the shuttle
was about 1 in 100,000. His appendix to the Rogers Commission report
doesn't name the managers, but his autobiography, "Surely You're Joking
Mr. Feynman," does. The relevant section is reprinted on pages 37-40
of this on-line statistics text:

http://www.resample.com/content/text/06-Chap-2.pdf

Feynman was told 1 in 100,000 by Judson Lovingood, a high-level manager
at Marshall Space Flight Center. The same figure was also attributed
to James Kingsbury, another high-level manager at MSFC, by an engineer
who talked to Feynman. They were both key players in the Challenger
disaster; it happened on their watch. Lovingood even gave Feynman a
document (of unknown authorship) that "calculated" the 10^-5 risk factor.
Basically it made up numbers for the reliability of each shuttle engine
part so that the total would be 10^-5.

In my opinion, it's a travesty. But I don't see why you should be
so surprised. Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the agency.

I wouldn't have much hope for American institutions, if this is really
what they teach in management school.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Rand Simberg]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:51:50 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>But I don't see why you should be
>so surprised. Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
>were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the agency.

Again, you confuse a manager (which should ideally have some technical
expertise) with the position of administrator, which is a political
position.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Greg Kuperberg]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:51:50 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
>my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>>But I don't see why you should be
>>so surprised. Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
>>were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the agency.
>Again, you confuse a manager (which should ideally have some technical
>expertise) with the position of administrator, which is a political
>position.

Apparently I'm not the only one who is "confused":

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity
speak in support of the nomination of Mr. Sean O'Keefe to serve as
Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
...
Sean has earned a reputation for being a talented manager---fair and
open minded-- while being absolutely committed to ensuring that the
agencies he manages are adaptable, efficient and mission focused.
...
Sean is indeed a skilled manager who wants to make sure that taxpayer
dollars are spent effectively, but that doesn't make him any less
of a thinker. Like any good manager, Sean is not just interested in
how many dollars are spent, but in what they are spent for.

- Sherwood Boehlert


--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

[Charleston]

"Rand Simberg" > wrote in message
...
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:34:47 +0200, in a place far, far away, Jan C.
> Vorbrüggen > made the phosphor on my monitor
> glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
> >> >One in 999 is what NASA is shooting for in the next
> >> >generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for the
> >> >current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
> >>
> >> Do you have any cite for that nonsense?
> >
> >If you mean the last sentence of his paragraph with "that nonsense",
that's
> >straight from Feynman's appendix to the Commission Report, I would think.

Close. Dr. Feynman got the 1 in 100,000 joke of a number from NASA managers
one of whom apparently played an engineer on TV;-) I plead guilty with the
1 in a million number but even called it a joke. I added in a Shuttle
Centaur Plutonium release which was estimated at 1 in 681,000 (after SRB
burnout IIRC) using NASA's own data in 1986. For all practical purposes
another zero makes little difference to a vehicle with a fleet of five
designed to fly 540 times but has actually done poorer.

> Without seeing an actual quote in context, I can't address that, but
> I've never known anyone in the industry (at least, anyone who was
> knowledgable) who believed any such number, as either a requirement or
> reality.

Oh, doubting Rand. Are you really going to embarass yourself by calling
Feynman a liar or a man given to exagerate scientific data? He is dead, but
the record is not;-))

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Charleston]

"steve podleski" > wrote in message
...
>
> Rand Simberg >
> > > "Charleston" > > >>One in 999 is
what
> NASA is shooting for in the next
> > >>generation space shuttle. That is a far cry from the joke set for the
> > >>current orbiter fleet which was about one in a million.
> > >
> > > Do you have any cite for that nonsense?
>
> When I worked for Martin Marietta on the external tank during the early
> 80's, I remember reading some documents that gave some extremely low
> probabilities (it may have been 1 in a million or less) of failure of the
> shuttle system that seemed ridiculously low even to a neophyte engineer.

You did qualify that with engineer (not manager) which is important. Really
Rand the number is 1 in 100,000.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[John Maxson]

Greg Kuperberg >
wrote in message ...
>
> Feynman was told 1 in 100,000 by Judson Lovingood, a high-level
> manager at Marshall Space Flight Center.

Dr. Lovingood was also an expert in his field of engineering.

> Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
> were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the
> agency.

Von Braun didn't operate that way, nor did Dr. Lucas. What's
missing in the engineering statistics for Challenger/Columbia is a
'white-collar crime' factor. Only the naive would ignore it. I'm
not saying it accounts for 3 or 4 orders of magnitude; but it's
absurd to blame 1 in 50 on engineering shortcomings.

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)

[Charleston]

"John Maxson" > wrote in message
...
> Greg Kuperberg >
> wrote in message ...
> >
> > Feynman was told 1 in 100,000 by Judson Lovingood, a high-level
> > manager at Marshall Space Flight Center.
>
> Dr. Lovingood was also an expert in his field of engineering.

Yes as in PhD (Doctor) Lovingood as opposed to MD. I believe he worked his
way through his PhD while at NASA. What Rand is not connecting is that not
all engineers have a strong background in statistics.

> > Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
> > were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the
> > agency.

Sure. Man the whole is getting deep.

--

Daniel
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

[Herb Schaltegger]

In article >,
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

> In article >,
> Rand Simberg > wrote:
> >On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:51:50 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
> (Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
> >my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
> >>But I don't see why you should be
> >>so surprised. Maybe because they were managers, Kingsbury and Lovingood
> >>were not expected to be experts on anything, except managing the agency.
> >Again, you confuse a manager (which should ideally have some technical
> >expertise) with the position of administrator, which is a political
> >position.
>
> Apparently I'm not the only one who is "confused":
>
> Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity
> speak in support of the nomination of Mr. Sean O'Keefe to serve as
> Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
> ...
> Sean has earned a reputation for being a talented manager---fair and
> open minded-- while being absolutely committed to ensuring that the
> agencies he manages are adaptable, efficient and mission focused.
> ...
> Sean is indeed a skilled manager who wants to make sure that taxpayer
> dollars are spent effectively, but that doesn't make him any less
> of a thinker. Like any good manager, Sean is not just interested in
> how many dollars are spent, but in what they are spent for.
>
> - Sherwood Boehlert

No, you certainly not the only one who is confused. You just happen to
be the most vocal in the sci.space.* heirarchy (setting aside the unholy
trinity of Maxson, scott grissom and Guth, of course).

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

[Derek Lyons]

(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

>In article >,
>Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>
>>>who is not an engineer,
>>The (arguably) best NASA administrator (Webb) was not an engineer.
>>Being an engineer is not a job requirement, despite your attempt to
>>make it one ad hoc.
>
>I agree with your stance on this now. It was you who argued that John
>Pike has no authority to be quoted in Wired on launch costs because
>he's not an engineer or "even" a physicist. Well, thank goodness that
>O'Keefe was appointed as NASA administrator rather than interviewed
>by Wired!

Actually, anyone with a brain who has followed technical/political
issues for any length of time is aware of Mr Pikes ignorance. It is
on that issue that Mr Pike was derided, not his qualifications.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
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