jeff findley wrote:
So, many areas of shuttle development likely had its suspicions that
shuttle flights would be less frequent and more costly due to between
flight maintenance.

An unproven assertion. We have the uncorroborated testimony before
the CAIB, and the uncorroborated testimony of an individual with a
known axe to grind vs. NASA. The whole picture is much more complex
than the 'NASA lied knowingly to Congress about the flight rate and
program costs'.

This reeks of politics.

Politics is part of life. Sadly it can and does get out of hand.

Unfortunately, this is the management climate that brought us
Challenger. Beyond the o-ring issue (and other issues that should
have stopped the program until they were resolved), there were many
other issues with keeping the flight rate up, like the lack of
spare parts. I've got some old aerospace magazines from that era that
did report on the spare parts issues, but didn't do much with the
o-rings, brakes, lack of pressure suits and crew escape, and etc.

I'm not certain the spares issue is much more than a red herring. The
Shuttle wasn't originally meant to have an extended service life, and
was viewed as a first generation ship. Given this, and the paucity of
funding, it makes sense that the decision was made to not invest in a
great depth or breadth of spares. (And logistics management is a
complex field that NASA has little to no experience with even now.)
I'm not saying the decision was a correct one, but that it's an
understandable one given the original goals of the program and the
(erroneous) expectation that the money taps would open again. These
consistently forced NASA to choose between saving money on development
(as was mandated by Congress) or saving money on operations (which
required increased spending on development).

OTOH, someone recently pointed out here that Congress got what it paid
for. They consistently funded the Shuttle program below what NASA was
asking for. It's a safe assumption that NASA asked for too much, but
it's an open question where the fault lies between the two. (I've
long noticed that Congress manages quite well to avoid it's share of
the blame in many goverment screw-ups.)

I guess that's the "can do" culture. Lie to congress and the
administration just to keep the program going and the jobs intact.

The common wisdom is that many in NASA's upper management viewed the
'austerity' of the 70's and the Shuttle program in general to be a
temporary aberration. They fully expected that the taps would open
once again, and that the budget would expand to meet their lofty
goals. (Somehow missing the point the one goal that *was* heavily
funded was imposed on NASA, not organic to NASA. NASA's dedication to
that goal was an effect, not a cause) This can be clearly seen in the
continued initiation and submission to Congress of expensive,
long-term, missions (the so-called 'battleships') even as existing
missions and programs were being gutted.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.