Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

(Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
:

According to the Houston Chronicle, Sean O'Keefe is telling NASA
employees to brace themselves for the CAIB report, which he calls
"a nasty piece of writing". "We're going to get hammered", he said.
"It's, make no mistake, going to be really ugly", he said.

In fact, O'Keefe himself is making a big mistake to play up the CAIB
report as a threat to NASA, as if it is somehow worse than the
Columbia crash.

Your statement that O'Keefe considers the CAIB report a threat to NASA does
not logically follow from the O'Keefe quotes above, and it outright
contradicts other statements O'Keefe has made about the CAIB.

In other statements, O'Keefe has stressed that NASA will fully comply (or
exceed) all the recommendations of the CAIB report, and cautioned NASA
workers not to get defensive or argumentative about the report's findings,
saying that any time spent fighting the CAIB is time wasted that could
better be spent getting ready for return-to-flight.

Seen in that light, O'Keefe's warning about the CAIB report being "nasty"
and "ugly" is intended to prepare employees for the tone of the report and
keep them focused on the task at hand. If O'Keefe considers the CAIB
report a threat to anything, it's as a threat to employee morale. There is
little evidence in the totality of his comments to suggest he sees it as a
threat to NASA, and plenty of evidence that he considers the report's
recommendations essential for improving NASA.

Why is it that manned spaceflight
at NASA always seems to fall to bad management, while unmanned
spaceflight doesn't?

Others have already taken you to task over this particular statement,
pointing out numerous examples of bad management in NASA's unmanned
spaceflight programs (Hubble's mirror, MCO, MPL, Galileo, etc). I find your
counterarguments evasive and unconvincing.
--
JRF

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

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Why is it that manned spaceflight
at NASA always seems to fall to bad management, while unmanned
spaceflight doesn't?

Others have already taken you to task over this particular statement,
pointing out numerous examples of bad management in NASA's unmanned
spaceflight programs (Hubble's mirror, MCO, MPL, Galileo, etc). I find your
counterarguments evasive and unconvincing.

If you're unconvinced, that's up to you, but what I said was not
evasive. I consistently meant "always" versus "not always". *Every*
manned spaceflight project, either Russian or American, since Apollo
has fallen to bad management. Why since Apollo? Because that is when
manned spaceflight lost its viable mandate: national symbolism.
In fact the cosmonaut program contracted the disease of inescapable bad
management even earlier, with the Almaz project. What a fiasco that was.

*Not every* unmanned spaceflight project falls to bad management.
Some do and some don't.

I predict the same thing for the Chinese taikonaut program. At first
it will look good as a national symbol. After that, "bad management".
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:49:14 +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 ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Why is it that manned spaceflight
at NASA always seems to fall to bad management, while unmanned
spaceflight doesn't?

Others have already taken you to task over this particular statement,
pointing out numerous examples of bad management in NASA's unmanned
spaceflight programs (Hubble's mirror, MCO, MPL, Galileo, etc). I find your
counterarguments evasive and unconvincing.

If you're unconvinced, that's up to you, but what I said was not
evasive. I consistently meant "always" versus "not always". *Every*
manned spaceflight project, either Russian or American, since Apollo
has fallen to bad management.

Skylab seemed to work out pretty well.

It would seem we have two examples of good management--Apollo and
Skylab, and two of "bad management"--Shuttle and ISS, however you want
to define that.

There's nothing intrinsic about putting people into space that results
in bad management.

Did the Soviet space program have "bad management"?

(You're now supposed to say, "Well, here is where my theory falls flat
to the ground.")

--
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:

On 30 Jul 2003 05:19:10 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

Others have already taken you to task over this particular statement,
pointing out numerous examples of bad management in NASA's unmanned
spaceflight programs (Hubble's mirror, MCO, MPL, Galileo, etc). I find your
counterarguments evasive and unconvincing.

....Yes. Almost in a Maxsonesque way, if look at how he's adamant in
his vendetta against manned space programs.

Tsk.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
}If you're unconvinced, that's up to you, but what I said was not
}evasive. I consistently meant "always" versus "not always". *Every*
}manned spaceflight project, either Russian or American, since Apollo
}has fallen to bad management.
}Skylab seemed to work out pretty well.

Yeah, it worked out so well that they didn't care to do it again.

}Did the Soviet space program have "bad management"?

Do you want to discuss Almaz, Mir, or something else?
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

(Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
:

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
In other statements, O'Keefe has stressed that NASA will fully comply
(or exceed) all the recommendations of the CAIB report, and cautioned
NASA workers not to get defensive or argumentative about the report's
findings, saying that any time spent fighting the CAIB is time wasted
that could better be spent getting ready for return-to-flight.

He did say that too, but when he referred to the report as a "nasty
piece of writing", he was confirming resentment more than he was
quelling it. He's biasing NASA employees against the report before
they even see it.

I can see how someone would get that impression, especially if they read
that quote absent from any context and made absolutely no effort to learn
what the context was.

I have a hard time seeing how someone would get that impression from
reading all the press accounts of O'Keefe's speaking tour (he's speaking at
all the NASA centers, and each one usually draws at least two articles in
the press). The "nasty" comments got quite a lot of press, but so did his
other comments that I mentioned my previous reply.

I do not see how any honest person would get that impression from watching
the speeches in their entirety (you *did* know each one was broadcast on
NASA TV, right?) I watched the entire JSC speech and listened to most of
the GSFC speech. O'Keefe has a speaking style many consider odd: he repeats
himself quite a bit. To a student of oratory he can come off as rambling,
but to a student of instructional techniques his intent is clear - if he
wants you to remember something, he'll repeat it, and if he thinks
something is very important, he'll repeat it over and over. The impression
I came away with (and, I think, anyone who attended the speeches would have
gotten), was this:

"The tone of the report will be nasty, as will the press coverage that will
follow. How we conduct ourselves in the face of that is crucial to the
future of the agency. The recommendations in the report are important
regardless of the tone in which they are presented. It is important to have
a positive attitude and not get defensive. We will not just follow the
letter and spirit of the recommendations, but exceed them. If we do so, we
will come out of this a stronger and better agency than we were before."

Of course, the press articles on the speeches don't convey quite the same
message as the above, but that's because (surprise! surprise!) they quoted
O'Keefe selectively, and did not mention when he repeated points for
emphasis.

And of course, your interpretation of the speeches doesn't convey quite the
same message as the press articles, because (surprise! surprise!) you
quoted them selectively and based your interpretation on that.

--
JRF

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

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
:
He did say that too, but when he referred to the report as a "nasty
piece of writing", he was confirming resentment more than he was
quelling it. He's biasing NASA employees against the report before
they even see it.
....
I have a hard time seeing how someone would get that impression from
reading all the press accounts of O'Keefe's speaking tour

I read a representative sample of the press accounts, and since
you are taking a stand on the context, here it is, quoting
from the Orlando Sentinel:

"We're going to get hammered, but we're going to come out
stronger. That has to be our mind-set -- if we take it personally and
are defensive about it, it's going to be really, really difficult
to work with," O'Keefe said. "Our history has always been that we
confront those problems; we confront those challenges."

That is exactly consistent with your summary from memory. And all of
this does support your main contention: O'Keefe wants everyone to comply
with the CAIB report; there is no defiance here. But I also stand by
what I said: He seems geniunely offended by this report, even though
it isn't finished yet, and he is also portraying the report, and not
the shuttle crash, as the "challenge".

Both by this excerpt and your characterization, it comes across as an "eat
your bitter lima beans" speech. But the CAIB report is not intended as
a plate of lima beans. Rather it is meant as an emergency insulin shot,
for a diabetic who has fallen off the regimen.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 19:10:53 +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:
}If you're unconvinced, that's up to you, but what I said was not
}evasive. I consistently meant "always" versus "not always". *Every*
}manned spaceflight project, either Russian or American, since Apollo
}has fallen to bad management.
}Skylab seemed to work out pretty well.

Yeah, it worked out so well that they didn't care to do it again.

Not because it didn't work well.

}Did the Soviet space program have "bad management"?

Do you want to discuss Almaz, Mir, or something else?

Any of them.

Answer the question.

--
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:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Skylab seemed to work out pretty well.

Oh yeah, it was peachy. Especially if you like cost overruns, a 4-year
delay, a near disaster on launch, the first craft abandoned early
and deorbited by mistake, and the second craft (Skylab B) mothballed.
You can think of it as a dress rehearsal for the space station. See

http://www.astronautix.com/project/skylab.htm

Did the Soviet space program have "bad management"?

Well, Comrade Simberg, although many admire Soviet management methods,
they did not bury the West. The Almaz space station project was a total
fiasco, which is there was no actual Almaz space station. Mir did make
it into orbit, but it was still awful.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 01:48:52 +0000 (UTC), (Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

Skylab seemed to work out pretty well.

Oh yeah, it was peachy. Especially if you like cost overruns, a 4-year
delay, a near disaster on launch, the first craft abandoned early
and deorbited by mistake, and the second craft (Skylab B) mothballed.
You can think of it as a dress rehearsal for the space station. See

http://www.astronautix.com/project/skylab.htm

Did the Soviet space program have "bad management"?

Well, Comrade Simberg, although many admire Soviet management methods,
they did not bury the West. The Almaz space station project was a total
fiasco, which is there was no actual Almaz space station. Mir did make
it into orbit, but it was still awful.

I don't usually waste bandwidth by announcing that I'm killfiling someone
(an unfortunately frequent occurrence here lately), but you seem to go out
of your way to be snotty and/or ignorant. Bye.

Dale