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#1
July 26th 03, 12:43 AM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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 * 
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#3
July 26th 03, 03:30 AM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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#4
July 26th 03, 05:14 AM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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, h (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..." Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me. Here's my email address for autospammers:
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#5
July 26th 03, 07:34 AM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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#6
July 26th 03, 02:00 PM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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.)
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#7
July 26th 03, 04:23 AM
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Mr. Bean Counter
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 *
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#8
July 26th 03, 05:22 AM
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Mr. Bean Counter
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..." Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me. Here's my email address for autospammers:
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#9
July 26th 03, 05:53 AM
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Mr. Bean Counter
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 he http://www.house.gov/science/hearing...8/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 *
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#10
July 27th 03, 12:47 AM
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Management, mandate, and manned spaceflight
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 | `------------------------------------------------------------------'
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