Inertia and Indecision at NASA

"Inertia and Indecision at NASA"
_New York Times_ - August 27, 2003

The bitter bottom line of the Columbia disaster comes down to this: NASA
never absorbed the lessons of the Challenger explosion in 1986, and four
successive American presidents never decided where America's space
program should head after the cold war — and what it would cost in
dollars and risk to human life to get there.

Those were the brutal conclusions of the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board, issued yesterday six and a half months after a sunny Saturday
morning when Americans awoke to the horror of another space shuttle
disintegrating in the sky. What is striking in the 248-page report,
however, is how little had changed in the 17 years between the
disasters. The same keep-it-flying culture found to have disregarded
ample evidence of a fatal flaw in the O-rings in the Challenger case
failed again to heed warning signs that foam debris could cause deadly
damage to the aging, fragile Columbia.

At the same time, the culture in the White House and Congress was
changing, but for the worse. In the 1990's, the board found, budget cuts
and trade-offs ate away at the shuttle program's thin margins of safety.
Meanwhile, the capital was awash in indecision about where America was
headed in space, with moonwalks passé, Mars seeming too far and
dominance of space another chapter in the dusty history of the cold war.

"We are challenging the government of the United States" to make up its
mind, Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., the commission's chairman, said
yesterday, alluding to the ease with which politicians hail the shuttle
program while cutting its budget by 40 percent.

"We need to decide as a nation what we want to do," Admiral Gehman, who
is retired, warned. The solution, he said, was not just a modernized
shuttle. "We shouldn't start by designing the next vehicle," he said.
"That is a trap that we've fallen into several times."

The challenge places President Bush in essentially the same place
President Ronald Reagan was after the Challenger explosion. Confronting
a $480 billion budget deficit this year and many more years of deficits
to follow, does Mr. Bush want to commit to expending the money and
energy needed to remake the nation's space program, the step the
commission said was critical to averting a third disaster? Or do
problems on earth, like bringing order and democracy to Iraq, battling
terrorism or rebuilding another aging technological behemoth — the
electric power grid — rank higher?

The evidence suggests that, like Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush might be tempted
to go with small fixes rather than big new ideas. He has not publicly
discussed the space program or its goals at any length since he spoke at
a memorial service for the Columbia astronauts in February. The subject
was scarcely mentioned in his 2000 campaign, or in his administration's
national security strategy.

In fact, the cold war imperatives that made the program so potent a
political symbol for John F. Kennedy — and that were fading but still
discernible in Mr. Reagan's time — seem gone for good. The commission's
space historian, John M. Logsdon, concluded that played a crucial part
in the Columbia's awful end.

"No longer able to justify its projects with the kind of urgency that
the superpower struggle had provided," he wrote for the commission, "the
agency could not obtain budget increases through the 1990's. Rather than
adjust its ambitions to this new state of affairs, NASA continued to
push an ambitious agenda of space science and exploration."

But the agency could no longer afford that agenda, Mr. Logsdon wrote,
especially under pressure to divert funds to the International Space
Station and projects supporting a new relationship with Russia.

Mr. Bush did not discuss this when he issued a brief statement yesterday
thanking the commission for its work, and saying, "Our journey into
space will go on." When asked in recent days, Mr. Bush and his advisers
spoke of the space program as an important symbol, but hardly a cause
that moves voters anymore.

"Kennedy was able to relate space exploration to a greater national
cause," a Bush adviser said earlier this week. "I'm not sure that exists
today."

If Mr. Bush is merely the latest president to put off grappling with
the big issues of space, NASA also allowed complacency to take hold,
ignoring the most fundamental lessons of the Challenger disaster.

Senior managers, for example, did not want to hear possible
flight-stopping news. Buried in the report is a reference to a
statistical "sleight of hand" by NASA before the flight that understated
the chances of falling debris causing irreparable damage.

To those who remember the Challenger investigation, it was an echo of
the suppressed memorandums that commission uncovered, when engineers
sent out urgent warnings that it was too cold to launch the Challenger,
and were ignored.

"It's the same damn thing," said Gen. Donald Kutyna of the Air Force,
retired, a gadfly on the Challenger commission along with the physicist
Richard Feynman. "They didn't learn a thing. We had nine O-rings fail,
and they flew. These guys had seven pieces of foam hit, and it still
flew."

By all accounts, Admiral Gehman did a more penetrating job than his
counterpart 17 years ago, former Secretary of State William Rogers.
General Kutyna recalled that the cautious Mr. Rogers "clearly viewed his
job as protecting NASA."

Now, the only way to protect NASA may be to remake it and give it a
clear mission beyond running the world's most sophisticated freight
train to low-earth orbit. And that will touch off the next round of an
old debate, about whether keeping humans in space to conduct
experimentation is worth the risks. Many scientists believe it is. Many
politicians love the image, and are willing to vote for manned space
programs, not robotic ones.

Bruce Murray, professor of geophysics at the California Institute of
Technology and a former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said
that was another priority that might have to change. "When push comes to
shove, they recommend to continue flying the shuttle," Professor Murray
said. "They end up buying the NASA program, not exposing an analysis of
alternatives to it."

"The question they don't ask," he said, is, "does it make sense to
continue?"

[end of article]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/na...27ASSE.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/na...agewanted=2&hp

rk wrote in
:

Scott M. Kozel wrote:


"Inertia and Indecision at NASA"
_New York Times_ - August 27, 2003

The evidence suggests that, like Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush might be
tempted to go with small fixes rather than big new ideas. He
has not publicly discussed the space program or its goals at
any length since he spoke at a memorial service for the
Columbia astronauts in February. The subject was scarcely
mentioned in his 2000 campaign, or in his administration's
national security strategy.

Reagan approved and supported the space station, which was a rather
big program in my opinion.

And X-30.

Also, he increased the budget
substantially for a replacement shuttle along with fixes over around
2 1/2 years. If I remember the data correctly, support (as measured
in dollars, for what it's worth) was good under Reagan, more or less
stable under Bush 41, dropped under Clinton I and II, and is more or
less steady under 42. [Disclaimer: I'm no Reagan fan]

Here's the actuals:

FY GDP NASA
Price Budget ($M,FY %
Index ($M,RY) 2004) chg Comments
1958 0.2152 $ 89 $ 471 N/A First NASA budget
1961 0.2243 $ 744 $ 3,776 702% Eisenhower's (R) last budget
1964 0.2325 $ 4,171 $20,424 441% Kennedy's (D) last budget
1966 0.2417 $ 5,933 $27,947 N/A NASA budget peak
1969 0.2701 $ 4,251 $17,918 -12% Johnson's (D) last budget
1975 0.3867 $ 3,269 $ 9,624 -46% Nixon's (R) last budget
1977 0.4451 $ 4,002 $10,237 6% Ford's (R) last budget
1981 0.6142 $ 5,537 $10,264 0% Carter's (D) last budget
1989 0.8293 $11,036 $15,151 48% Reagan's (R) last budget
1993 0.9393 $14,305 $17,339 14% Bush(41)'s (R) last budget
2001 1.0940 $14,095 $14,668 -15% Clinton's (D) last budget
2004 1.1385 $15,469 $15,469 5% Bush(43)'s (R) current budget request

--
JRF

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In article ,
says...
rk wrote in
:

Scott M. Kozel wrote:


"Inertia and Indecision at NASA"
_New York Times_ - August 27, 2003

The evidence suggests that, like Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush might be
tempted to go with small fixes rather than big new ideas. He
has not publicly discussed the space program or its goals at
any length since he spoke at a memorial service for the
Columbia astronauts in February. The subject was scarcely
mentioned in his 2000 campaign, or in his administration's
national security strategy.

Reagan approved and supported the space station, which was a rather
big program in my opinion.

And X-30.

Also, he increased the budget
substantially for a replacement shuttle along with fixes over around
2 1/2 years. If I remember the data correctly, support (as measured
in dollars, for what it's worth) was good under Reagan, more or less
stable under Bush 41, dropped under Clinton I and II, and is more or
less steady under 42. [Disclaimer: I'm no Reagan fan]

Here's the actuals:

FY GDP NASA
Price Budget ($M,FY %
Index ($M,RY) 2004) chg Comments
1958 0.2152 $ 89 $ 471 N/A First NASA budget
1961 0.2243 $ 744 $ 3,776 702% Eisenhower's (R) last budget
1964 0.2325 $ 4,171 $20,424 441% Kennedy's (D) last budget
1966 0.2417 $ 5,933 $27,947 N/A NASA budget peak
1969 0.2701 $ 4,251 $17,918 -12% Johnson's (D) last budget
1975 0.3867 $ 3,269 $ 9,624 -46% Nixon's (R) last budget
1977 0.4451 $ 4,002 $10,237 6% Ford's (R) last budget
1981 0.6142 $ 5,537 $10,264 0% Carter's (D) last budget
1989 0.8293 $11,036 $15,151 48% Reagan's (R) last budget
1993 0.9393 $14,305 $17,339 14% Bush(41)'s (R) last budget
2001 1.0940 $14,095 $14,668 -15% Clinton's (D) last budget
2004 1.1385 $15,469 $15,469 5% Bush(43)'s (R) current budget request

Ah, but remember -- Clinton's NASA budgets were influenced by NASA
management, which was working with Dan Goldin's "cheaper, better, faster"
approach and the Kraft Commission's report that the Shuttle program could
be run on far less money because it was a mature and inherently safe
transportation system.

Also, it was during Clinton's terms that the government got serious about
eliminating deficit spending. It's easy to increase spending on any
number of endeavors when you're not worried about balancing the budget.

I'm very much in support of increasing funding for space exploration, and
I'm not happy with budget cuts. I just have no use for the Republican
Lockstep Movement, which tries to lead goose-stepping masses in knee-jerk
Clinton bashing. I mean, if you're the President and NASA tells you that
they can operate the Shuttle program on far less money (with no less than
Christopher Columbus Kraft telling you so), AND you're dealing with a
bunch of Republican congressmen who keep threatening to shut down the
government unless you balance the budget, you'd probably cut the Shuttle
budget some, as well...

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup |

Doug... wrote:
I'm very much in support of increasing funding for space exploration, and
I'm not happy with budget cuts. I just have no use for the Republican
Lockstep Movement, which tries to lead goose-stepping masses in knee-jerk
Clinton bashing. I mean, if you're the President and NASA tells you that
they can operate the Shuttle program on far less money (with no less than
Christopher Columbus Kraft telling you so),

I would realize I'm being sold a bill of goods.


AND you're dealing with a
bunch of Republican congressmen who keep threatening to shut down the
government unless you balance the budget, you'd probably cut the Shuttle
budget some, as well...

No, I would have cancelled the International Space Station instead, or
deferred it another 10 years.

There's a stronger case for fully funding the shuttle to continue doing
its job, than for building the ISS at all.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 17:07:48 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Steven D.
Litvintchouk" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

No, I would have cancelled the International Space Station instead, or
deferred it another 10 years.

There's a stronger case for fully funding the shuttle to continue doing
its job, than for building the ISS at all.

What is its job?

--
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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On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 17:07:48 GMT, "Steven D. Litvintchouk"
wrote:

There's a stronger case for fully funding the shuttle to continue doing
its job, than for building the ISS at all.

What job would that BE, though...? Its' original purpose was to
ferry equipment and personnel to build and supply a space station.

After all, what good is having a truck, without having a
truck-stop? :-)

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 20:35:20 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Steven D.
Litvintchouk" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

No, I would have cancelled the International Space Station instead, or
deferred it another 10 years.

There's a stronger case for fully funding the shuttle to continue doing
its job, than for building the ISS at all.


What is its job?

Launching its scheduled list of already scheduled payloads.

Almost all of which go to space station...

--
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 .net,
Steven D. Litvintchouk wrote:

Its job is to finish flying the missions it was already scheduled to fly.

Not all of which dealt with the ISS only.

Here's some interesting reading:

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/spac...e/manifest.txt

After STS-107, the only missions provisionally planned which didn't
involve the ISS were STS-123, and STS-144 (I thought there was a third,
but I can't find it), both to Hubble. STS-144 is now unlikely to happen,
and STS-123 is debatable; we'll see what the decision on those is.

But, beyond those two, and other than Congress demanding another
free-flying research flight (which there's no indication it was going to
do), there simply -weren't any other missions for it to fly-. There were
a couple of possible part-payloads (eg/ Triana), but those were either
going to be fitted onto undermanifested flights, launched on ELVs, or
just not launched.

--
-Andrew Gray

"Steven D. Litvintchouk" wrote in message
link.net...


Len Lekx wrote:

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 17:07:48 GMT, "Steven D. Litvintchouk"
wrote:


There's a stronger case for fully funding the shuttle to continue doing
its job, than for building the ISS at all.


What job would that BE, though...?

Its job is to finish flying the missions it was already scheduled to fly.

Such as what?

Should be easy to list them.

Let's talk real schedules with manifests, etc. Not fictional ones.



Not all of which dealt with the ISS only.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

In article ,
Clark stillnospam@me wrote:

(Snipped argumentative drivel)

Clark, whoever you are, stop arguing minutiae just for the sake of
argument. You sound more and more like Ed Wright every day.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
"Heisenberg might have been here."
~ Anonymous