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

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 03:46:12 +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:

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. It does not bode well for shuttle or space station safety.
But this foolish stance by O'Keefe (confirmed by an equally foolish "we
shall overcome" letter from Readdy) reflects a little bit of foolishness
on the CAIB side.

I agree, in general. NASA is in no position to be in a state of
denial about its organizational dysfunction.

This time around the lesson is obvious and the CAIB's comments seem a
little bit pat and ad hominem. CAIB should move onto the next question
which Feynman hinted at in the last paragraph of his appendix. Namely,
once you grasp realistic estimates of risks, you should turn to questions
of policy. Why is it that manned spaceflight at NASA always seems to
fall to bad management, while unmanned spaceflight doesn't?

I reject the premise. What was the failure of the Mars mission that
did a controlled flight into terrain, because they didn't know (or
care) how to convert from English to metric units, if not bad
management? How about the original shape of the Hubble mirror--what
did that have to do with the fact that it was launched on an Evil
Manned Launch System?

Stop trying to attribute all ills of the space program to the fact
that people happen to be going as part of the mission, Greg. It's a
loser's game, and one that its practioners would (or at least should)
have eschewed long ago, had they the wisdom to realize it. If you
can't recognize what the true cause of the problem is, you'll have no
realistic hope of solving it.

--
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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On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 04:13:20 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


Stop trying to attribute all ills of the space program to the fact
that people happen to be going as part of the mission, Greg. It's a
loser's game, and one that its practioners would (or at least should)
have eschewed long ago

Doh!

"...practitioners..."

--
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:
What was the failure of the Mars mission that
did a controlled flight into terrain, because they didn't know (or
care) how to convert from English to metric units, if not bad
management?

It was bad management, of course. (Although to be fair, Mars is a
particularly unforgiving target.) As I said at the beginning of the
other thread: With a good mandate, management may be good or bad.
But with a bad mandate, management is invariably bad.

Public relations has always been the principal purpose of manned
spaceflight, not only in the United States but worldwide. It has not
been a good mandate since the 1960s. Even then, it was only good in a
perverse context, namely the Cold War.

How about the original shape of the Hubble mirror--what
did that have to do with the fact that it was launched on an Evil
Manned Launch System?

It was either bad management or bad luck, although flying on the shuttle
was an unwelcome distraction for the mission.
--
/\ 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:


How about the original shape of the Hubble mirror--what
did that have to do with the fact that it was launched on an Evil
Manned Launch System?

It was either bad management or bad luck, although flying on the shuttle
was an unwelcome distraction for the mission.

Distraction to whom? Perkin-Elmer? Those in NASA who might've caught
it? Where does the nature of the launcher figure into that?

In article ,
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

In article ,
Herb Schaltegger wrote:
}In article ,
} (Greg Kuperberg) wrote:
} It was bad management, of course. (Although to be fair, Mars is a
} particularly unforgiving target.)
}More "unforgiving" than Mercury? Venus? Jupiter? Saturn? Uranus?
}Neptune?

Actually landing on Mars is harder than merely orbiting Venus
or even Jupiter, or than landing on the moon.

Your basis for this statement is suspect. And certainly you realize
that there have been at least one (marginally) successful landing on
Venus, don't you? Furthermore, your original statement didn't qualify
itself as limited to landings, just that ". . . Mars is a particularly
unforgiving target." And on that point, I'd have to remind you of
Vikings 1 and 2 and Mars Pathfinder; landing is difficult on any body
from orbital or interplanetary velocities. It is not, however,
impossible.

Your penchant for broad, unqualified generalizations is partly why the
sci.space long-term regulars don't take you very seriously.

Although interestingly they discovered a new difficulty of an inner
Jovian orbit mission: massive charged particle radiation.

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

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in message
...

Your basis for this statement is suspect. And certainly you realize
that there have been at least one (marginally) successful landing on
Venus, don't you?

The Soviet Venera missions were more than marginally successful.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/venera.html

In article link.net,
"Dosco Jones" wrote:

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in message
...

Your basis for this statement is suspect. And certainly you realize
that there have been at least one (marginally) successful landing on
Venus, don't you?

The Soviet Venera missions were more than marginally successful.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/venera.html



All the more support for my rebuttal to Mr. Kuperberg, don't you think?

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

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in message
...
In article link.net,
"Dosco Jones" wrote:

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in message
...

Your basis for this statement is suspect. And certainly you realize
that there have been at least one (marginally) successful landing on
Venus, don't you?

The Soviet Venera missions were more than marginally successful.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/venera.html



All the more support for my rebuttal to Mr. Kuperberg, don't you think?


He's not relevant to me. He's been in my killfile for months.

In article ,
Herb Schaltegger wrote:
All the more support for my rebuttal to Mr. Kuperberg, don't you think?

You're not rebutting any point that I actually meant to make. Part of
the reason that MCO crashed is that landing on distant planets is hard.
(But not impossible, obviously.) Yes, this applies to Venus as well as
to Mars. Saying that Mars is a difficult target is consistent with this
because NASA more often wants to land spacecraft on Mars than on most
other targets in the Solar System. NASA also wants to land spacecraft
on Earth and the moon, but those two are easier than Mars.

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

In article ,
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
...If the V2 program had really boosted the Nazi
military campaign, von Braun's reputation would have had no comeback.
After all, even Heisenberg lost most of his friends.

Heisenberg lost most of his friends not because he worked for the Nazis,
but because he made it clear, late in the war, that he thought German
victory would have been a good thing. Working for the Nazis was one
thing, but actively sympathizing with them was quite another.

...Even so, it was rightfully controversial to rehabilitate
von Braun and his crew for the American missile and space programs.
They should have faced judgement, especially for massive use of slave
labor in V1 and V2.

How so? The V-1 had nothing to do with von Braun & co. at all, and the
use of slave labor on the V-2 was not his idea -- he was chief engineer in
the V-2 R&D organization, not a factory administrator. (The one or two
Peenemuende people who have gotten into trouble over the V-2, notably
Arthur Rudolf, were guys who moved from the R&D group to the production
administration.)

Note that von Braun did not head even V-2 R&D, much less all of
Peenemuende or the entire V-2 effort. (There was no one man in charge of
the entire V-2 effort, aside from the top political leadership.)
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