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



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 29th 03, 06:26 AM
Henry Spencer
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

In article ,
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
...Why is it that manned spaceflight at NASA always seems to
fall to bad management, while unmanned spaceflight doesn't?


What makes you think it doesn't?

The loss of Mars Climate Orbiter was 99% bad management -- the units error
would have been caught and corrected in a well-run project, because there
were plenty of hints that something was wrong.

Mars Polar Lander was much more of a routine engineering screwup, but one
can still reasonably argue that poor management was at least a major
contributing factor.

The Deep Space Two micropenetrators that were lost with MPL were simply
not ready to fly, but management decided to fly them anyway.

Several of Galileo's problems can be traced back to management. (I mean,
a star tracker that's only tested in two or three orientations??? Who was
running *that*?)

Hubble's main mirror was a management screwup through and through.

The essentially-total loss of WIRE was not because there hadn't been
hints that the pyro circuitry had something wrong with it, but because
management didn't insist that those be followed up on.

X-33 was a management disaster from beginning to end. X-34 wasn't
much better.

Mars Observer's loss was mostly an engineering failure, but management
over-optimism about "flight proven" subsystems did contribute.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |
  #2  
Old July 29th 03, 10:50 AM
OM
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 05:26:35 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article ,
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
...Why is it that manned spaceflight at NASA always seems to
fall to bad management, while unmanned spaceflight doesn't?


What makes you think it doesn't?


....He did the math, Henry. This explains much about how he thinks.


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
  #3  
Old July 29th 03, 12:42 PM
Jan C. Vorbrüggen
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

The Deep Space Two micropenetrators that were lost with MPL were simply
not ready to fly, but management decided to fly them anyway.


Is there anything but the grapevine to support that? It did seem a good
idea, a rush job, and strange amounts of silence after the fact...

Several of Galileo's problems can be traced back to management. (I mean,
a star tracker that's only tested in two or three orientations??? Who was
running *that*?)


Hadn't heard of that one...

Hubble's main mirror was a management screwup through and through.


Interestingly enough, a BBC program that airead yesterday here in Germany
presented it as basically bad luck - that a flake of paint was missing in
just the right place on the null corrector for things to go wrong.

On the other hand, they kept records and even the original measurement
hardware was still in place so that the causes for that screwup could be
reasonably determined. Now that is _good_ management! (Please excuse me
while I fetch a mop to take up the sarcasm.)

Jan
  #4  
Old July 29th 03, 02:46 PM
Greg Kuperberg
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
...Why is it that manned spaceflight at NASA always seems to
fall to bad management, while unmanned spaceflight doesn't?

What makes you think it doesn't?


What I meant is that unmanned spaceflight doesn't ALWAYS fall to bad
management, not that it doesn't ever. That is clearly true: NASA unmanned
spaceflight does great things every year.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *
  #5  
Old July 29th 03, 04:29 PM
Henry Spencer
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

In article ,
Jan C. =?iso-8859-1?Q?Vorbr=FCggen?= wrote:
The Deep Space Two micropenetrators that were lost with MPL were simply
not ready to fly, but management decided to fly them anyway.


Is there anything but the grapevine to support that? It did seem a good
idea, a rush job, and strange amounts of silence after the fact...


The MPL failure report does cover DS2, and the phrase "not tested" occurs
an awful lot in that section...

Several of Galileo's problems can be traced back to management. (I mean,
a star tracker that's only tested in two or three orientations??? Who was
running *that*?)


Hadn't heard of that one...


It didn't get mentioned in the press releases for some reason. :-) You
have to read the technical papers to hear about such things.

Hubble's main mirror was a management screwup through and through.


Interestingly enough, a BBC program that airead yesterday here in Germany
presented it as basically bad luck - that a flake of paint was missing in
just the right place on the null corrector for things to go wrong.


The BBC has missed the point -- that's like blaming the loss of MCO on the
units screwup. In both cases, the real problem was not the technical
error, which was the sort of thing that could happen to anyone, but
management's failure to investigate signs that something was badly wrong.

For Hubble, there were *three* null correctors, and two out of three said
that the mirror was shaped incorrectly (although unfortunately the most
precise of the three was the one that said it was okay). Management
*explicitly* decided that this strange discrepancy would not be
investigated, because the project was already over budget and behind
schedule.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |
  #6  
Old July 29th 03, 05:12 PM
Greg Kuperberg
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
X-33 was a management disaster from beginning to end. X-34 wasn't
much better.


I agree with this example and I especially like your choice of words.
X-33 was a management disaster *from the beginning*. When things go
wrong from the beginning, it often means that the whole purpose of
the project is wrong. In this case the mandate was RLV/SSTO, which is
another bad idea.

If not strictly part of manned spaceflight, RLV/SSTO is certainly
associated with it. The thinking is that space travel is kind-of like
jet travel, only a little fancier. It's not true of course.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *
  #7  
Old July 29th 03, 05:55 PM
OM
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Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:42:55 +0200, Jan C. Vorbrüggen
wrote:

The Deep Space Two micropenetrators that were lost with MPL were simply
not ready to fly, but management decided to fly them anyway.


Is there anything but the grapevine to support that? It did seem a good
idea, a rush job, and strange amounts of silence after the fact...


....Jan, Greg's just talking out his ass on this one. You can't claim
the penetrometers were a failure along these lines due to the very
nature of the mission failure. Greg's biased claim is the same as
claiming a torpedo wasn't ready to be cleared for use because the
submarine upon which it was loaded went down due to a bulkhead
rupture.

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
  #9  
Old July 29th 03, 05:58 PM
OM
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Posts: n/a
Default Never mind the shuttle crash, the real threat is the CAIB report

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 08:59:21 -0500, Herb Schaltegger
wrote:

Why you fail to comprehend this is beyond me.


....Because he's an idiot. It's as simple as that.


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
 




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