Wash Post shuttle story six weeks behind NBC coverage

JimO: Please forgive the tone of this brag -- I think it's timely.

Today's 'Washington Post' (Aug 24) has a long narrative of the sequence of
events that led to the loss of space shuttle 'Columbia' on February 1. Of
particular interest is Sawyer's comments, "The ... predictions would turn
out to be correct about the nonlethal effects of the foam striking glassy
tiles. But later, in painful hindsight, a glaring misstep in the engineering
calculus would become clear: The team had assumed that the tile analysis
told them all they needed to know about the potential damage to the very
different RCC material as well. Conventional wisdom among the engineers was
that the RCC, designed to withstand higher temperatures than the tiles, was
also more resistant to impact damage. But they really did not know. Nobody
had tested the question. This fact had been clearly noted in Boeing's
written Jan. 23 assessment of the potential damage to Columbia: 'No SOFI
[spray on foam insulation] on RCC test data available.' The engineers had,
in effect, been guessing. And neither Ham nor any other manager challenged
the conclusion."

This is the very heart of the fatal flaw in NASA's decision-making. And it
is basically a rewrite of the groundbreaking analysis of this precise issue,
in my msnbc.com columns "The Hole in NASA's Safety Culture" (July 8)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/936070.asp?0cv=CB20, and "Post-Columbia NASA
hunkers down" (July 23), http://www.msnbc.com/news/943305.asp?0dm=C219T.

It's happened before -- when you publish an original insight too far in
advance, by the time the rest of the news media catches on and repeats it
(right down to the same word I used -- "guess"), it's become 'common
knowledge' not worthy of citation or credit grin!

The only remedy is for NBC to continue to 'own this story' by staying ahead
and continuing to break new facts, new analysis, new insights, new images --
which we intend to do!

This has been possible -- and will continue to be possible -- thanks to
insights shared by many, many people who trust us to get the story out
accurately, completely, and fairly -- the only possible route to recovery
for the program as a whole.

Jim O
281-337-2838

Columbia's 'Smoking Gun' Was Obscured
NASA Did Not See a Deadly Risk When Foam Struck Shuttle Wing
By Kathy Sawyer, Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html