Quo Vadis Space Shuttle

[Ned]

These last few post are so SF as to be implausible. How can anyone take them seriously.

[Rogan Josh]

They remind me of the ideas to use a focussed neutrino beam to shoot at your enemies from the other side of the Earth.

[The Mad Monk]

Darkstar works for NASA.

Some here know Darkstar, and his credibility -- I'll wait for their comments.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ned
Lest one forget, this is the THIRD time this has happened. Kennedy put NASA under a lot of pressure to get to the moon before the end of the '60s. Everyone was moving as fast as they could - and ignoring safety issues. As a result, we lost three astronauts who were burned alive in Apollo I.

Ned: I believe you have facts mixed up. Kennedy was long dead by the time Apollo 1 was launched.

[chequita guevara]

Keneedy was the one who said we were going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Hence, he put the pressure, even though he was dead by the time of the Apollo fire.

[The Mad Monk]

In Lost Moon, Jim Lovell wrote that Astronauts considered the Apollo capsule to be a "lemon", in the test pilot sense of the word -- that is, it was certain to get someone killed.

[Ned]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
In Lost Moon, Jim Lovell wrote that Astronauts considered the Apollo capsule to be a "lemon", in the test pilot sense of the word -- that is, it was certain to get someone killed.

It is interesting he said this after the redesign that occurred after the Apollo I fire. I wonder what the basic problem was?

[Ned]

Experts are speaking out: We need fundamental change in order to change NASA. I wonder if Bush will listen to the advisory panel, Congress and the experts and take bold action? This will be a real test of his leadership.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- With NASA under orders to fix its safety culture in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, industrial psychologists and management wizards say extreme measures may be needed: a purge at the top, the return of Apollo-era decision-makers, more businesslike behavior, possibly even a new name.

"It's a bad enough problem that you start to wonder if they almost don't need to have their name changed, like WorldCom and MCI," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management.

"For sure, all the top brass at NASA should be reviewed."

The Columbia accident investigators are giving NASA months, if not years, to change the deeply rooted culture that led not only to the destruction of Columbia and the deaths of seven astronauts on February 1, but to the loss of Challenger and seven astronauts 17 years earlier. In both cases, engineers were too afraid to speak out to managers about technical concerns, and managers driven by flight scheduling pressures made deadly decisions regarding foam and, in the case of Challenger, O-rings."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/08/30/sprj.colu.safety.ap/index.html