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November 28 - December 11, 2024
Be of good courage
The shuttle is never late. It simply cannot be.
In one of the most confounding breakdowns of the management process for STS-107, the MMT refused to issue a formal request for images.
Lower-level engineers at KSC and at Boeing’s shuttle design offices in Huntington Beach, California, adamantly insisted that the foam impact had damaged the RCC. Some refused to certify that the vehicle was safe to come home. The MMT noted and then overruled their objections.
“Prove to me that it’s not safe to come home” demonstrates a very different management culture than does “prove to me that it is safe to come home.” The former attitude quashes arguments and debates when there is no hard evidence to support a concern. It allows people to talk themselves into a false sense of security. The latter encourages exploration of an issue and development of contingencies.
Management assumed that if there really were a problem, the “smart people” who were looking at it would speak up. Managers seemed not to comprehend that objections had in fact been raised and then brushed aside.
Pressure to keep on schedule had combined with a complacency brought about by so many past mission successes. The same conditions were present for Apollo 1 and Challenger.
the best way to get a team to embrace you in a disaster situation was to make yourself as helpful as possible.
“Figure out who’s in charge by observing the scene. Then go up to that person and say, ‘What three things are biting you on the ass?’
chaos was part of the normal process in the hours following a catastrophe. It would take forty-eight to seventy-two hours to gather the appropriate situational awareness, sort out priorities, and begin taking control of the situation.
“Their mission became our mission.”
like many NASA managers, nonetheless believed the accident could not have been caused just by the foam impact during ascent. Many NASA managers held onto this opinion for days—even weeks—after the accident.
The last few seconds of telemetry received in Mission Control on February 1 indicated Columbia’s crew likely knew their ship was in trouble in the final half minute before it broke apart. The data showed that Columbia’s steering thrusters were firing to compensate for drag on the left wing, the ship was rolling, and the triply-redundant hydraulic system was losing pressure. All of those conditions would have set off alarms inside the cockpit.
“Do good work.”
“You look for the glimmer of hope where you can find it,”
It would be much harder for them to cope with the challenges they faced in returning to “normal” life,
“It was easier for me to continue working than to take any time off and think about everything,”
“He was angry when he came home. He was just not the same person that went.
NASA’s culture made it extremely difficult to raise concerns that would have been listened to.
It reminded me of what a great culture NASA has—that we are committed to learn everything we can from tragedies.”
Why did nothing change beforehand then? They knew foam strikes were a problem.
A pan underneath the piston still catches occasional drops of hydraulic fluid leaking from the strut.
The citizens of East Texas feel the hand of divine providence in bringing Columbia and her crew to rest in their community.
was it divine providence when the astronauts died?
