NASA managers should have went to jail for murder...

[astronaut23]

They knew it was gonna blow up and launched anyway. There was a group of engineers thinking it would blow up on the pad but they were overuled. The people who were responsible for the Challenger launch descision should be in jail for murder.

Its sad that no one was held responsible cause they should have been.

 

[CommonMan]

I watched the whole thing when it happened and kept up with the news about for some time after. I never heard of any engineers that said they knew it was going to blow and informed anybody of it. What they were thinking is one thing, saying it is another. Do you have any proof of what you are saying? If so why has not the news media jumped on this? I’m sure they would if they could get some proof.

 

[rubicondsrv]

They knew it was gonna blow up and launched anyway. There was a group of engineers thinking it would blow up on the pad but they were overuled. The people who were responsible for the Challenger launch descision should be in jail for murder.

Its sad that no one was held responsible cause they should have been.

murder?
that is rather harsh.

you might make a case for manslaughter, but I doubt it.

they did now know that there would be a failure.
also O ring failure does not always result in a structural failure.
had the breach ocured in most other places on the booster the srb strut would not be cut.
had there not been wind shear the o ring would have resealed itself.

 

[astronaut23]

I saw a documentary with one two of the Thiokol engineers. One said he wasn't going to watch the launch and he expected the thing to blow up on the pad and when it didn't they thought they had dodged a bullet. The other engineer said he said a prayer and it was a negative prayer, "Lord let me and all these other engineers be wrong".

I'll see if I can find that video and post the link.

 

[astronaut23]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDjhZbwd ... re=related

Here's the link to it. The engineers at Thiokol knew it was gonna blow.

 

[CalliArcale]

Murder? That's awfully harsh. It's also untenable from a legal standpoint. Murder has a very specific definition, and merely being involved in a project that has a terrible accident doesn't count. Usually, there has to be the intent to seriously hurt or kill somebody in order for it to count as murder. Exception is that in some states, if the death occurs as the result of a felony, such as accidentally shooting somebody while robbing a bank, it may qualify for murder charges.

But I understand what you mean: you feel that NASA managers were culpable in the deaths of the Challenger crew. But the reality isn't as simple as that. I've read up extensively on both Challenger and Columbia, and the picture that emerges isn't one of depraved negligence but of processes and policies within NASA and within NASA contractors and subcontractors which created the conditions that resulted in Challenger. Columbia was somewhat different, but some of the same traits are visible there as well.

One of the biggies from the Challenger accident was the lack of a good system for reporting concerns up the chain. Some engineers at Morton Thiokol famously had grave concerns about launching the Shuttle in the unusually cold weather that Florida was experiencing that fateful day. But there was no coherent means for their concerns to be passed up, and the managers responsible for making the go/no-go calls never knew of the concerns until afterwards.

To its credit, NASA took that very seriously, and afterwards instituted a policy that anybody could call a "no-go" and it would be heard.

So why did Columbia happen? The main problem there was that it wasn't as cut-and-dried a situation. There were again communications problems (as well as a "not-invented-here" sentiment and some territorialism that prevented centers from sharing information effectively) but the actual root cause of the accident was not as clearly understood, and so even those who realized the potential risk were not at all sure how serious it would be. There were some who were calling stridently for resources to properly image the damaged Orbiter (even though by then it was much too late to do anything), but they wound up not getting their way for a variety of reasons, none of which were malicious or obviously stupid at the time. Still, there was a great deal to be learned, and one of the main problems, as on Challenger, was that on some level, a lot of folks at NASA had gotten cocky about Shuttle safety. It hadn't failed yet, so they had unconsciously become convinced it never would.

I highly recommend the book "Comm Check" if you want to get a really detailed look at the people behind the accident. It's very emotional, but also factual and extensively researched. You'll get a lot of technical details about the accident (which is what the book was originally intended to be about) but also a really good look into the human element -- the men and women who were involved in the fateful chain of decisions that ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia with all hands.

 

[astronaut23]

Its not malicious intent when you have burn through documented on previous flights? The ethical thing to do would have been to shut the whole thing down until the motors were fixed.

 

[Testing]

They knew it was gonna blow up and launched anyway. There was a group of engineers thinking it would blow up on the pad but they were overuled. The people who were responsible for the Challenger launch descision should be in jail for murder.

Its sad that no one was held responsible cause they should have been.

The Bill of Rights entitles you to free speech, however misguided. And I also.
I'll let this man speak for me.

By Eugene F. Kranz

TO read and listen to the coverage of the ongoing mission of Space Shuttle
Discovery, you would think NASA's mission team have taken careless risks
with the lives of the seven astronauts who went into space last Tuesday.
During the launch, foam fell off the external tank. For the risk-averse, the
only acceptable thing to do now is retire the shuttle program immediately
and wait for the divine arrival of the next generation of spacecraft. I am
disgusted at the lack of courage and common sense this attitude shows.



All progress involves risk. Risk is essential to fuel the economic engine of
our nation. And risk is essential to renew American's fundamental spirit of
discovery so we remain competitive with the rest of the world.



My take on the current mission is very straightforward. The shuttle is in
orbit. To a great extent mission managers have given the spacecraft a clean
bill of health. Let us remember that this is a test flight. I consider it a
remarkably successful test so far.



The technical response to the Columbia accident led to a dramatic reduction
in the amount of debris striking this shuttle during launch. Mission
managers have said that the external tank shed 80 percent less foam this
time than on previous launches. Only in the news media, apparently, is an 80
percent improvement considered a failure. Rather than quit, we must now try
to reduce even more greatly the amount of foam that comes off the tank.



The instruments and video equipment developed to assess the launch
performance and monitor debris falling from the tank worked superbly. For
the first time, the mission team knows what is happening, when it is
happening and the flight conditions under which it occurred. This was a
major mission objective, and it is an impressive achievement.



Having spent more than three decades working in the space program, I know
that all of the flights of the early days involved some levels of risk. Some
of those risks, in hindsight, seem incomprehensible by today's timid
standards. If we had quit when we had our first difficulties in Project
Mercury, we would have never launched John Glenn on the Atlas rocket
Friendship 7 in 1961. Two of the previous five Atlas rockets test-fired
before Friendship 7 had exploded on liftoff.



On Gemini 9, 10 and 11, all in 1966, we had complications with planned
spacewalks that placed the astronauts at risk. Rather than cancel the walks,
we faced the risks and solved the problems. These set the stage for Gemini
12 later that year, during which Buzz Aldrin spent more than five hours
outside the capsule and confirmed to NASA that spacewalks could be
considered an operational capability.



Eventually, this capability enabled astronauts to retrieve satellites and
repair and maintain the Hubble space telescope; and during the current
mission, spacewalks were used to repair a gyroscope on the International
Space Station and will allow the crew to fix some of the damage on that
occurred during the launch. These are the rewards for the risks we took on
those early Gemini flights.



I understand the tragedy inherent in risk-taking; I witnessed the fire
aboard Apollo that killed its three crew members. It filled us with anger at
ourselves and with the resolve to make it right. After the fire we didn't
quit; we redesigned the Apollo command module. During the Apollo missions
that followed, we were never perfect. But we were determined and competent
and that made these missions successful.



I see the same combination of anger, resolve and determination in the Space
Shuttle program today. These people are professionals who understand the
business of risk, how to reduce risk and making that which remains
acceptable. Most important, the current mission has demonstrated the
maturity of the shuttle team that went through the tragedy of Columbia and
had the guts to persevere. This is the most important aspect of the recovery
from the Columbia accident, and is a credit to the great team NASA now has
in place, headed by its administrator, Michael Griffin.



There are many nations in the world that wish to surpass us in space. Does
the "quit now" crowd really believe that abandoning the shuttle and
International Space Station is the way to keep America the pre-eminent
space-faring nation? Do they really believe that a new spacecraft will come
without an engineering challenge or a human toll? The path the naysayers
suggest is so out of touch with the American character of perseverance, hard
work and discovery that they don't even realize the danger in which they are
putting future astronauts. Not to mention our nation

 

[MeteorWayne]

Amen, Testing and Mr Krantz.

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

"I am disgusted at the lack of courage and common sense this attitude shows."


Well said Mr Kranz !!!!!!!!!

 

[CalliArcale]

Its not malicious intent when you have burn through documented on previous flights? The ethical thing to do would have been to shut the whole thing down until the motors were fixed.

No, it is not malicious intent to believe that the burn through is not a problem and go ahead with the flight. Malicious intent means "I want to hurt you". These words have specific legal meanings, astronaut23, and it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with them before tossing them about casually. What it is is a very human tendency to conclude that since it didn't cause any problems last time, it won't cause any problems next time either.

The article by Gene Kranz, posted by Testing a few posts up, is excellent. You should also visit Wayne Hale's blog; he often talks about this sort of thing. So does the book "Comm Check", which really is a fantastic look at the institutional problems which allowed

NASA takes safety very seriously, and the engineers, technicians, managers, etc responsible for Shuttle safety were *devastated* by both Challenger and Columbia. They pride themselves on safety, they care for these spacecraft as if they were their own children, and they become close friends with the crew. I'm not sure any of us on the outside can really understand the depth of pain they went through after each accident, because every one of them would have blamed themselves, and probably still does. They know how they, personally, could have prevented the accident from happening. That they didn't realize it at the time is very little comfort.

I don't mean to say that there weren't problems in NASA that resulted in these accidents. The problems are real. But malice was not involved. Nobody wanted them dead. It's not murder. It's a tragedy, and the best thing NASA can do is to use it, and learn from the mistakes of the past.

 

[drwayne]

Like many things in life, there is a balance than can be elusive.

I have worked with engineers who had the - confidence - in their engineering judgement that if
something didn't seem right to them, even if they didn't have all the data needed to back them up,
that they do one of those "I am not going to go along with this, and if you don't like it, here's
my bleeping badge and you know exactly where you can put it!"

While I admire those types, and their hardware if you get my meaning, if you get a room full of
those types, you will never fly.

The fact of the matter was that the erosion that had been encountered on previous flights was
not an unambiguous function of temperature. Lacking slam-dunk data to make their case,
for the Thiokol guys, the only way they were going to stop the train was to stage what would
be, in all liklihood, a career ending moment.

Wayne

 

[CalliArcale]

Well said, Wayne.

The fact of the matter was that the erosion that had been encountered on previous flights was
not an unambiguous function of temperature. Lacking slam-dunk data to make their case,
for the Thiokol guys, the only way they were going to stop the train was to stage what would
be, in all liklihood, a career ending moment.

The irony is that if they *had* staged such a moment, nobody would have realized how close they had come to disaster. The engineers would likely have been either out of a job or transferred laterally into a position where the people they'd just alienated wouldn't have to work with them, and things would've just gone merrily along until, eventually, the disaster happened. (Or didn't happen. NASA could've kept getting lucky. You never know.)

 

[astronaut23]

What is the temp envelope they launch within now. I bet its not anywhere close to what it was on the day 51L takes off. Any fool knows you shouldn't launch in freezing temperatures. They had icicles on the launch pad for crying out loud. Imagine all that stuff flying around at high speed to ding up the tiles.

I don't see anyway anybody can defend the decision that was made that day. It makes my blood boil to think about it really. The truth is they destroyed 7 humans lives and a wonderful spaceship with a pitiful decision.

 

[astronaut23]

BTW...I think the orbiters themselves are fine spacecraft. They have never caused a catastrophe. Its always been the other launching hardware the SRB's o-rings and the fuel tank foam shedding.

And even those other two could have totally been prevented if the shuttle program had been managed properly.

Whats really impressive to me is that the main engines have never cause a catastrophe. At least especially early on in the program. I guess they worked out most the issues on the test stand? I saw a video on the development of those and how they were blowing a bunch of them up early on. It was on the diviculties of building the shuttle engines because of the pressures they had to run, the speeds the turbo pumps were turning at, and the fact they had to be able to throttle them up and down along with the fact they needed to be reusable.

I think the SSME program is an impressive accomplishment.

 

[drwayne]

Well said, Wayne.

The fact of the matter was that the erosion that had been encountered on previous flights was
not an unambiguous function of temperature. Lacking slam-dunk data to make their case,
for the Thiokol guys, the only way they were going to stop the train was to stage what would
be, in all liklihood, a career ending moment.

The irony is that if they *had* staged such a moment, nobody would have realized how close they had come to disaster. The engineers would likely have been either out of a job or transferred laterally into a position where the people they'd just alienated wouldn't have to work with them, and things would've just gone merrily along until, eventually, the disaster happened. (Or didn't happen. NASA could've kept getting lucky. You never know.)

I actually started to write something like that - that when you prevent something from happening, it doesn't happen - and it is often quite difficult to be proven right when something doesn't happen.

One other tangential note - if Challenger had not gone through a big wind shear, then the plug that sealed
the leak probably would not have come loose. A number of weather folks were reassigned after the accident.

Wayne

 

[CalliArcale]

What is the temp envelope they launch within now. I bet its not anywhere close to what it was on the day 51L takes off. Any fool knows you shouldn't launch in freezing temperatures. They had icicles on the launch pad for crying out loud. Imagine all that stuff flying around at high speed to ding up the tiles.

There's always a team that goes out to the pad before launch and inspects it to be sure that no ice buildup is in a position to threaten it. (Ice happens on other launches too. It's hard to avoid when you're working with cryogenics, even when you don't have an ice storm come along, and warm weather can actually lead to more ice forming, since warmer air can hold more moisture to feed a growing icicle.) In the case of STS-51L, they inspected the pad and the vehicle and confirmed that none of the ice was in a position to threaten the vehicle. Ice was very closely looked at in the early stages of the investigation, but was quickly revealed to be a red herring -- it had nothing to do with the accident.

In some respects, this actually contributed to how shocking the accident was. They focused so much on the ice that once they determined that the ice was not a problem, they felt they were free and clear. If you pay too much attention to the elephant in the room, you might not notice the rabid wolf standing behind him....

Believe it or not, lots of rockets launch in freezing temperatures. It's not common in Florida, but the Russians certainly do it. Hard not to, when your most southerly launch site is at 45 degrees north. This has not presented any particular problems for them. The reason cold is a problem for the Shuttle is because of the o-rings in the SRBs, which become less flexible at low temperatures. (Titan IV's solid rocket motors shared the same problem.) If it were not for the SRB o-rings, cold would probably not be a major problem for Shuttle.

 

[tampaDreamer]

spaceflight involves risk.. if you start prosecuting people who make mistakes, we'll never get anything done. did columbus get prosecuted for the people that died in transit to the 'new world'?

 

[aphh]

It's not murder or even manslaughter or anything even remotely related. If you were an astronaut, you would be qualified to determine yourself the quality of many things, among others the competence of management.

As an astronaut you have signed the dotted line. The decision ultimately is yours whether you fly or don't.

Anybody with half the brain understands that government programs and agencies are above all giant jobs programs. It is money laundry. The agencies do not exist to excel or accomplish, but to justify their over-sized budget. If you chose to associate with an agency, you are the risk taker.

You as the risk taker are to blame for any failure of incompetent management or work force of a government agency.

 

[CalliArcale]

I am reminded of a cool quote (without attribution, alas) that is hanging on the wall of my daughter's school.

"A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for."

 

[JonClarke]

Anybody with half the brain understands that government programs and agencies are above all giant jobs programs. It is money laundry. The agencies do not exist to excel or accomplish, but to justify their over-sized budget. If you chose to associate with an agency, you are the risk taker.

You as the risk taker are to blame for any failure of incompetent management or work force of a government agency.

That is just utter garbage when it comes to NASA. It is not a job's program or a money laundry. Iit exists to excel and has done so for 50 years.

 

[aphh]

That is just utter garbage when it comes to NASA. It is not a job's program or a money laundry. Iit exists to excel and has done so for 50 years.

Any government agency is money laundry, plain and simple. They don't need to really accomplish anything, just give the impression of doing so. Anything else than giving the impression of accomplishing something is really not needed, sometimes even unwanted (you accomplish too much, you are being too efficient, as a result budget for next year shrinks).

MeteorWayne posted an article of a old moon pictures taken before Apollo by lunar orbiters. Government agency estimated the cost to reproduce the images to be 6 million. A few dedicated individuals accomplished the task for mere 200 000.

Socialism is crime against humanity, because it places real valuable tangible assets in the hands of low morale and low output people, that could otherwise be used efficiently and for the benefit of the community. Actually there should be so-called "third way", but I'm not going to discuss it further in this thread.

Government: 6 million
Dedicated individuals: 200 000

 

[aphh]

Now that I read what I wrote I could have used less sharp tone, but I had been drinking. The basic idea is still there and correct, but if I wrote it now I would use different wording.

 

[trailrider]

It is true that if all the casandras had a say in when it is "safe" to launch a crewed vehicle, there would be no launches at all! HOWEVER...there is a difference between taking risks and playing it so safe that no progress is ever made. There are risks, calculated risks, and damnfool risks caused by managerial arrogance!

While one can argue that "had there been no windshear, the o-rings would have resealed." Maybe! But the warning signals that all was not well had been there for over a year prior to Challenger's disaster! I can tell you that the post-flight booster reports for the previous August and the April before that contained the information that there had been soot that leaked past at least on seal on both boosters for 120 degree around the circumfrence of the boosters! At the time, no one in the company I worked for had read that. (Including myself.) Why? Because, while my company was the prime contractor on the booster recovery parachute system, we had no cognizance below the forward deck of the boosters. Had I read the reports and said anything to my management, I would have been told to, "Sit down and shut up! That's not our area of responsibility!" In point of fact, that probably would have been right, at least legally. Although I/we may have had some experience with solid propellant rockets, none of us were experts on the booster designs.

But there were engineers who not only worked on the booster designs and operations, but in fact told their managers that they were very concerned about the cold temperatures, and recommended against launch under those conditions. But their managers, browbeaten by the NASA managers at MSFC, and perhaps further up the chain of command, refused to listen to the engineers!

Likewise, when Columbia was on-orbit and several engineers wanted to recommend that the USAF ground-based cameras be employed to examine the orbiter's thermal protection, they were so intimidated by management, that they were afraid to press the point.

I, too, doubt there would be legal standing for prosecution of the managers whose decisions to launch Challenger, and the decisions not to more closely examine Columbia's condition before allowing re-entry. Unfortuately, there are few penalties for arrogance! (In this country, only those who cause bankruptcies, may wind up in the hoosegow.)

Hopefully, some of the changes that have come about following the CAIB report will reduce this. Unfortunately, I remain skeptical. If there is any message I have to NASA management, et al, it is LISTEN TO YOUR ENGINEERS AND TECHNICIANS! That doesn't mean they will have all the answers, nor that engineering/technical considerations are the only ones. But when there are firm concerns raised on technical questions, management had better start asking themselves, like the parachute riggers: "Would I risk my life based on my decision, especially in contravention of my experts?" (This is NOT a rant against STS-125. That is at this point, a calculated risky mission. But, if there are conditions that go beyond the "calculations" then that may be a different story.)

An old NACA/NASA pioneer, Walt Williams, said, "You don't get medals for on-time failures!" Remember it, at times when you get "GO fever"!

Ad LEO! Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!

 

[drwayne]

Semi-pertinent tangent:

I assume everyone is aware of how very close Apollo 13 came to destroying itself during
liftoff*, due to a fault that was known and was corrected on the next stack, but the
decision was made to not delay things by unstacking the 13 stack.

And I assume everyone is familiar with how miserable a failure the last unmanned flight
of the Saturn 5 was before we flew men on it?

Wayne

*I am not referring to the O2 tank explosion, I am referring to second stage flight