Engineer who tried to stop Challenger launch, dies

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The cold temperature issue and Boisjoly's objections were just the last in a chain of events. Those booster seals were problematic even in good weather. It was a pervasive NASA shift from "Can't Fail" to "Don't Tell Me Anything I Don't Want to Hear."

The rings were eroding (albeit not completely through) even in warmer launches. This was NOT expected to happen, but rather than figure out why they were failing in ways they weren't expecting, they assumed that since they were not burning all the way through that they had that much safety margin.

NASA doesn't EVER learn. If you read the representative reports, the mindset and behavior patterns on Challenger were exactly the same that killed the Apollo 1 guys as well.
 
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flyingron said:
NASA doesn't EVER learn. If you read the representative reports, the mindset and behavior patterns on Challenger were exactly the same that killed the Apollo 1 guys as well.
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I read the reports back many year ago and was blown away at the NASA culture...
 
Kelvin said:
I read the reports back many year ago and was blown away at the NASA culture...
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That culture permeated up and down the entire system including subcontractors like the one I worked for. Speaking out meant an end to your career. Pretty much why I was asked to change careers. ;)

And yes, the Space Shuttles were experimental. :rofl:
 
Failure is often rewarded. Today there is no space shuttle, no us vehicle to launch astronauts and nasa's budget is larger than before.
 
The true product of NASA is not technology. It is not advancement in space travel. It is not going where no man has gone before. It is national pride, and we don't have that anymore. It has become passe.
 
Anthony said:
The true product of NASA is not technology. It is not advancement in space travel. It is not going where no man has gone before. It is national pride, and we don't have that anymore. It has become passe.
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They stopped advancing space *travel* a long long time ago. Doing laps around the planet is what has become passe. It shouldn't have, but it has. Probably because it couldn't be easily extended down to anywhere near a price point anyone "normal" could reach.

Virgin is, of course, trying to change that... but it'll still cost you as much as a house costs in some areas of the country.
 
flyingron said:
NASA doesn't EVER learn.
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I disagree, I think they do learn and statistics show it.
If STS was to operate another 10-15 years there would probably be another accident though no one right now would have a clue what kind of failure it could be.
There is always going to be somebody who would claim that something is not safe. NASA would never launch anything if it tried to design and build things that would satisfy everyone all the time.

By the same token there is always someobody claiming that stock market is about to collapse and when it finally collapses somebody happens to be right.
 
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olasek said:
By the same token there is always someobody claiming that stock market is about to collapse and when it finally collapses somebody happens to be right.
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The end of the world is near!
 
olasek said:
I disagree, I think they do learn and statistics show it.
If STS was to operate another 10-15 years there would probably be another accident though no one right now would have a clue what kind of failure it could be.
There is always going to be somebody who would claim that something is not safe. NASA would never launch anything if it tried to design and build things that would satisfy everyone all the time.

By the same token there is always someobody claiming that stock market is about to collapse and when it finally collapses somebody happens to be right.
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No doubt NASA has pushed the envelope and for the most part has shown to be an outstanding group of people.... What tarnishes their glowing record is some darn DUMB mistakes.........

1- Challanger blew up because they could not incorporate a O ring that was pliable enough at 33f.... Even tho they cost NASA hundreds of thousands of dollars each.... Heck, I can buy rubber tires for my car /truck that will not fail and are still pliable at -50f and they cost 80 dollars..........

2- Then they had videos of FOD hitting the shuttle on launch, and did they closely inspect the orbitor for damage while it was doing laps around the earth . NO........... They could have mounted a cam on the robotic arm to do this.. or pointed Hubble at it to look close...

3- Speaking of Hubble... they launched it with a improperly ground reflecting mirror.... Like,,,,, how did that pass their " state of the art" quality control tests.:dunno:

4- Then they sent up a Mars Lander and used metric instead of US conversion tables to land it on Mars....... Opps... hit the surface at 600+ MPH..
Where was quality control on that one. It got by dozens if not hundreds of high paid engineers, who have now retired on huge benefit packages. and guess what,,, us taxpayers get to pay them till they die...

In the early 60's NASA launched a couple of deep space probes...with no idea of the kazillions of obsticles they needed to overcome but guessed right, and I believe both are still sending back data from billions of miles away. From then and the first moon walk NASA went the way of the Schwinn Bikes... In their day they were the cutting edge of Americana... now they are both the laughing stock of the world... IMHO..

Ben.
 
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They didn't just have video of FOD, they had documented actual damage on the orbiters after they'd returned and were being turned for the next flight. They just didn't believe the damage could be of a level to cause a catastrophic loss of vehicle event.

There were people, even after Columbia disintegrated who were truly surprised at the damage the air cannon and foam chunk did to the leading edge in that now-famous test video.

Not being an apologist for them. To the contrary I saw "video" and thought, no... they had much more than just video pointing loudly at the foam loss problem. They just culturally wanted the problem to just go away.
 
N801BH said:
In the early 60's NASA launched a couple of deep space probes...
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This was actually in the 70's, Pioneers in the early- and Voyagers in the late-.
That's the nature of the beast you have failures right next to spectacular successes.

Now they are both the laughing stock of the world... IMHO...
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Hmm, few in the world really laugh today at NASA's achievements specially vis-a-vis latest Phobos-Grunt debacle. It is enough to visit typical forums devoted solely to space exploration. You compare NASA to the "next best" and there is simply no comparison.
 
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olasek said:
This was actually in the 70's, Pioneers in the early- and Voyagers in the late-.
That's the nature of the beast you have failures right next to spectacular successes.

Hmm, few in the world really laugh today at NASA's achievements specially vis-a-vis latest Phobos-Grunt debacle. It is enough to visit typical forums devoted solely to space exploration. You compare NASA to the "next best" and there is simply no comparison.
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I stand corrected on the Pioneer and Voyager missions.....

Pioneer started in the late 50's and continues till the early 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_program.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast03may_1/

Your comment on the "Next best" is really hard to quantify as the US has spent 100's of billions of dollars on our space program.... The next closest country spent a VERY small fraction of that on theirs...

How do you add apples and oranges?
 
N801BH said:
Pioneer started in the late 50's
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Really the only Pioneers that made headlines and that everyone is talking about are Pioneers 10 and 11. They both launched in the 70's.
as the US has spent 100's of billions of dollars on our space program.... the next closest country spent a VERY small fraction
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This is simply not true. You obviously can't compare absolute dollars with Russians, their currency was not exchangable, they could achieve equivalent result for the fraction of the price, salaries, everything else was not comparable, but their effort was enormous (specially their effort to land man on the Moon). After 30 years and dozens of attempts they really can't even land unmanned spacecraft on Mars, nor send anything beyond Mars orbit, so even though $$ are not comparable the size of the effort is.
As to European ESA the dollar figures are very much comparable and their budget is roughly 1/3 of NASA's and has been for many, many years. Are ESA's results 1/3 of NASA's, not even close.
 
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olasek said:
Really the only Pioneers that made headlines and that everyone is talking about are Pioneers 10 and 11. They both launched in the 70's.
This is simply not true. You obviously can't compare absolute dollars with Russians, their currency was not exchangable, they could achieve equivalent result for the fraction of the price, salaries, everything else was not comparable, but their effort was enormous (specially their effort to land man on the Moon). After 30 years and dozens of attempts they really can't even land unmanned spacecraft on Mars, nor send anything beyond Mars orbit, so even though $$ are not comparable the size of the effort is.
As to European ESA the dollar figures are very much comparable and their budget is roughly 1/3 of NASA's and has been for many, many years. Are ESA's results 1/3 of NASA's, not even close.
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Thanks for the details............................

I am betting you either work for NASA or are a retired NASA employee..

Ben.
 
N801BH said:
I am betting you either work for NASA or are a retired NASA employee..
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Wrong bet, never worked for NASA but I wish I had. They do a lot of non-space related research work in aeronautics and that would be nice place to be. But I was always a keen spectator of everything space related, dates back to my childhood in Poland, happen to know well a fellow who's got the largest space memorabilia collection in Europe.
 
olasek said:
Wrong bet, never worked for NASA but I wish I had. They do a lot of non-space related research work in aeronautics and that would be nice place to be. But I was always a keen spectator of everything space related, dates back to my childhood in Poland, happen to know well a fellow who's got the largest space memorabilia collection in Europe.
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Looks like I lost the bet.......................... I was just basing it on your public profile here on POA.


<LI class=profilefield_category>About olasek Display Name olasek Location Oakland, CA Occupation NASA, Air Traffic Management

Seeya...
 
N801BH said:
I was just basing it on your public profile here on POA.
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Absolutely valid question ...I am not employee of NASA, my paycheck doesn't come from NASA, but I happen to be a temporay contractor at NASA Ames facility since my employer, UC Santa Cruz has a contract with FAA and the location of FAA's offices where we work is at NASA Ames. Yea, I know, it is complicated.
 
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N801BH said:
No doubt NASA has pushed the envelope and for the most part has shown to be an outstanding group of people.... What tarnishes their glowing record is some darn DUMB mistakes.........

1- Challanger blew up because they could not incorporate a O ring that was pliable enough at 33f.... Even tho they cost NASA hundreds of thousands of dollars each.... Heck, I can buy rubber tires for my car /truck that will not fail and are still pliable at -50f and they cost 80 dollars..........


Ben.
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So. Ben. What would be the upper temperature limit of that 80 dollar tire?

I'm guessing it's kind of important. Any inkling why??

On a side note, on one of my jobs in construction back in the day I had the pleasure of bugging out from a chemical plant we were building because some engineer spec'd Orings good for -30-300f and then exposed then to product that could vary from -40-400f. I'm grateful we didn't have hot-work going on nearby or the outcome would have been spectacular and newsworthy.
 
Doggtyred said:
So. Ben. What would be the upper temperature limit of that 80 dollar tire?

I'm guessing it's kind of important. Any inkling why??

On a side note, on one of my jobs in construction back in the day I had the pleasure of bugging out from a chemical plant we were building because some engineer spec'd Orings good for -30-300f and then exposed then to product that could vary from -40-400f. I'm grateful we didn't have hot-work going on nearby or the outcome would have been spectacular and newsworthy.
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My 80 dollar tire meets all the parameters of normal driving needs.. It stays flexible down to - 50f or so and probably up to 300f... I don't intend to be driving over hot coals so the upper limit really does NOT concern me.. If I wanted to expose my vehicle and myself to extreme heat I guess I would go the NASA route and spend 100,000's of thousands per tire and hope the vendor was honest and furnished the item that met spec... Of course I would need to duplicate NASA's quality control structure and have hundreds of highly paid engineers on staff to confirm those specs were met, and hope they don't lie about their test results... History is pretty much spelling out the end results though. Show me success and I will applaud their glory.... show me a obvious failure and I want to see people fired and maybe even charged with fraud.. Not ONE person was fired for the Challanger fiasco..

Any inkling why ?:dunno::dunno:
 
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