Systemic Problems at NASA

In a recent blog entry on NASA, I said the following,

We see the government overriding good decisions already made, in the name of junk science, and over a long period of time. Who, with any sense of pride or integrity, could bear to work in such an institutional climate? Who will be left after the predictable brain drain? And anyone familiar with the bowels of a bureaucracy will, rest assured, understand what things will be like for any conscientious newcomer. Think about all this for a moment.

..

For the engineers working at NASA, their choice really is to continue working there at the risk of their self-respect and mental health or to get the hell out.

It appears that my speculation on the "corporate culture" of NASA was right on the money. All bold is my own.

The final report, however, includes supplemental papers, including one signed by seven members that cites continuing management problems, engineering shortfalls and schedule pressures in the shuttle program.

For example, the members wrote that NASA did not plan its return to shuttle flight by determining what work needed to be done and setting a realistic schedule. As a result, engineers redesigned the shuttle's external fuel tank before knowing how vulnerable the ship's heat shield was to debris impact.

A piece of insulation fell off Columbia's tank during launch and damaged the ship's wing. The shuttle was torn apart by atmospheric forces 16 days later as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere for landing.

The report also said NASA is too willing to accept risks based on past performance, an attitude that doomed the Columbia crew. [Felipe Sediles blogged specifically about this point. -- ed]

Because it had never lost a crew due to debris falling off the tank and striking the shuttle, NASA considered the issue a matter of post-flight maintenance, not flight safety.

The members reserved their harshest criticism for NASA management.

"What we observed, during the return-to-flight effort, was that NASA leadership often did not set the proper tone, establish achievable expectations, or hold people accountable for meeting them," the report said.

"On many occasions, we observed weak understanding of basic program management and systems engineering principles, an abandonment of traditional processes, and a lack of rigor in execution."

But this is nothing. It's a coin-toss as to which of the following is more damning:

(1) In another supplemental report, panel member Charles Daniel, a former NASA engineer, pointed out that NASA never did establish exactly why the chunk of foam fell off from Columbia's tank. Instead, the foam in the area was removed and replaced with electric heaters to ward off potentially dangerous ice formations. [This is aside from the fact that an inferior type of foam had been used. NASA does know that little detail. -- ed]

(2) The report was written before NASA launched shuttle Discovery last month on the agency's first manned mission since the Columbia accident. Several large chunks of foam fell off during that launch as well, prompting NASA to halt shuttle flights again until the problem is fixed.

We launched the shuttle not knowing -- aside from the fact we were using inferior foam -- why the foam came off? And knowing the contents of this report?

Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone damn the profit motive for giving incentives to "cut corners" or "ignore safety". Suppose you're an astronaut. Would you rather have bureaucrats in charge of the design of your ship, bureaucrats who will be able to hide behind their mammoth organization and a report (a big pile of paper) if something goes wrong? Or would you rather have some greedy bastard (This expression suddenly sounds fit for family hour now.) running things who would lose his ass if something bad happens?

I'll go with the greedy bastard.

-- CAV