MIKE ROSS wrote in a message to Charles Angelich:

MR> "Charles Angelich" wrote to "Mike Ross" (08 Jul
03  02:46:02)  ---
MR> on the topic of "Shuttle Columbia Tests"

CA> Not to belittle your comments in any way but frankly who cares?

MR> I share your anger and apathy. Actually perhaps the real problem is 
MR> the apathy. Apathy in particular from a government who just wants 
MR> results, such as budget cutbacks, or flashy headlines, without 
MR> regard to the possible endangering of the people involved. I'm not 
MR> saying the government deliberately causes this but the results are 
MR> the same.

The point being,  when this whole thing started up,  it was in response to
what the then Soviet Union was doing,  in terms of putting Sputnik in
orbit. At that time it was government vs. government.  These days the
majority of the reasons for going there are not governmental,  and it
shouldn't be a function of government to do that and to keep anybody in the
private sector from doing it.

CA> NASA keeps waving this as a huge mystery as though solving it will 
CA> make everything OK.

MR> It wasn't a mystery to the engineers who complained about it and 
MR> who were ignored by the project manager.

The only mystery at this point is the identity of those who made that
fateful decision.

CA> There are contingency plans and there were requests made for hires 
CA> pix of the shuttle while it was in orbit to examine it for damage 
CA> and they were denied arbitrarilly by a person or persons that I 
CA> would put on trial for homicide if it was up to me.

MR> BTW the shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore resigned his job. He 
MR> may have been pushed out but he may simply have been whisked away 
MR> into the shadows from the embarassing scrutiny of the limelight.

Interesting tidbit,  but without knowing more about who made what decisions
and how the agency is structured on the inside,  that doesn't tell us
enough.

CA> NASA can't distract me with "watch Mr. Wizard" cr*p. They _killed_ 
CA> those people with their incompetent behaviour and should be 
CA> arrested and made to defend themselves for the crimes they 
CA> committted.

MR> It isn't really fair to make a manager responsible for every single 
MR> little rivet that goes into making that spacecraft. Shit happens!

Yeah,  and when it does you're supposed to deal with it,  not ignore it and
hope that it won't be a problem!

MR> But in the case of Columbia clearly decisions were taken based on
MR> groundless circumstantial assumptions.

Just so.

MR> IOW just because there were no accidents with previous foam falling 
MR> events didn't mean there was no problem. Whether the decisions 
MR> taken were right or wrong doesn't really matter now but the basis 
MR> on which they were made was flawed. That's what the manager's 
MR> judgment or lack of is really responsible for.

Yep.

CA> NASA has outlived it's useful life and should be shut down period.

MR> I think you're going too far but NASA should be restructured as a 
MR> scientific overseeing agency rather than as an integrator of space 
MR> capabilities. The building and launching duties should belong to 
MR> separate "rocketry" agencies and the scientific goals and standards
MR> of these overseen by NASA. In other words the 2nd "A" stands for 
MR> "Administration". As such NASA should remain involved in the 
MR> training of personel and steering of the space program, whatever it
MR> may be.

More government agencies?  I don't think that's the optimum solution here.

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