Faustian Fools
Terrance F. Flaherty
Lycidas at worldnet.att.net
Mon Dec 6 11:14:32 CST 1999
A NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory internal peer review
team reported that Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Colo.,
who manufactured the craft, and the mission navigation team
used different measurement systems. One used the English
system and the other used the metric system.
ABCNEWS.com reported that Lockheed Martin calculated
thrust using the English measurement, pounds, and NASA
engineers measured it using the metric unit newtons.
"People sometimes make errors," said Dr. Edward Weiler,
NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science. "The
problem here was not the error, it was the failure of
NASA's
systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our
processes to detect the error. That's why we lost the
spacecraft."
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin named Arthur G.
Stephenson the head of the Mars Climate Orbiter Mission
Failure Investigation Board. Stephenson is also director of
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Goldin asked Stephenson and the rest of the board to
research all areas of the failure and see how it could
effect
other missions. According to NASA reports, initial findings
are expected to be reported to NASA Headquarters,
Washington, D.C., by Nov. 3.
Mars Orbiter was one craft in a series of Mars exploration
missions. Mars Polar Lander, another craft in the series,
is
scheduled to land near Mars' south pole on Dec. 3.
"Our clear short-term goal is to maximize the likelihood of
a
successful landing of the Mars Polar Lander on December
3," said Weiler. "The lessons from these reviews will be
applied across the board in the future."
Oh I feels safe now, don't you?
My pathos would surely make you chuckle,
If you had not forgotten how to laugh.
---Faust, the devil to god.
I have had enough of empty headed magic. Can't you tell me
anything without all this mystery?
---Faust, Faust to the devil
"All things transitory are merely parables....the things
that cannot be expressed on earth are done through love.
Eternal Womanhood leads us on to perfection."
---Faust, The Chorus to Thomas Pynchon
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