NP Bush asleep at the wheel, again

[pynchonoid]

Nasa chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings 
Peter Beaumont
Sunday February 2, 2003
The Observer 

Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised
last summer with the White House by a former Nasa
engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt
all further shuttle flights until safety issues had
been addressed. 

In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served
with Nasa for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote
to President George W. Bush warning that his
'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another
catastrophic space shuttle accident'. 

During his last 11 years at Nasa, Nelson served as a
mission operations evaluator for proposed advanced
space transportation projects. He was on the initial
design team for the space shuttle. He participated in
every shuttle upgrade until his retirement. 

Listing a series of mishaps with shuttle missions
since 1999, Nelson warned in his letter that Nasa
management and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel
have failed to respond to the growing warning signs of
another shuttle accident. Since 1999 the vehicle had
experienced a number of potentially disastrous
problems: 

· 1999 - Columbia's launch was delayed by a hydrogen
leak and Discovery was grounded with damaged wiring,
contaminated engine and dented fuel line; 

· January 2000 - Endeavor was delayed because of
wiring and computer failures; 

· August 2000 - inspection of Columbia revealed 3,500
defects in wiring; 

· October 2000 - the 100th flight of the shuttle was
delayed because of a misplaced safety pin and concerns
with the external tank; 

· April 2002 - a hydrogen leak forced the cancellation
of the Atlantis flight; 

· July 2002 - the inspector general reported that the
shuttle safety programme was not properly managed; 

· August 2002 - the shuttle launch system was grounded
after fuel line cracks were discovered. 

White House officials rejected Nelson's plea for a
moratorium. He tried to talk again to Nasa's
administration about his worries in October but was
again rebuffed. 

Yesterday Nelson told The Observer that he feared the
Columbia disaster was the culmination of 'disastrous
mismanagement' by Nasa's most senior officials and
would inevitably lead to the moratorium he was calling
for. 

'I became concerned about safety issues in Nasa after
Challenger. I think what happened is that very slowly
over the years Nasa's culture of safety became eroded.


'But when I tried to raise my concerns with Nasa's new
administrator, I received two reprimands for not going
through the proper channels, which discouraged other
people from coming forward with their concerns. When
it came to an argument between a middle-ranking
engineer and the astronauts and administration, guess
who won. 

'One of my biggest complaints has been that we should
have been looking for ways to develop crew escape
modules, which Nasa has constantly rejected.' 

His claims emerged against a background of growing
concern over the management of safety issues by Nasa. 

They followed similar warnings last April by the
former chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory
panel, Richard Bloomberg, who said: 'In all of the
years of my involvement, I have never been as
concerned for space shuttle safety as now.' 

Bloomberg blamed the deferral or elimination of
planned safety upgrades, a diminished workforce as a
result of hiring freezes, and an ageing infrastructure
for the advisory panel's findings. 

His warning echoed earlier concern about key shuttle
safety issues. In September 2001 at a Senate hearing
into shuttle safety, senators and independent experts
warned that budget and management problems were
putting astronauts lives at risk. At the centre of
concern were claims that a budget overspend of almost
$5 billion (£3bn) had led to a culture in Nasa whereby
senior managers treated shuttle safety upgrades as
optional. 

Among those who spoke out were Democratic Senator Bill
Nelson of Florida, who warned: 'I fear that if we
don't provide the space shuttle programme with the
resources it needs for safety upgrades, our country is
going to pay a price we can't bear. 

'We're starving Nasa's shuttle budget and thus greatly
increasing the chance of a catastrophic loss.' 

Although Nasa officials said that improvements were
being made they admitted that more needed to be done. 

A year earlier, a General Accounting Office report had
warned that the loss of experienced engineers and
technicians in the space shuttle programme was
threatening the safety of future missions just as Nasa
was preparing to increase its annual number of
launches to build the International Space Station. 

The GAO cited internal Nasa documents showing
'workforce reductions are jeopardising Nasa's ability
to safely support the shuttle's planned flight rate'. 

Space agency officials discovered in late 1999 that
many employees didn't have the necessary skills to
properly manage avionics, mechanical engineering and
computer systems, according to the GAO report. 

The GAO assembled a composite portrait of the shuttle
programme's workforce that showed twice as many
workers over 60 years of age than under 30. It
assessed that the number of workers then nearing
retirement could jeopardise the programme's ability to
transfer leadership roles to the next generation to
support the higher flight rate necessary to build the
space station. 


<http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,887236,00.html>

-Doug, wishing Bush had paid more attention to these
warnings instead of planning how to kill more Iraqis



=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com