Sunday, September 14, 2003
Corner-cutting on safety and dogmatic management at NASA has turned dreams of space exploration into a ... Galactic Storm
NEWS-JOURNAL EDITORIAL
NASA, as an acronym, once evoked the endless possibilities of space exploration. From John Kennedy´s 1961 challenge to land a man on the moon to Alan Shepherd´s one-handed, 400-yard lunar golf shot 10 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was synonymous with success and imagination. Adversity was no obstacle. The ingenuity that saved the crew of Apollo 13 after its module´s oxygen, water and electricity were knocked out seemed only to prove NASA´s prowess and embolden its ambitions.
The story since the end of the Apollo flights has gone off course. By then popular interest in the space program had dimmed, the unexpected costs and limitations of space shuttle flights hadn´t lived up to their promises and NASA had been criticized as a complacent, bloated agency. The Viking Mars probe in the mid-1970s was delayed two years and was $600 million over budget. The first space shuttle flight in 1981 was actually four years late and $7 billion over budget. The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 was seven years late, $1.2 billion over budget - and malfunctioned once in orbit. In 1986, the Challenger exploded. By 1991, a headline in The Wall Street Journal could quip with a straight face: NASA Satellite Project Accomplishes Incredible Feat: Staying Within Budget.
“Like the owner of a costly but temperamental car who keeps trying to make do,” William Broad wrote in The New York Times on the 10th anniversary of the Challenger explosion, NASA “has invested more than $5 billion since the accident to rebuild the nation´s fleet of winged spaceships and enhance the safety of hundreds of parts and systems. Even so, NASA officials see the risk of catastrophe as roughly 1 in 145 missions for each ship and worry that another disaster is almost inevitable.”
So it was. A year ago, Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry. Investigators blamed a chunk of falling insulation that hit the wing on take-off. Hot air entered the wing during re-entry, melting it and destroying the ship. It is possible that a rescue mission might have saved the seven astronauts aboard had the damage been recognized for what it was, had a military satellite´s camera scanned Columbia during its mission. But mission managers never thought to ask and couldn´t analyze what they didn´t see to begin with, so a rescue wasn´t even considered.
The nature of that very blind spot makes up the other part of the justifiably scathing report released in August on NASA´s culture and organization. According to the report, at least eight opportunities to see the damage were missed because of ingrained resistance to unconventional thinking or information that didn´t fit the mission managers´ thinking. But the report isn´t saying anything particularly new. Diane Vaughn, author of The Challenger Launch Decision, a book published seven years ago, said back then that NASA was again experiencing the sort of economic strains that hobbled the agency at the time of the Challenger explosion: “The new leaders stress safety, but they are fighting for dollars and making budget cuts.”
Corner-cutting on safety and dogmatic management are two different things. NASA appears to have been plagued by both. It is difficult to say to what extent budgetary pressures created the sort of environment that fostered both problems. But such pressures surely played a role. The questions now are: Can NASA shed its bureaucratic hobbles and reclaim the cutting edge of space exploration? Can it do so with the shuttle? And must it do so with manned space flights? The answer, in every case, is a qualified yes.
It is true that the shuttle program has cost the agency more than it should have, that it has diverted billions of dollars that could have been spent on unmanned but valuable projects such as planetary exploration. But budgeting for the unexplored has never been an exact science. The Apollo program more or less met its deadlines, but it, too, was at least $8 billion over budget. The excitement it generated veiled that missed mark. NASA has had trouble generating the same kind of excitement lately, which is one reason Congress has cut funding and questioned the agency´s relevance. Yet for all the private space pioneers and European, Chinese or Brazilian attempts at space exploration, NASA is still the only agency capable of providing the high-risk, high-yield research necessary for a frontier-busting space program. The shuttle is necessary for the international space station, which Congress still supports. The fleet is getting old and may have to be retired in the next 10 years anyway. But that should open the way to the next generation of safer, cheaper crafts that have been envisioned all along.
NASA´s unmanned program´s many successes, from Hubble´s astronomical payoff (since it was repaired thanks to a shuttle mission) to two relatively inexpensive crafts´ imminent roving over Mars, are proof that the agency still has no credible rival - and that the nature of space exploration is virtually as diverse as space itself. Manned and unmanned exploration still belong within NASA´s mission in tandem - only jettison the culture of scrimping and tunnel-visions. And for that matter, Congress should abandon its own brand of earthbound bean-counting and give NASA a break.
Investigation Board´s Key Recommendations for NASA:
– Begin an aggressive program to eliminate all shedding of debris from the external fuel tank.
– Increase the shuttle´s ability to sustain minor debris damage.
– For missions to the space station, make it possible to inspect damage to the shuttle´s thermal protection system and make emergency repairs.
– Upgrade the imaging system so it can provide at least three useful views of the shuttle at liftoff.
– Arrange with the agency that operates spy satellites to make images of each flight in orbit.
– Require that at least two employees attend all final closeouts, when parts of the shuttle are sealed before flight.
– Carry out an expanded training program in which the mission management team faces safety issues beyond those of launching and ascent.
– Submit annual reports to Congress on independent safety and engineering programs.
– Improve preflight photography of safety systems and make images immediately available.
– Develop computer models to evaluate damage from debris strikes.
– Obtain enough spare parts to ensure that decisions about maintenance are not affected by pressures of schedules, costs, etc.
– Develop sophisticated means to inspect all wiring, even in areas that are now inaccessible. Establish an independent engineering agency that is responsible for technical requirements and all waivers.
– Give NASA´s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance direct authority over the shuttle program´s safety organization, and independent financing.
SOURCE: The New York Times
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