Remembrance and hats

        Twenty-five years ago today I was making my way back to campus on a clear, cold morning. I was headed up Dickson past a few of the more interesting places on that street. As I passed one shop with televisions in the display window, I saw images of this bright, azure sky with a strange cloud trail rising through it. I had no idea what it meant and could hear nothing. Then in the midst of this Cappra-esque moment I realized with horror that the Shuttle had exploded. Numbly I trudged back to my dorm wondering what this could mean.

        It took several weeks for the whole story to come out. Someone at NASA had warned of potential problems with the boosters but schedule pressures were mounting and to delay was to not be a team player. How ever could the mythical organization that put men on the Moon fail is such an egregious fashion? There were rumours that this would be the end of the space program for America. I was quite afraid those rumours might become true.

        Little did I imagine that three years later I would be hired on by that very organization which had recovered from the disaster and was busy flying Shuttles and designing a Space Station. Amazingly I was hired into Mission Operations Directorate (MOD), Gene Kranz' organization. Let me tell you it was his. His fingerprints and style were in evidence everywhere. Never have I encountered an organization that more clearly reflected a single man's character and vision as MOD at that time.

        As a new employee I was sent to MOD Phase I, which was to help new hires like myself learn about MOD, JSC and NASA so that we weren't quite as staggeringly ignorant as we were when we showed up. The class was filled with young, fresh faced engineers like me. We were impressionable in a way that is hard to remember. The Challenger disaster was a subject of discussion for a good part of one day. I had a spirited exchange with the instructor of that session. My issue was that the person who warned of the impending disaster was correct and should not have been silenced. The instructor was likely trying to impart some perspective but what I remember is he seemed to blame the whistle-blower for being so loud. I found, and still find, this attitude unacceptable. It concerned me that perhaps MOD & NASA had not learned a damn thing from the death of seven people a scant three years before.

        Then Kranz came to visit. In later years I learned he was a fighter-pilot in WWII, as were a couple of his deputies. These were men who knew what it meant to have a best friend simply vanish in an instant. Kranz knew what danger was and what it took to face such risks. He was honest with us about Challenger. In fact he made it clear that when a disaster happened again, we would be better prepared to deal with the aftermath. When, not if. We had learned it seems. We no longer kidded ourselves that this was all safe as a flight to Philly.

        Then came February First, 2003. Another clear, crisp day in Houston. I'd slept in because the boys were getting older and it was possible to do so. Mike Brookover called me that morning and Amy handed me the phone.
        "The Shuttle is breaking up over Texas"
        "What?" Truly I could not fathom what he was telling me.
        "The Shuttle is breaking up over Texas. Turn on the TV."
        I did, and dear God it was, or rather had.

        I'd not felt a blow to the gut like this. Even 9/11 was terrible but in a different way. We were not supposed to let a thing like this happen again. We had failed and that made it so much worse. Kevin Hames and I ran into work to try to find something, anything we could to help. There were a few things we could do but the work plan was in full swing before we arrived. The lessons from Challenger paid dividends that day. NASA had a plan and we worked that plan.

        Having a plan to work eased some of the sense of loss but the past could not be changed and we had to face that. Frankly Columbia put so much in perspective. What mattered, what did not, things have been much clearer since that dreadful day. The ironies of that tragedy struck hard. For instance take the Torah that was onboard. It was smuggled through the Holocaust with the Nazi machine doing everything in its power to destroy it. Only to be destroyed by a failure of a marvel of modern engineering. That stays with me to this day. What we do each and every day may be vastly more important than we can possibly know.

        We learned a great deal more after Columbia and made the lessons more widely known than the first time around. Challenger was all about the O-rings. With the CAIB report we learned of all of the various other failures inherent in the Shuttle design. After reading that was when I realized we need to retire this old workhorse before it bites us a third time. The Agency came to a similar conclusion, which is why we are ramping this thing down now. It is a magnificent and capable machine but it is more un-recoverably dangerous than other options.

        I'll not dive into the technical issues but this was the reason for the choice of a vehicle to carry people and one to carry cargo. It makes it possible to focus on safely for the former and performance on the latter. Now Congress is asking us to build a heavy lift cargo vehicle with the option of flying people. Such a move would reject what we have learned the hard way.

        Today we are retiring the Shuttle and looking for other options to take people to and from space. Space X and Orbital are bringing some great ideas forward. They are well worth pursuing. Yet when I hear Mr. Musk or others speak casually about space launches, how they can be done more efficiently and effectively than NASA does them today, it gives me pause. Certainly there are some efficiencies business acumen can bring to bear and these folks are bright, clever, dedicated people. I pray that they will be completely successful and will find ways to do what we at NASA have done for so long, relieving us of that task so that we may focus on other matters.

        Still I wonder do they understand, in their bones, the truly dangerous nature of launching humans into space? When I hear of "streamlining the launch process" I wonder what seemingly extraneous efforts are being put aside? There is an assumption that space travel can be made almost arbitrarily cheap. Perhaps there are massive savings to be had that I can't see and these good folks can. I hope so. Yet accelerating human beings to 17,000mph carries inherent risks that will never be absent. Ameliorating or controlling those risks is expensive. At some point making it cheaper will mean allowing for more risk. Does the Congress understand that there likely is a floor of cost below which the probability of loss of crew is unacceptably high? The Shuttle success rate stands at 99.5%. And that is with 14 people dead. How many percentage points are we willing to shave off?

        Space travel is wondrous and inspiring and absolutely unforgiving. Calamities will occur. The question is will we fail brilliantly or foolishly?

        "Put on your management hat"? Seems they have that one. Perhaps we should ask if they have any others.

        Ad Astra Per Aspera,
        Kevin