Quote:
Originally Posted by R Leo
BHF is well south of the track...>100 miles or so. We didn't own the place in 2003 tho.
It wasn't much of a leap to realize that the fight surfaces were involved; NASA already knew debris from the external tank had impacted the wings of shuttles in prior launches.
I used to be a partner in a governmental training business. One of our instructors had been assistant auditor general for NASA just prior to the loss of Columbia; he didn't have much nice to say about the 'corporate' culture there. Specifically, that deep down, not much had changed internally post-Challenger. An excellent read on the facts behind Challenger's loss can be found in Dr. Richard Feynman's book: What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character
I'd imagine that if Feynman had still been alive when Columbia went down, he wouldn't have been asked to be on the Columbia commission.
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Yeah, Feynman sure busted them big time in the book. I remember the video feed from a news conference in which he accused NASA of pressuring for a certain determination. Bet it's on Youtube. (found it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAi_9quzUY&feature=related )
My brother says there is a lot of tension between engineers who think getting it right is more important than money, and money counters who think projects should run within budgets. There should be tension, but not domination.