Discovery Launch -- Disaster in the Making?

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I was watching the news this morning and saw that the Discovery is due to launch today....but the comment was made that the fuel sensor problem has somehow been fixed and isn't occurring any longer (under the same conditions as last week, we presume), but no one knows why. ??? We send people into space after a problem has occurred -- we think the problem is fixed, but we don't know what caused it in the first place?? I have huge problems with that. These are human lives we're talking about.....and supposedly scientists in charge here. Since when do you think a problem is solved when you cure the symptoms, but don't know the cause?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/13/space.shuttle/

 

If we can't make airplanes that don't crash or ships that don't sink, what makes people think that we could make spaceships that don't explode?

My point being that there will always be risk. The goal is to make the risk acceptable.

Heck sometimes, my computer doesn't boot correctly, then I restart and it works fine. I don't know why, but I can live with it

 

You're also not flying out in space, with human lives at risk.

I know that the risks are weighed...however, if the problem was serious enough to scrap the launch to begin with, then it ought to be serious enough to find out the cause.

 

Alan Shepard

 

You got it. Sad to say.

 

As I mentioned in the FAI, none of us is a part of the decision-making process at NASA. We can't tell what sort of testing program they went through to try and replicate that initial failure. Is it completely impossible that it was a one-time thing? None of us will ever know.

Yes, it happened once and therefore could happen again. But is the probablility of that recurrence 1 in 10 or 1E-10? What is the potential result of that failure - loss of life or the need to rely on a backup sensor? That's the kind of information that goes into the launch decision that general news media never reports.

It's all a risk-benefit analysis, as is everything that happens everywhere, everyday. Some of these analyses are just more formal than others, and some are more transparent to public scrutiny.

I realize that backseat driving and Monday-morning quarterbacking are human rights given by Divine providence. I also recognize that any organization where public money is being spent is going to be subject to greater criticism of its decisions. But who gets to draw the line at what risk is acceptable or not - average folks or people who are considered experts? At what point should people be trusted that they'll do their jobs to the best of their abilities?

 

It was just a topic for discussion, Rally. No one's trying to make any decisions here.

 

Right - no one is making decisions, but the decisions that have been made are being second-guessed and criticized.

Personally, I think the question I asked is an essential element of the topic of discussion at hand.

 

Rally, it was the attitude in which it was said --like who are we to criticize such an organization's actions -- when this particular organization has quite a LONG history of disregarding recommendations against launches, putting pieces of crap up in space on the reliance of "hail mary" tactics. For years, the Administration was fraught with contractors producing faulty equipment, with the FULL knowledge of NASA administrators -- yet the launches proceeded. There were numerous cases of scientists knowing of problems, but backing down when push came to shove -- not willing to stand up for what was right. If ever there was an organization that we SHOULD question, uh..I think this would be it.

 

My understanding is that NASA, unable to replicate and isolate the cause of the fuel sensor failure, opted to build in a redundancy to the unit. There are now multiple layers of fuel sensors, I think four, in the event another chooses to fail.

I wonder if NASA isn't under some outside pressure to get the shuttle missions back off the ground in order to satisfy the agenda of some other missions.

 

They always have been, it seems. Even way back to the Cold War....there was always the rush for the "firsts". I imagine the scientists there were under tremendous amounts of pressure to produce.

 

Let me amend my sentiments, as I apparently wasn't clear in my earlier posts:

I agree that NASA needs scrutiny. I just don't think that what we're doing here counts as viable scrutiny, it's kibbitzing. Not that there's anything wrong with kibbitzing. People who don't have all the answers usually ask the best questions.

As for the relative risk issue... my attitude was shaped by 7 years in the nuclear power industry. Every aspect of every project has some level of risk. If the condition had a high probability of leading to dire consequences, the launch would have been scrubbed, I'm sure of it.

So, on a purely academic basis, how do others here define a "disaster"? How dire must the consequences be? Massive loss of life, or even a single death? How likely must those consequences be before you'll stop doing whatever it is you're doing that incurs the risk?

 

Hey, I was just quoting Alan Shepard -- I would assume he could be considered an expert (although he made that quote during Mercury).

 

This is pure speculation on my part, but I imagine most astronauts, given 50/50 odds of survival, would drink Tang from orbit rather than a mixed drink in Mission Control.

Of course their steed is a mighty expensive one...we have to get more than one trick out that pony.

(I think from now on I am going to speak entirely in analogies....starting now!....I mean...The arrow has been loosed!)

.....

(OK, that is stupid...I'm done.)