More NASA Bungling

Everyone who reads this blog most certainly knows of the Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy. It burned up on re-entry in February 2003. Then there is The Challenger which blew up shortly after take-off in 1986. In both instances bad decisions by NASA cost astronauts their lives. It could be said NASA bureaucrats don't take the safety of those men and women into space seriously.

If you read the following article from today's Sun-Sentinel, the same may be applied to the residents of Florida. In 2002, Space Shuttle Endeavor may have gone into space without a critical self-destruct system operating used to destroy errant rockets.

In an apparently unprecedented move, the safety officers were overruled after a phone conversation between Brig. Gen. Donald Pettit, commander of the Air Force's 45th Space Wing, and space center Director Roy Bridges.

Endeavour launched minutes later in violation of flight rules designed to protect the public.

Those and other findings are detailed in a 2005 internal briefing on the incident written by investigators with NASA's Office of the Inspector General. The draft, a copy of which was obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, concluded that the "Entire Florida Central Coast [was] placed at UNKNOWN but INCREASED risk."

Despite those findings, NASA Inspector General Robert "Moose" Cobb derailed the inquiry and declared the issue an Air Force matter last year, according to investigators familiar with the case.

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The Orlando Sentinel interviewed five current or former investigators in NASA's Inspector General's Office, as well as a safety official at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, for this story. All requested anonymity because of concerns they would face retribution for speaking publicly.

All rockets launched from Cape Canaveral are equipped with explosive devices to destroy them if they veer off course.

Both of the shuttle's pencil-shaped booster rockets have such devices, which range safety officers can detonate by remote control.

As with other critical functions, the so-called command-destruct system has a backup communication link in case the primary link fails.

Launch rules mandate that both links must be working properly before a mission lifts off.

On June 5, 2002, Endeavour was poised to begin a 14-day flight to the international space station.

Read the whole article, but a space launch may have taken precedence over the public's safety. If so, this is just proof of incompetence at the space agency. I've blogged before on this, but the space shuttle program should be scrapped. Its 1970's technology, with 20 year old spacecraft that become less safe with every mission. I'm for a space program but the shuttle needs to be retired.

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