Space

A couple of space links

The Beagle 2 mission team has released its own report on what went wrong – they place a lot of blame on ESA management, but the upshot is that the atmosphere wasn’t as dense as they thought. Story via Nature

Nature also has a story on the Shuttle return to flight. One paragraph stands out to me:

The CAIB report said that safety checks were often poorly managed. “The shuttle programme had become comfortable with an operational mindset that treated a developmental vehicle as an operational vehicle, accepting debris strikes as normal, and so on,” says Hubbard. This culture is being challenged through increased communication between different areas of NASA, says Hubbard.

The problem of treating a vehicle in development as operational is serious, but the solution is not more communication. Reading between the lines, that looks to me a lot like more forms, more reports, more meetings, more teleconferences. In other words, more noise. The solution I prefer is a single office tasked with both operations and upgrades, and with the authority to take the vehicle off line. The bipod ramp foam shedding was a known issue and it could have been addressed with a number of different fixes had work started when the problem was first identified. Of course this presumes management with an attitude oriented to fixing things before they become problems, which may be asking too much. Certainly expecting NASA to behave in ways which fly in the face of the political incentives imposed by congress is asking too much, but hey, a man can dream, can’t he?

Political Commentary

“Hypocrisy And Self Service”

Cap’n Ed dissects a hypocritical piece in Business Week on the Swift Boat controversy:

So let me get this straight — MoveOn is more credible because of the transparent nature of the illegal coordination between the Democrats and the 527, while the Swiftvets suffer because no one can establish these links? And they claim inside knowledge because they served in the same unit and the same area as John Kerry, much the way William Rood did — they went out on patrols with Kerry and observed him from close quarters on rivers and canals where the two banks often spread less than 100 yards apart while they patrolled with their 50-foot PCFs. Peterson hasn’t spent much time distinguishing the operational tactics of PCFs, which rarely if ever went out alone on patrols.

Peterson’s perspective, then, is that while John Kerry’s testimony should go unchallenged because he served four months in combat, the Swiftvets — who to a man completed at least their one-year tours or left due to disabling wounds — should shut up about theirs. And the candidate who didn’t make his service any kind of qualification should expect to be slandered, but the nominee who wrapped himself in his four-month stint and surrounded himself with former shipmates for his nominating speech should get a free pass to avoid scrutiny of that record. It’s a point of view, all right — one that reeks of hypocrisy and self-service.

Political Commentary

“Hypocrisy And Self Service”

Cap’n Ed dissects a hypocritical piece in Business Week on the Swift Boat controversy:

So let me get this straight — MoveOn is more credible because of the transparent nature of the illegal coordination between the Democrats and the 527, while the Swiftvets suffer because no one can establish these links? And they claim inside knowledge because they served in the same unit and the same area as John Kerry, much the way William Rood did — they went out on patrols with Kerry and observed him from close quarters on rivers and canals where the two banks often spread less than 100 yards apart while they patrolled with their 50-foot PCFs. Peterson hasn’t spent much time distinguishing the operational tactics of PCFs, which rarely if ever went out alone on patrols.

Peterson’s perspective, then, is that while John Kerry’s testimony should go unchallenged because he served four months in combat, the Swiftvets — who to a man completed at least their one-year tours or left due to disabling wounds — should shut up about theirs. And the candidate who didn’t make his service any kind of qualification should expect to be slandered, but the nominee who wrapped himself in his four-month stint and surrounded himself with former shipmates for his nominating speech should get a free pass to avoid scrutiny of that record. It’s a point of view, all right — one that reeks of hypocrisy and self-service.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!