Keith Cowing disagrees with (retiring) John Young's comments (valid, in my opinion) that it's time to accept the risk of the Shuttle and start flying again:

...to just throw up your hands, as Young has done, and say nothing has changed - and that its not worth the effort to try and get better - is defeatism of the first order. It is curious that he feels this way when you recall that a contemporary of his, Gene Kranz, coined the phrase "failure is not an option".

It's not defeatism--it's realism. Shuttle's safety flaws are intrinsic, and really unfixable for the most part, without spending much more money on it than a new, much better launch system would cost. I've always believed that the CAIB recommendations about what was needed to return to flight were unrealistic, and at some point NASA (and the administration) will have to admit to that as well, or stop flying. We know we're going to retire it (so we don't have to husband the resource of orbiters as hard as we have in the past), and we've got plenty of astronauts willing to fly it, so we should either start flying it again and getting some use out of it, or shut the whole thing down and apply the savings toward something with a future. As it is now, we've the worst of both worlds--spending billions on it every year, with no activity at all other than trying to put lipstick on a pig.

As for the quote about failure not being an option, it all sounds very inspiring, but like the Kennedy quote of "because it's hard," it doesn't really make much sense when one actually parses it. As someone once said, when failure isn't an option, success gets pretty damned expensive. If we can't take risks, there's no point in even attempting to venture into the cosmos.

Keith Cowing has decided that it is his job to defend Sean O'Keefe against any criticism. Young criticized O'Keefe, so Cowing criticizes him. Note all of the other posts on NASAWatch about how the NASA administrator is struggling to make ends meet on $158,000 a year. Those of us making a lot less than that and trying to raise a family find Cowing's argument unconvincing, even insulting. There are a lot of people at NASA about to get pushed out the door who make less than $158K, and yet Cowing wants us to sympathize with O'Keefe and his meager salary.

Is this the same guy who was so critical of Dan Goldin getting a lot of money from another university?

I thought "failure is not an option" just came from the movie script, and that Kranz never said any such thing in real life. I may be mistaken, since he titled his book that way (and I haven't read it), but I thought that was just marketing,

Anyone really know?

Rand, I couldn't agree with you more. If we're going to keep flying the Shuttles, it's time to poop or get off the pot.

Rand, I couldn't agree with you more. If we're going to keep flying the Shuttles, it's time to poop or get off the pot.

In Krantz's day the space program operated under a more practical definition of "failure", too. Between technical failures like Apollo 1 fire and launch failures like the ones that plagued the Soviets, it was pretty much inevitable that people were going to die at some point during the completion of these missions. Whatever you can do to prevent it is good, but cancelling the mission is the real failure.

I never really liked the "failure is not an option" quote. Sounds good, and yeah I'm all for safety. But people learn from failures and they grow. The day NASA decides to stay home for fear of failures is the moment I hope it gets disbanded.

Exploring near frontiers is always dangerous. I wasn't a big fan of Young, but I have to say I agree completely with his views on this matter.

And if you look over at the comments section on NASAWatch, you'll see the following: "Keith, I would rather not have this posted as this is really for you, personally. I used to be at..." Then the poster's name is included.

So if you request that NASAWatch keep you anonymous, this is what happens...

new frontiers even...

This whole 'shuttle grounding' keeps sounding odder to an outsider. If falling (hard) foamed insulation was what set everything in motion, how hard can it be to make the foam come off in a controlled fashion instead of an uncontrolled fashion?

Is the foam primarily a _pre_ flight insulation? Or is it to keep the nosecone of the oxygen tank cool in flight? (That would be mighty odd - bleed LOX out the nose if you need cooling!) If it's preflight, blowing it at, say T-10 s or so should mean it won't hit the shuttle (And can't hit it at Mach X, we aren't moving.)

Gary I posted a block update late at night and osted that ext by mistake. I have pulled the comment off. That is the first time in years that this has happened.

If NASA Watch troubles you so much then perhaps NOT reading it will make you feel better. That said, if you continue to read it you have no cause to complain.

"That is the first time in years that this has happened."

I remember you posting the name of someone you thought authored a Word document that criticized O'Keefe's Hubble decision. That was in February. So not the first time.

"If NASA Watch troubles you so much then perhaps NOT reading it will make you feel better. That said, if you continue to read it you have no cause to complain."

We can have fun with this statement.

"If [insert target of NASAWatch criticism here--Florida Today, the National Physical Society, etc.] troubles you so much then perhaps NOT reading it will make you feel better. That said, if you continue to read it you have no cause to complain."

For someone who runs a website that does nothing but complain about others, your standard response to criticism seems hypocritical. Perhaps you can take your own advice?

GARY: I remember you posting the name of someone you thought authored a Word document that criticized O'Keefe's Hubble decision. That was in February. So not the first time.

Yea, sure did. The author walked around Capitol Hill at the same time giving copies to poeple too - and sending email copies as well - and he did not ask anyone for anonymity. He self-outed himself.

Gary, the intent of the post was not to bash Keith, or NASA Watch--it was simply to disagree with him about John Young's statement. I'd appreciate it if you could restrict comments to the subject of risk and risk aversion in space. Ad hominem stuff is neither useful nor interesting.

What a load of crap you sprout Simberg. Your entire approach to online publishing is to either bash those who don't agree with you. Or to praise anyone who does agree with you.

It astounds me just how bad your sloblog really is. But then most blogs are crap and do little more than repeat the rants of other sites they agree with, bash anyone who is not following the same song sheet as the blogger in command, and praise those who are right thinking people.

As to poor Keith and his desparate need for the approval of people like O'Keefe, he should probably join you at the same clinic for the socially challenged.

If you actually bothered to be a professional writer and cleaned up your act a bit you'd have a good space site to debate issues. But half the potential readership is left insulted on most days as you spew your partisan crap out. Why don't you split your sites up and have a politcal one under another domain, and stay focused on space here, and set a better tone in the debate by leading by example.

But somehow after reading your posts for a couple of years, I somehow doubt you'll ever check your political bias at the door, and almost everything you do and say has to pass through the simberg political filter before coming in or going out.

My, what intelligent commentary.

And anonymous, too. What a shock.

Oh well Rand - looks like we're both in the same boat - er clinic. Be a good chap and pass the Thorazine.

Gary, I would lay off Keith on this if I were you. I believe him when he says it was an honest mistake, and that he corrected it as soon as he found it. I and many others have sent comments to him and he has kept anonymous those that wish to remain so. In all the years I have been reading NASA Watch, I would say that Keith has gone out of his way to make sure that he does that sort of thing right.

Now, as to disagreeing with Keith or Rand or whoever, we're all entitled to do that! :-)

Note: sorry about the double post above.

Interesting people who dissent against the ones who provide them information. The old "shot the messenger" thing I guess.

Rand and Keith, my personal belief is that NASA will not improve until this perverse fear of penning name with ideas is overcome. It's not that the fear is unfounded. It seems obvious that failure of NASA has not been rectified. Innovation and Safety is what suffers.

Hey Gary, go complain to Glenn about outing NASA employees.

Sadly, Leland has a good point.

Everyone is so scared to speak up that no one ever does. A few that have spoken up end up ostracized, punished, and leave, in both NASA and the contractors.

What happened to the guy at Thiokol? The guy who wanted pics of the Columbia's wings? Any number of other people who blew whistles or wanted to keep their Macintosh, or whatever?

Working in the JSC community taught me the concept of "career limiting move". Usually I don't let that stop me from doing my job as best as I can, and speaking up when I feel it necessary. I haven't run into trouble with it yet.

It's like these people in management forget WHY we have jobs. For NASA, it's to accomplish the mission and at JSC, protect the astronauts' lives. For DoD contractors, it's to support the soldiers, marines, seamen, and airmen for whom we build weapons or whatever. It's NOT for little personal sand box empire building.

Re Shuttle: Failure is not an option - it's part of the basic configuration at no extra cost.

The problem with "failure is not an option" is that the world is not binary. It's not a choice between success and failure. If failure is not an option, the best way to assure thatyou won't fail is... not to try. You won't fail, but you won't succeed, either.

If the goal is success, the motto should be "success is the only option." As it is, the current motto has led to the current mindset, which holds avoiding failure to be more important than succeeding.