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My understanding is that the attitude of NASA management changed from the Apollo era's "Prove to me we are good to go." to one of "Prove to me we can't go." So
by dbcurtis 10y ago
My understanding is that the attitude of NASA management changed from the Apollo era's "Prove to me we are good to go." to one of "Prove to me we can't go." Some might put it: Gene Kranz retired.
Source: Anecdotes from an old friend who is a quality assurance engineer. He was one of the boys on the ground in Huston that brought the Apollo 13 crew home.
- aidenn0 10y agoAnother comment on this thread linked to a paper[1] that tells a narrative that the "Prove to me we can't go" was specific to this launch (specifically it claims that since NASA didn't want to ground all shuttles for 2 years, they instead accepted the recommendation that no launches be made outside of the environmental envelope of previous launches, but then this decision was reversed specifically for Challenger). Not in the paper, but from my own memory, the launch was high profile due to the first civilian on a NASA mission and was repeatedly delayed by the time they launched. In fact my family had tickets to the launch, and we ended up getting various tours of the space center instead since they kept on delaying. [edit] Also, my understanding is that Kranz's hard-line began after the Apollo 1 tragedy. Was your friend there early enough to comment on that? 1: https://people.rit.edu/wlrgsh/FINRobison.pdf https://people.rit.edu/wlrgsh/FINRobison.pdf