In general, I couldn’t agree with you more. NASA has provided society with a vast array of products and processes that have improved our lives both collectively and individually. And yes they have remarkably accomplished those things with ever restrictive budgets. I don’t discount or minimize those achievements or the huge ones I previously mentioned. And I fully acknowledge the fickle, self-serving behavior of our government and how it handles funding of the programs. You are absolutely correct that NASA’s percentage of the national budget is miniscule in comparison to other departments. I have no problem whatsoever with increasing their budgets and believe they should be expanded.

I see the role of leadership as two-fold, one, to provide the organization with its goals and direction then, two, clearly stated performance expectations to achieve those goals with the resources available. My singular point is the disappointing role of leadership at NASA in providing clear, measurable goals and adherence to performance expectations for the organization in conjunction with its responsibility to insure that ALL measures are taken to protect the safety of its personnel (astronauts) and assets (spacecraft). My view of their lack of performance in this area is that in the case of the Challenger and Columbia incidents that those catastrophes were fully preventable if only proper adherence to engineering design parameters and safety measures were followed. NASA’s hallmark has been the redundancy of the critical systems and thoroughness of its procedures to insure that the operational and safety systems are performing appropriately. In fact, I am one of those individuals that views a “scrubbed” launch as a success and not a failure because it demonstrates that the systems are performing as designed. The system tells the launch crews that something’s wrong and it’s not safe to launch. My sole issue is that it was poor decision-making (“O” Rings) and lack of attention on critical safety systems (objects hitting heat shield tiles) that led to these catastrophic incidents.

My deepest desire is for NASA to re-capture its respectability and recognition as the premier science and research exploration entity that it was for so many years. All other government departments or organizations aside, NASA in my view is the one shining example of what we as a country and a people can accomplish when provided clear direction and proper fiscal commitment.

I by no means excuse NASA for how it has handled certain things, but let’s share the blame with the government that ties NASA’s hands in too many ways to count, that essentially cuts NASA’s funding by failing to even increase the budget to compensate for inflation, by cutting funding for projects before determining how close to success the project is and forcing NASA to scrap all the work and money put into the project, and by an indifferent public who doesn’t see the benefits of manned spaceflight.

However reluctantly, my biggest disappointment resulting from the two Shuttle disasters was the gross lack of leadership and managerial competency. The mere fact that the cause of both incidents had been thoroughly researched and documented and were ultimately preventable is evidence of this degradation of leadership. The Challenger’s solid rocket booster design tolerances for the “O” ring seals in cold weather conditions were exceeded on launch day. The design specs were known however a “management decision” to launch was inexcusably made to proceed. That is unacceptable and resulted in a catastrophic loss of life and resources.

Regarding the Columbia, it has been known for years that the liquid fuel tank’s insulation had been falling off during launches. How in the world with all the engineering knowledge about mass, velocity and acceleration that is paramount for the design of spacecraft that these continual life threatening incidents were overlooked or ignored is again unacceptable. With all the safety measures and redundancy systems incorporated into the flight and life support systems how this condition gets missed is unfathomable especially when the fragility of the re-entry tile system is subject to compromise.

And finally the fact that when the Shuttle program is retired that we do not have another vehicular system to continue missions to the Space Station is absolute lunacy. Relying on the Russians platforms is just another disaster waiting to happen needless to say the political jeopardy it puts us in. Yes, I understand the government funding aspects of all this however it is NASA’s lack of demonstrable leadership and accountability that has led to Congress’s reluctance in funding new projects. NASA has yet to present a viable, working solution for a new spacecraft and it has had over 25 years to develop it. The Apollo platforms were designed, engineered, fabricated, deployed and mothballed in less than half that time.

Yes, there are some “comforting” thoughts expressed in this report about how the astronauts likely were spared prolonged agonizing deaths however I am certain that even for a brief yet fleeting moment they recognized their fate and were bewildered as to what was happening to them. I hope they were excused that agony. But the most despicable fact is that their fate was sealed long before by some desk-bound, number-crunching bureaucrat with nothing at stake who decided that dollars or his convenience were more important than the crew’s safety. Bottom line is NASA needs new leadership that has both the vision and the competency to return our space program to the performance and stature that it has long since lost.

Also, comparing NASA and NASCAR does kind of show your ignorance on this subject. I would go into an explanation for that, but if you can’t realize that fact, you probably shouldn’t be posting about it.

Ejection capsules have had mixed results in military aircraft…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule

And they’re expected to go into environments where somebody will be actively trying to destroy the vehicle.

What’s *really* needed for economical orbital operations (and returning to ballistic capsules on expendables, with historic risks of their own, is not that) are well designed vehicles (wether single or two stage, winged or ballistic) that can abort intact from all but the most catastrophic events…just as we do with commercial aircraft (which are not equipped with ejection seats, either)…

For what it’s worth, anoxia (lack of oxygen) and suffocation (excess of CO2) are two different things. And if you must choose, simply passing out from anoxia is better and faster. If you’ve ever fainted, you know.

Years after the event, Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 once said that, had they found themselves in a situation where their life-support consumables just could be extended enough to get them back, he’d already decided to first insure the ship was on a course certain to reach Earth, even though an uncontrolled re-entry. He believed that preferable to the ship ending up as a tomb in a high Earth orbit. Then he would allow the ship to depressurize (not unlike that which happened to Soyuz-11) as simply blacking out that way would be preferable (and his fighter/test pilot training had likely exposed him high-g blackouts from inadequate oxygenated blood reaching his brain, so he would know) to suffocating in increasing CO2 levels as the scrubbers to remove it became saturated…

What’s sadder is that Werner von Braun himself devoted considerable time to the question of space shuttle escape over half a century ago. You may recall the Disney film “Man In Space” and the popular magazine articles in the 1950’s. Dr. von Braun’s distinctive ‘coke-bottle’ design for a 3-stage ferry rocket, or space shuttle, which was to fly to a wheel-shaped space station, had detailed designs for crew escape pods, designs based on then-current work for supersonic ejection seats. The link below takes you to a French company’s beautiful model kit of von Braun’s shuttle design, where the escape pods are well-illustrated.

http://renax.club.fr/sharkit/ferryrocket/ferryrocket.htm

“Those who fail to remember the past, etc. etc.”

Humans are capable of many crazy things. Once, in his 80s, my grandpa was rushed to the hospital with a blood sugar level of 18 (he never tested his levels at home, he just called 911 because he was feeling ‘woozy’). He was conscious the entire time, joking with the paramedics, who were just gaping at him because humans are supposed to be in a diabetic coma well before they blood sugar level drops that low. He didn’t have the fear of imminent death to keep him conscious, just the fact that he was a superior human (survived 26 years after a quadruple bypass in the 70s, back when they may as well have been doing it with rocks compared to today’s treatments). Astronauts are some of the toughest, most well trained humans we have, due to the extreme stresses they have to be trained to endure.

Now, dead before the final disintegration I’ll believe – but suffocation and blunt-force trauma to the head are terrible ways to go. With any luck the oxygen deprivation would have rendered them insensate – but they’re probably trained to hold their breath well in case of emergency decompression.