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Science

Heartbreaking Details a Decade Later: NASA Brass Asked Prophetic Hypothetical Question Regarding Space Shuttle’s Demise

Feb. 1, 2013 3:06pm Liz Klimas

WASHINGTON (AP) — A NASA top official wrestled with what he thought was a hypothetical question: What should you tell the astronauts of a doomed space shuttle Columbia?

When the NASA official raised the question in 2003 just days before the accident that claimed seven astronauts’ lives, managers thought – wrongly – that Columbia’s heat shield was fine. It wasn’t. Columbia, NASA’s oldest shuttle, broke apart over Texas 10 years ago Friday upon returning to Earth after a 16-day mission.

Columbia Space Shuttle Disasters 10th Anniversary Still Raises Questions of What to Tell the Crew

Debris from the space shuttle Columbia streaks across the sky over Tyler, Texas, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003. (Photo: AP/Dr. Scott Lieberman)

But the story of that question – retold a decade later – illustrates a key lesson from the tragedy, says Wayne Hale, a flight director who later ran the shuttle program for NASA.

That lesson: Never give up. No matter how hopeless.

And to illustrate the lesson, Hale in his blog tells for the first time the story of his late boss who seemingly suggested doing just that. The boss, mission operations chief Jon Harpold, asked the now-retired Hale a what-if question after a meeting that determined – wrongly – that Columbia was safe to land despite some damage after takeoff.

“You know there is nothing we can do about damage to the [thermal protection system],” Hale quotes Harpold a decade later. “If it has been damaged, it’s probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don’t you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done until the air ran out.”

When Harpold raised the question with Hale in 2003, managers had already concluded that Columbia’s heat shield was fine. They told astronauts they weren’t worried about damage from foam insulation coming off the massive shuttle fuel tank during launch, hitting a wing that allowed superheated gases in when the shuttle re-entered the atmosphere. No one was aware of the seriousness of the damage at the time.

This was a what-if type question that conveyed a fatalistic attitude about the heat shield system being unfixable, which was “a wrong-headed cultural norm that we had all bought into,” Hale said in a Thursday telephone interview.

“There was never any debate about what to tell the crew,” he said.

STS-93 Commander Eileen Collins, right, and Pilot Jeff Ashby, left, lead Mission Specialists Cady Coleman, middle left, Steve Hawley, behind Collins, and Michel Tognini, rear, from the Operations and Checkout Building to the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-B and the planned lift off of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Collins is the first female space shuttle commander. (Photo: AP/Paul Kizzle)

In fact, NASA officials were overconfident in the heat shield on Columbia. A day after launch, NASA saw video of the foam from the shuttle’s fuel tank hit the shuttle wing, something that had happened before. NASA officials studied the damage and determined it wasn’t a problem.

NASA managers even sent the crew a 15-second video clip of the foam strike and “made it very clear to them no, no concerns,” according to the independent board that later investigated the accident. Eight times, NASA had the opportunity to get a closer look at the damage- using military satellites – and NASA mistakenly ignored those chances to see how bad the problem was, the accident board concluded.

And had NASA realized the severity of the problem, the space agency would not have just let the astronauts die without a fight or a word, despite Harpold’s hypothetical question, Hale said.

“We would have pulled out all the stops. There would have been no stone left unturned. We would have had the entire nation working on it,” Hale said. Ultimately, Hale said he thinks whatever NASA would have tried in 2003 with limited time and knowledge probably would have failed.

And the astronauts would have been told about the problem and their fate had engineers really known what was happening, Hale said.

When NASA started flying shuttles again, Hale told the new team of mission managers: “We are never ever going to say that there is nothing we can do.”

NASA developed an in-flight heat shield repair kit.

The space shuttles were retired in 2011. Harpold died in 2004.

Flowers placed at the Space Mirror Memorial below the names of the seven astronauts that perished aboard space shuttle Columbia are seen during a remembrance ceremony on the 10th anniversary of the loss of space shuttle Columbia crew at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Friday, Feb. 1. (Photo: AP/John Raoux)

Hale said he is now writing about the issue because he wanted future space officials not to make the mistakes he and his colleagues did. The loss of the Columbia astronauts – people he knew – still weighs on Hale.

“You never get over it. It’s always present with you,” Hale said. “These are people I knew well. Several of them, I worked closely with. I was responsible for their safety. It’s never going to go away.”

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Comments (59)

Melika
Posted on February 2, 2013 at 8:21am
So Liz, what’s so heartbreaking about his story? I’m serious,aside from being a blog post, why is this news? Of course they thought about this scenario. Of course they had to consider what would happen if they couldn’t fix something – that is the inherent danger of these flights, which is always present. But what is heartbreaking about this? That there was actually a senior staff member who was such a loser he would let the crew die without a fight? What?

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- Attention2Detail
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 2:51pm
  What’s heartbreaking about your comment is that it demonstrates that you are brain dead. This is news because it’s new. DUH. And it’s heartbreaking because NASA didn’t even try to find out if there was a problem. Of course in order to have your heart broken, you must first have one and then you must have enough mental capacity to understand the situation you are presented with. You appear to lack both. Now in the future use the comments section to comment on the details of the story or leave it alone. If you don’t like The Blaze try the Huffington Post.
  
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csense
Posted on February 2, 2013 at 7:22am
For all the scientific and technical progress we have made, we still do what the Chinese did thousands of years ago. We light a match and watch the rocket fall to earth. I can do that now! Until we develop a system that enables a space craft to act the same in space as any airplane does in the atmosphere we are doomed to repeat what happened here.

Nuclear fusion power, anti-gravity, or something similar is needed. Once that is operational we can go where no man has gone before safely,

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- Melika
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 8:16am
  You should practice not parading you ignorance all over the internet. Star Trek isn’t real, I don’t care how awesome the schematics look or how much science babble they spew at you. Your ignorance of the basics of physics in this universe and what actually happens during any kind of mechanical flight is astounding. We don’t simply light a match and watch it fall – that is a child’s understanding of “space” flight.
  
  Report this comment
- Soulfire1975
  Posted on February 3, 2013 at 4:05am
  Well actually we are closer to warp speed then ever before. Plus there are somethings from Star Trek that got invented that we use today like the cell phone.
  
  Report this comment
Mojoron
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 9:09pm
I would want to know so that I could say goodbye to all my friends and family. There is nothing more important than to know when you are going to meet your maker.

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- BetterNTexas
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 9:32pm
  Here’s what I don’t understand–we had the space station up there. Did NASA not consider that if there was a problem, that they could hook up with the space station? I mean, I’m just thinking out loud here, but it seems like that would have been a temporary solution, right? They would have had to send up another shuttle or rocket with a return capsule or something. But to just shrug and say, “Oh well. Even if the wing is damaged there’s nothing we can do?” That makes no sense. Apollo 13 had worse odds and they made it home.
  
  Harpold’s attitude was not only crappy, it was irresponsible. You tell the crew to get out there and look at the wing, send pictures, etc. You have the military satellite look at it. You don’t just shrug your shoulders and say, “We think it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” and then turn around and say, “Well they’re dead anyway if we’re wrong.” Their situation was far less dire than Apollo 13′s. With information there was hope. The carelessness here is breathtaking.
  
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- lsbrew
  Posted on February 3, 2013 at 11:07am
  The space station wasn’t an option because they were in different orbits. All shuttle missions following Columbia were required to launch into orbits that would have allowed the space station to be used as a safe haven. All except the last Hubble mission that is. Had the crew and NASA known the extent of the damage they might have tried a reentry, favoring the “good” wing of the shuttle, thjis has been suggested but no one know if it would have worked.
  
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RoDogg
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:45pm
Well… good thing we don’t have to deal with this stuff anymore. Good thing the Russians are taking us instead!

*sarcasm

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KernelOfTruth
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 6:26pm
“Never give up. No matter how hopeless.”
This is exactly the type of organizational knowledge lost by shutting down the space program. Next generation will need to learn it all again. From scratch.

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- Max jones
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 12:56am
  The type of people necessary for the success of these kinds of accomplishments are no longer available. The “dumbing down” and discouragement of our population is deep and we will never make these strides again.
  Any who don’t believe this, are not living in reality.
  
  Report this comment
SquareHead
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 6:16pm
NASA should stick to fiction like the Apollo missions. Except instead of having the astronauts actually orbit the earth, they should use drone planes and leave the astronauts in the TV studio, that way there would be less chance of anyone getting hurt.

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- CowboyExpat
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:49pm
  You are weird….and I don’t like your comment sir.
  
  Report this comment
- lsbrew
  Posted on February 3, 2013 at 11:09am
  I don’t believe you really exist.
  
  Report this comment
ChiefGeorge
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:53pm
NASA had plenty of time to develop a system for tile damage repair in space. They just said, we’ll worry about it if it happens. So for the next 20 years they had no such emergency plan in place but after blood was spilled, they did have one.

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pahrumper
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:53pm
Been in the Aerospace buisness for 39 years in an engineering position, and I cn tell you that, 1) they had the data on the damage and did not let it out to the lower level people, or 2) they did not ask for it and that is an error to the max in itself. Almost every decision I was aware of was a political one, the technical aspects were secondary..

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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:06pm
  This is really disappointing! Your comments sound like you are describing a bunch of lawyers and not an engineering organization! (Apologies to the lawyers, but that is MY EXPERIENCE!) We need to remember our professional respsonsibilities, which are NOT something we ‘turn on’ when we get to work, and ‘turn off’ on the way home! I am not criticizing your comment, just lamenting it! Thank you for reminding this naive engineer that we all suffer the human condition! Now, the question of the day is ‘What are we going to do about it?”
  
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- Max jones
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 1:13am
  Salamander ….what we will do about it is, absolutely nothing. There is a glut of worthless data, and a flood of misinformation causing a paralysis in human thought and accomplishment. We will continue paying great attention to political correctness and expediency, at the cost of human civilization.
  Never again will mere humans be masters of this planet, for supernaturals run things, now, and human life is is of no great importance to them. Just keep watching, you will begin to recognize some of them……..remember who it is we contend with……
  
  Report this comment
- changedone
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 10:20am
  I can tell you that you are probably correct in your assessment. Most people don’t know that when the Challenger exploded in the eighties, the crew did not die in the explosion. I saw a photograph of the crew compartment that was recovered on the ocean floor (in an article in Proceedings magazine). All the astronauts were strapped into their seats with their bodies intact. The theory was that the all died when the crew compartment struck the water. No one was told this.
  
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- Babylonandon
  Posted on February 2, 2013 at 1:48pm
  Unfortunately Pahrumper probably has it right. Political appointees and an CYA mentality have ruled NASA since the end of Apollo. BOTH shuttle accidents were caused by gutless managers who were far more concerned with the consequences of stopping a mission than they were about flight safety.
  
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rdietz7
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:46pm
The poll here is interesting. Not because it shows anything in particular about human nature but because it shows how when a phrase is not worded correctly it creates confusion and gets people to say what they normally wouldn’t say.

HOPE is when you are given all the information and you still believe despite the odds. If this poll was worded correctly theblaze would find that the nearly everyone would want all the information regardless of how grim.

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- DeniseJ
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:57pm
  Getting all the info doesn’t equate to hopeless! Apollo 13 certainly looked hopeless, but…….
  
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- jcldwl
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 6:00pm
  Nasa has always learned from their mistakes. Unfortunately their mistakes are catastrophic and involve the loss of human life. 3 Apollo astronauts burned up on the launch pad during a test because they were using pure oxygen. There was a short and a fire. The astronauts could not open the door from the inside. The first space shuttle disaster they ignored an O ring issue. And this one because they are never prepared for rescue operations. They were lucky with Apollo 13 and that was because they did not give up. They almost lost the first man to walk in space because they hadn’t accounted for the difficulty of getting back in the capsule. And as far as the moon landings, they weren’t 100% sure the lunar modules means of lifting off the moon would work. Astronauts have and always will be test pilots. They know the risk they take so they should be aware of every issue facing them.
  
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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:11pm
  You are correct! I had to wrassel with the question to make an answer–I really wanted to change the question, but couldn’t! (Which takes me back to my ‘lawyer’ comments! I got roasted in the legal machine known as the New York Supreme Court! And, have I ever become a cynic! A three-years old child could have understood what happened, but the court process couldn’t permit the interactions necessary to get it out! We are so deeply flawed, and cannot see the errors of our ways or the tremendous, lifelong harm that can be suffered as a consequence! Justice IS blind!
  
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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:19pm
  It wasn’t JUST an o-ring issue! It was an SRB attachment issue AND a shuttle abort and return to Earth issue! There should have been a parachute for the crew capsule on Challenger! the o-ring burned an SRB attach point and the SRB rotated into the fuel tank. And, there were indications of weather (turbulence) beyond the design basis of the launch vehicle–which were ignored! Look at the contrails just under the disaster point just a few minutes afterward and you’ll see what tore the booster loose! Those folks were a heartbeat away from a ‘successful’ launch!
  
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ChiefGeorge
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:46pm
If NASA was run US Navy style, I guarantee you that the Navy would have pulled all the stops out to try and find a solution. Even if that meant sending up another Shuttle or getting the Russians up to ferry some of them back. But saying nothing can be done is BS esp when they knew their was a good strike on lift off. They had the ability to see under the shuttle but did not do it….they should be held account for that. Letting them come in thinking all was well is a huge diservice to their memory and their families. I’m glad NASA is going out of business.

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- deerjerkydave
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 6:32pm
  I’m no astronaut, but I’ve watched the movie Apollo 13 (har har), but that movie demonstrated to me exactly what you are saying. The entire American nation would be working on a way to bring them home safe. Saying that nothing could be done and giving up seems like a cop out.
  
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FreedomPurveyor
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:45pm
They probably took one look at the damage, said “oh man, they’re F@*#ED,” and ultimately decided to pretend that it was all gravy. Why else would they neglect to have a closer look? So later they could say, “we just didn’t know.”

Personally, I would want them to tell me that I’m toast. At least then you can make peace with your demise, say goodbye to loved ones, and your body can eventually be recovered.

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strawberry411a
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:25pm
Well…………………..now it’s in the hands of the Muslims.

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Guitar Master
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:13pm
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
From THE REPORTER
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

To all space jockeys, here is the bottom line:

There is no way that any shuttle mission should have been launched without a fully prepared auxillary space shuttle on a launch pad and ready to go in case of an emergency. Every other mistake made by ground controllers is a moot point.

The shuttle crew’s lives could have been saved. Rest their souls.

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- KernelOfTruth
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 6:22pm
  Space flight will never be without risks.
  
  Yours is the same mentality that brings us “universal health care.”
  
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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:24pm
  I agree–there should have been a rescue vehicle available, even if it were just a capsule system to house the astronauts until a second shuttle could be brought into action! Why not have launched the rescue vehicle BEFORE each launch and have it orbit with the mission vehicle?
  
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- CanteenBoy
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:32pm
  True.
  
  As The Wright bros. should have built a back-up plane.
  As Lindberg and Earhart should have had a chase plane.
  As the early explorers, many of whom starved, drowned, and froze to death, should have had been more careful.
  
  Stick to your guitar, master. Leave the hard and scary stuff to the adventurous and the brave.
  
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RoAdFiXeR
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:04pm
1. You really think someone didn’t take a look at that damage with one of our military satellites??? Who’s kidding Who they knew exactly what damage had been done to that wing and someone made the call to tell them everything was OK bring it home.

2. With as much effort as it take to launch a shuttle on a normal time line who would strap them self into a shuttle take been put together on a 5 to 7 day rush job. No One…

3. So now you rush a shuttle to the pad in 7 days and you find a hero with a very large set you launch and it turns into a redo of “Challenger go with throttle up”.

4. Now NASA really looks stupid losing a rescue shuttle and the one they going to lose anyway.

NASA knew that crew was doomed as soon as they got a look at film of the foam strike they just made a choice to take one for the team.

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- Jeff Bassett
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 5:40pm
  Atlantis was being prepped at the time Columbia was going up and it was quite feasible to get it up within 5 to 7 days but with some risk due to short cuts.
  There would have been no shortage of volunteers from the astronaut corp to man such a mission. They would have jumped at such an effort to help the other astronauts.
  
  You are quite right, the Columbia team management did not want to even consider what it would take knowing the possible risk. They weighed it just as you did and buried their heads in the sand.
  
  Space flight has always been risky. That is part of the job, if you can’t handle such, you should not be there. If you are not willing to take risk, you will always live a life of mediocrity and in this case a loss. There was not even the effort made to try to put together a rescue mission. This moment was not the time to do so and the Columbia crew paid for such with their lives.
  
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gbgreta
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:49pm
To any respectable engineer/scientist, there’s ALWAYS a solution to a problem. It is YOUR job to find it.

Those NASA guys were punchy and overly risk averse, plus, political correctness and public relations concerns were creeping in where they didn’t belong. USA screwed up when we booted the military and real scientists from NASA leadership and replaced them with politicians.

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Chuck Stein
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:37pm
The Space Shuttle was designed by geniuses — under the direction of the government. A very complex system that combined heavy lift capacity, reusability, and man-rating. Nice trick, but MOST of the system’s payload was the orbiter itself: it was sent up at great expense and it came back down. The payload that could stay in orbit was about the same as the Saturn IB’s payload (NOT the Saturn V). If the “reusable” portion had been limited to that required to lift and return 5 or 6 astronauts AND the Saturn program had contined for payloads, it would have been safer and less expensive.

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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:33pm
  Good point! Launch the freight in one vehicle, then send the crew up to work with it! I like that approach! Anyone check out ‘The Space Elevator’? Apparently, the materials are available to permit this to happen! And, the recent private ventures into space, including a one-man vehicle with no re-entry heat problems has successfully been demonstrated! NASA, like our government, became a behemouth! We need to take a serious look at moving away from bigger government and into a more diverse, thriving, private economy! NASA was a dramatic idea, but like the Hoover Dam, it really just solved one problem (or, at least one at a time)! Before the Shuttle, there was tons of private innovation! By the time of the Shuttle, NASA became too big to fail–and it did!
  
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Jeff Bassett
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:11pm
I believe the study at the time noted the soonest they could get a shuttle up for a rescue mission was 5 to 7 days from the time of decision. They would have pulled out all the stops and made decisions that would put the second shuttle a bit more in danger due to short cuts to get it to launch. But it could have been done and the crew could have been saved. It was such a radical decision it was one controllers did not want to make.
It was evident from one of the stop frames of the impact that a huge amount of material flew over the wing. At the high rate of flow over the wing, it was clear it was not small amounts and condensation. Controllers blew it because they did not want to have to consider the possibilities, take on further risk.
The crew unnecessarily died from that mission. It could have been another of mission controls finest hours but that last generational culture was long gone from the shuttle mission control.

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JIMC5499
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:50pm
Don’t blame NASA, blame Congress. There were plans in the 80′s and 90′s that would have had another Shuttle on the pad preparing for the next mission that would have been available in an emergency. Congress cut the funding so that NASA wasn’t able to do that. NASA has been forced to operate on a shoestring since the early 70′s. If Obama really wanted to stimulate the economy, he could have given a chunk of stimulus funds to NASA.

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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:44pm
  Do you really think that NASA could use Obamabucks more efficiently than ACORN? OBAMA grew up in a smoke-filled room and doesn’t have the artistic abilities of a Michael Jackson! Yet, somehow, this NOTHING of a NOBODY got elected as PRESIDENT of the United States, and has a RABID following of PASSIONATE supporters! Something is VERY WRONG with this picture, and we are ALL paying for it! We need to ask ourselves ‘How many taxpayers does it take to … ?’ Where the ‘ … ‘ is (1) pay for the office of President, (2) pay for your Senator, (3) pay for your Congressman, (4) pay for Food Stamps, (5) pay for Obamacare, (6) pay for your school lunch program, (7) pay for YOUR WELFARE BENEFITS, (8) pay for your Social Security, etc. Look to your right and look to your left! Either (a) ONE of them is paying ALL the bills and YOU and THE OTHER are sucking the system dry, OR YOU are paying ALL the bills and THE OTHER TWO are sucking the system dry! THINK ABOUT IT!
  
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shaduan
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:47pm
From the moment NASA decided to NOT reveal that there had been a major foam strike to Columbia’s crew, NASA was wrong. The crew could have done an EVA or used the robotic arm in the cargo bay to visually inspect the wing. From the tests conducted after Columbia’s loss, the hole in the wing was easily visible. An all-out effort to mount a rescue mission with one of the other shuttles could have been – and should have been attempted. If NASA had alerted the crew at once, there would have been about 10-12 days for a rescue mission to be coordinated. Instead, seven astronauts died because some administrators didn’t want to admit there might be a serious problem. It might have been possible to alter the re-entry angle to put less strain on the port wing. It was during the “S” turns the shuttle executed to bleed off speed that the wing failed due to the damage that had been done during the peak heating period of re-entry. The conversation this story relates is heartbreaking, but the families and friends of Columbia’s crew are more heartbroken. The crew deserved better from the team on the ground.

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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:49pm
  I think the tire blew due to overheating and IT TOOK OUT THE WING STRUCTURE. Maybe they could have extended the landing gear in space and figured out a way to deflate the tire safely, then buttoned it up, patched the hole with a little duct tape (or filled the critical spaces with foam, so the heat couldn’t migrate into critical spaces) and returned to Earth with a badly damaged wing!
  
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Tri-ox
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:46pm
If they were alive today, I wonder what the Columbia astronauts would think about obama’s “new” NASA? It’s a great tragedy that obama has replaced space exploration and science, with “muslim outreach” and global-warming propagandizing as NASA’s main missions – I’m pretty sure that the Columbia astronauts would not be at all pleased.

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TADTAD
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:30pm
If you give up, you neither win, nor live. NASA had the opportunity to check out the damage with hardware and didn’t do it? Unbelievable. America is no longer America.

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4xeverything
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:25pm
Astronauts are not flight jockeys. They are scientists with insight and should always have a chance to try to fix any problem that may occur.

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AmericanStrega
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:19pm
Should a space crew be told nothing can be done?

Yes, they should be given all information possible.

No, they should not give up hope.

These above questions are from the poll asked by The Blaze. I cannot vote for either since the answer is the same for both. Yes, the crew should be given all information and No, the crew should not give up hope.

Maybe I’m too stupid to understand the question, but I think the crew should know what is happening and also to be encouraged to never give hope of returning the Earth alive.

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- MatthewChapter24
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:21pm
  You’re not stupid. I thought the same thing.
  
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Cavallo
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:18pm
At least we’ll never have to worry about it again. We can let the Russians and Chinese worry about such scenarios, right?

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- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:48pm
  Da.
  
  Everything good, ignore huge flames and smoke. Is Normal for Russian Space Capsule.
  
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- Anonymous T. Irrelevant
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:05pm
  And don’t forget about those muslim simians.
  Oh, and the monkeys Iran used, too.
  
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- Salamander
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 7:58pm
  And, don’t forget the North Koreans and the Iranians! One of the problems you have with growing into the position of responsibility we had, is that there is nowhere to go but DOWN! Either you have the intestinal fortitude to REMAIN ON TOP, or you are destined to become a second-rate nation! Our Unions have overpriced, which then exported most of the manufacturing jobs that supported our growth! Now, we have become a nation of passive consumers! Better wake up, if it isn’t already too late! “Workers of the World Unite’ an ‘Occupy Wall Street’ are feints! The real damage is coming as the Medical sector, including high-end professions become unionized, fully 1/3 of our economy! HELLO OBAMACARE; GOODBYE AMERICA! Would you think there might just be a little foreign money driving this effort? Ya think?
  
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Red Meat
Posted on February 1, 2013 at 3:10pm
NASA has never heard of the term ROI.

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- Jeff Bassett
  Posted on February 1, 2013 at 4:25pm
  I don’t think the mentality that NASA did not have to worry about potential fiscal losses was the issue here. It was a issue of pushing the limits of what the organization to create a rescue scenario that paralyzed top management at NASA.
  As for the ROI, NASA has created 2 dollars in R&D research for every dollar spent in secondary spin offs and intellectual properties. Just about every facet and sector of business from Velcro, better fire fighting equipment to even the better bowling ball. I don;t know of many if any other government organization that actually makes money and has such a good return as NASA does.
  
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