Apollo 1
arstechnica.com
Apollo 1
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Re: Apollo 1
#2This is what progress looks like. This is what it takes.
Re: Apollo 1
#3 But in less than 30 months following the Apollo 1 accident,
NASA flew five Apollo missions. During the final one of
those five, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the
Moon. Much later, in the last decade of his life, Armstrong
would reflect on what it took to reach the Moon. “The rate
of progress is proportional to the risk encountered,” he
said. “The public at large may well be more risk averse
than the individuals in our business, but to limit the
progress in the name of eliminating risk is no virtue.”
Re: Apollo 1
#4But in less than 30 months following the Apollo 1 accident, NASA flew five Apollo missions. During the final one of those five, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon. Much later, in the last decade of his life, Armstrong would reflect on what it took to reach the Moon. “The rate of progress is proportional to the risk encountered,” he said. “The public at large may well be more risk averse than the ind…
Or is the problem that each incoming administration wants to rejigger the programs? If each president (thinking about Bush and Obama) would just hand the scientists and engineers a few billion dollars and tell them "go do something that'll make America proud," we'd have something to be proud of by now.
Re: Apollo 1
#5This is what progress looks like. This is what it takes.
Killing our best and brightest after they express concerns about their safety? I hope that's not what it takes.
Re: Apollo 1
#6Watch the documentary "The Last Man on the Moon" about Gene Cernan. It spends some time on the human impact of the Apollo 1 disaster. Imagine having to tell your next door neighbor that her husband had just burned to death.
Re: Apollo 1
#7This is what progress looks like. This is what it takes.
I disagree, but won't downvote.
Failing fast is a virtue. Failing catastrophically is a disaster.
We work fastest when we trust our tools. When our tools fail us, we're forced to revisit them entirely, which slows us down. Incorporating a margin for error and defending in depth are ways to move forward efficiently.
Blue Origin's motto has the right tack. "Step by step, ferociously."
Re: Apollo 1
#8Frank Borman, in his testimony before congress, referred to the accident being due to a failure of imagination. In searching for his full testimony, I found this:
"Apollo 1-Challenger-Columbia Lessons Learned" - https://nsc.nasa.gov/sfcs/systemfailurecasestudyfile/downloa...
I also found transcripts of his testimony, but they aren't searchable - http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollo204/inv.html
(I'll have to OCR the pdfs. I started to read the first one and it's fairly interesting.)
There's two books I always recommend re: Apollo:
1) A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, by Andrew Chaikin.
2) Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond, by Gene Kranz.
Re: Apollo 1
#9But in less than 30 months following the Apollo 1 accident, NASA flew five Apollo missions. During the final one of those five, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon. Much later, in the last decade of his life, Armstrong would reflect on what it took to reach the Moon. “The rate of progress is proportional to the risk encountered,” he said. “The public at large may well be more risk averse than the ind…
Or is the problem that each incoming administration wants to rejigger the programs? If each president (thinking about Bush and Obama) would just hand the scientists and engineers a few billion dollars and tell them "go do something that'll make America proud," we'd have something to be proud of by now.
We'd still need someone to provide a singular vision and focus. Human nature says you can't just throw money at a group of people and expect that to happen on its own.
Re: Apollo 1
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or is the problem that each incoming administration wants to rejigger the programs? If each president (thinking about Bush and Obama) would just hand the scientists and engineers a few billion dollars and tell them "go do something that'll make America proud," we'd have something to be proud of by now.
We'd still need someone to provide a singular vision and focus. Human nature says you can't just throw money at a group of people and expect that to happen on its own.
100 times this. Providing "stupid money" but no vision and no accountability leads to the "but 4 billion of the budget needs to be spent in MY state - but then we'll have to transport the boosters by train - but then we'll have to cut them apart - but then we have to use complex o-ring seals instead of simply welding them together -> Challenger blows up" bikeshedding of the shuttle era.