What a surprise that it was from Boeing. I don't like them at all.
Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
71–80 of 135 posts
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#72> "It was impossible to tell how much damage this foam had caused hitting the wing nine times faster than a fired bullet."
This figure is GROSSLY inaccurate.
From: https://history.nasa.gov/columbia/Troxell/Columbia%20Web%20S...
>Eighty-two seconds into STS 107, a sizeable piece of debris struck the left wing of the Columbia. Visual evidence and other sensor data established that the debris came from the bipod ramp area and impacted the wing on the wing leading edge. At this time Columbia was traveling at a speed of about 2300 feet/second (fps) through an altitude of about 65,900 feet. Based on a combination of image analysis and advanced computational methods, the Board determined that a foam projectile with a total weight of 1.67 lb and impact velocity of 775 fps would best represent the debris strike.
So somewhere between 775fps and 2300 fps. For reference, slow and heavy 45 ACP bullets start at around 800fps and up. 7.62x39mm (AK-47) bullets are in the neighborhood of 2300fps. The shuttle was moving as fast as a moderately fast rifle bullet, and the foam likely hit at much less than that; something probably a bit under a subsonic pistol bullet.
The author is incorrectly assuming that the foam hit the shuttle at orbital velocity, which obviously couldn't be the case because the shuttle was nowhere even close to orbital velocity at the time.
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#73I am not sure if the author and commenters here are specifically condemning Microsoft Powerpoint, or just computerized slide presentations, of which Powerpoint is by far the most common type. Because even if everyone used Apple's "Slides" tool, they could still make a lot of the same mistakes. Even if they drew things out on clear plastic sheets, they could still make the same mistakes. So is it really Powerpoint spe…
No, this article is not a criticism of PowerPoint specifically.
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were a number of things they could have tried. No one of the alternatives (except launching a rescue shuttle) could possibly have turned out worse than the course they chose. Instead of an Apollo-13 style "Failure is not an option" effort, Jon Harpold, then the director of Mission Operations, is reported to have said "You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the thermal protection system. If it has…
If he actually said that, it’s fucking unconscionable. It’s not his decision to make (or shouldn’t be), it’s the crews’. What kind of morality underlies such thinking?
Honestly, I could understand that line of thinking if he were talking about ordinary members of the public who are utterly unprepared for a life and death situation. (Not saying I agree with it, just that I understand it.)
But when we're talking about a crew of professionals who literally spend years training to deal with disasters, and who knew exactly what they signed up for when they got in that rocket, I have to squarely side with you. They at least deserved a chance to go down fighting.
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever presented inside a collaboration?
Yes, and my experience doing so only cements the opinion(s) expressed in my previous comment—to which I'm inclined to say your reply is not terribly relevant. Ambiguous, poorly presented, and technically dense are three different things, though they can all be present in the same place. Only two of them are necessarily bad.
So what exactly is technically dense/ambiguous in this summary presentation (remember this isn't the only information provided). Perhaps you'd like to review the full deck of slides rather than the single one picked by the asshole author, I'm particularly interested in the one titled "Damage Results From “Crater” Equations Show
Significant Tile Damage" . https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/2203main_COL_debris_boeing_030123.p...
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#76Actual slide deck. Personally I think the author of this blog is an a-hole to highlight a single slide.
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/2203main_COL_debris_boeing_030123.p...
Particularly interesting is the slide titled "Damage Results From “Crater” Equations Show Significant Tile Damage"
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly the mission controllers bear some responsibility, but I disagree with diverting blame from the creators of the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint displays extremely clouded thinking. The title is: "Review of Test Data Indicates Conservatism for Tile Penetration." What the heck does that even mean? An unclear title is a very strong indicator of unclear thinking about the point being made. Further, there is a relativel…
Just because you don't understand the jargon does not make it incorrect/unclear, have you ever worked at NASA?
Use of jargon is a huge impediment to communication in organizations like NASA and DoD. There's even a glib saying that you won't get your project funded unless you give it a cutesy/cool acronym. This ends up stifling communication because each group has its own pet vernacular that obfuscates meaning unless you are inside the circle.
They could benefit from clear, concise communication that gets to the point
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#78The slide in the article has the same text, but is a recreation of the original (The Calibri typeface used wasn't part of PowerPoint until 2007). The original slide can be seen in the full report linked in the article: https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...
Why would someone recreate that slide instead of just using the original? Gah, that's sloppy reporting. Makes me suspect the entire story told, now that you pointed that out.
There's other sloppiness here as well, like treating the orbiter velocity as the determining factor (nine times the speed of a bullet...) when the delta-V between the foam and the orbiter is the more pertinent information.
The author comes across like they have an axe to grind (maybe rightly so) but should make better efforts at getting technical details right in an article about the perils of miscommunicating technical details
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because you don't understand the jargon does not make it incorrect/unclear, have you ever worked at NASA?
Use of jargon is a huge impediment to communication in organizations like NASA and DoD. There's even a glib saying that you won't get your project funded unless you give it a cutesy/cool acronym. This ends up stifling communication because each group has its own pet vernacular that obfuscates meaning unless you are inside the circle. They could benefit from clear, concise communication that gets to the point
Read the full deck and tell me what is hard to understand:
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/2203main_COL_debris_boeing_030123.p...
Re: Death by PowerPoint: The slide that killed seven people
#80>...nine times faster than a fired bullet... I don't think so. A NASA publication [1] gives the SOFI piece impact velocity as about 800 feet/sec. Rifle bullets reach 2.5K - 3K fps muzzle velocity routinely. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/columbia/Troxell/Columbia%20Web%20S...
I assume the author mistakenly took the orbital velocity instead of the delta-V at impact