Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

mcdreeamiemusings.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 185 posts

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#131

Post by rbanffy »

bell-cot wrote: post #127
amelius wrote: post #121

The main problem is they didn't use reusable rockets, so these couldn't be properly tested before putting a human crew in. This problem seems mostly solved now.

What would "proper testing" look like, to have caught and corrected the fatal design flaw? The shuttle was about as reusable as the Falcon 9 is now. Though at vastly higher expense.

The shuttle needed extensive refurbishment between flights. It wasn’t until after the loss of Columbia that they examined heat shield damage in orbit, assuming any damage observed on the ground would have occurred during reentry. For an organisation so risk averse as NASA, I was surprised how little focus was placed on the orbiters as experimental vehicles.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#132

Post by rbanffy »

There is another point to be made about insisting on the reentry - Columbia didn’t have propellant to reach the ISS, and life support couldn’t be extended until a rescue mission could be mounted. A rescue mission would be further complicated because the docking hardware was not needed for this mission and was removed, and there was no airlock for EVAs (and no EVA suit on board), again, because it wasn’t part of the mission.

If a rescue mission could have been mounted, it’d be something straight out of science fiction - tying ships together with cables and shuttling astronauts in their orange pressure suits through the side doors of two disconnected shuttles.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#133

Post by blauditore »

quacked wrote: post #55

This isn't a failure of PowerPoint. I work for NASA and we still use it all the time, and I'll assure anyone that the communication errors are rife regardless of what medium we're working in. The issue is differences in the way that in-the-weeds engineers and managers interpret technical information, which is alluded to in the article but the author still focuses on the bullets and the PowerPoint, as if rewriting sim…

I think the problem is that most people, especially non-engineers, are over-selling and over-promising all the time. Being honest about risks, issues, and short-comings makes a project or product look bad in comparison.

The most feasible way to get X done is saying "X is a great option, the risks are managable, and it's fairly quick". Then, it will unexpectedly take a bit longer, plus some unforeseen trade-offs will need to be made.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#134

Post by blauditore »

Note that the people making these slides are one the selling side, so they have a natural incentive to downplay the problem, and the slide smells a bit like that to me. (And by selling side I don't necessarily mean sales people, but also the engineers involved in designing, building, or at least working on the product.)

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#135

Post by bluenose69 »

somat wrote: post #93
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #44

I don't see how this has anything to do with PowerPoint. There wasn't clear communication; the medium was completely incidental to that. They could have been writing on a chalkboard and had a communication failure, does that mean that chalkboards should be blamed in that case?

Speaking of chalkboards, next time you have to give a presentation, bring a chalkboard and do your slides in realtime. Something about the visual show, auditory overload, and not least the novelty of the act makes it much more impactful and memorial than "another powerpoint that puts you to sleep" White boards are... ok... better than powerpoint but still fail to sell it like a chalkboard does. I think it is the nois…

Yes, the noise (which I'd call "the sound") is a big factor.

I teach in a classroom that had blackboard that had stood the test of time for decades. When it was replaced with a whiteboard, things went downhill. The markers dry out quickly, without much notice, so that students often have trouble reading the material. And the whiteboards get harder to erase year after year.

I guess the advantage of whiteboards is that a variety of colours can be used. But some students have deficiencies of colour recognition, so that's not really helpful. (I never used coloured chalk, for the same reason. Maximal contrast is the key.)

And the noise. That click drag click of chalk. Students after the transition to whiteboards told me that they really missed that. It enlivened the lectures. And when students were writing down notes, they knew to look up when they heard the sound.

Back to the point about the "visual show" and doing slides in real time. Yes, yes, yes. Once in a while I need to show something on the projector. The moment I turn it one, I see students start to disengage.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#136

Post by poulpy123 »

bell-cot wrote: post #123
poulpy123 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frozen water would have exploded at reentry

Source? It would be solid water ice, mostly surrounded by shuttle wing structure, in a low-g reentry. Not an "ice & volatiles & etc." meteor in a high-g situation.

the sources are the pressure and temperature conditions at reentry and the water phase diagram

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#137

Post by arethuza »

jacquesm wrote: post #128
arethuza wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I had a fascination with security and fancied becoming the CISO for the multinational I was working for at the time - my boss at the time, the CIO, said the role would really have no power and would be there as a sacrificial lamb should there actually be a serious security breach. This rather put me off the idea.

Your comment should be required reading for any CISO that finds themselves without mandate, budget or support from upper management.

In retrospect, after the 2008 crash in the finance world how the role of a CISO was described to me sounded an awful lot like risk officers in a lot of financial organisations.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#138

Post by honeybadger1 »

somat wrote: post #91
quacked wrote: post #55

This isn't a failure of PowerPoint. I work for NASA and we still use it all the time, and I'll assure anyone that the communication errors are rife regardless of what medium we're working in. The issue is differences in the way that in-the-weeds engineers and managers interpret technical information, which is alluded to in the article but the author still focuses on the bullets and the PowerPoint, as if rewriting sim…

I love it when some company gets one of the engineers to do a demonstration, you know you got an actual engineer because it will be the worst sales pitch you ever received. They will tell you in excruciating detail all the problems with their product. Recognize and cherish these moments for what they are worth, despite the terrible presentation it is infinitely more valuable than yet another sales rat making untenabl…

it's truly a horrible thing that hearing the facts as they are, is considered excruciating. i'm very lucky that the company i've been working for for 6 years takes care of me exactly because i'm detailed, i say what i think when i think it, and have built a cult following amongst our customer base for being able to get to the meat of problems and solve them, or get at least on the path to resolution.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#140

Post by alberto-m »

hydrox24 wrote: post #5

This article (as it makes clear) owes it's analysis at least largely to what Tufte has written about the Challenger disaster (1986) and Columbia Disaster (2003). He wrote about the Columbia one more fully in the second edition of The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. Given that the link in the article to his report on his website is now broken, people might be interested in teh few page grabs that he has included in the…

> the few page grabs

The full report (2003 edition, low-res) is available on ResearchGate. It appears to be a lawful copy, uploaded by the author himself. Fascinating reading, indeed.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/208575160_The_Cogni...

Post reply on HN