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

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

#171

Post by LorenPechtel »

wat10000 wrote: post #162
os2warpman wrote: post #94

> Why, given that the foam strike had occurred at a force massively out of test conditions had NASA proceeded with re-entry? What was the alternative? Columbia could not have made it to ISS. Columbia could not have repaired the damage in orbit. Columbia could not have lasted, after two weeks in space, long enough to launch a rescue mission. I know the "In Flight Options Assessment" said they could launch at an accele…

The alternative is to try . Apollo 13 probably seemed pretty hopeless. They didn't just say "sorry fellas, maybe you'll get lucky and make it, good luck." The late great Bob Hoover said, "If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible." You keep trying until you can't anymore. Saying "well, maybe they'll survive," and not even telling them, is not the move when you have nearly…

Nobody has made a decent proposal of how they could have been saved, the only "answers" being basically hail marys.

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

#172

Post by LorenPechtel »

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.

All they actually needed to do is pay attention.

Both Columbia and Challenger were quite preventable, but the problems were basically ignored because they clearly hadn't destroyed the orbiter. Never mind that both showed random behavior outside the design spec, sooner or later the orbiter was going to roll a 1. They had seen the blow-by that killed Challenger, they had seen orbiters scoured by the foam before.

However, it didn't really have a solution. The blow-by problem that destroyed Challenger was fixable, the foam problem was not. You could reduce the chance of a problem but nothing could be done about the fundamental problem of having parts of the heat shield aerodynamically behind other parts of the spacecraft, especially cryogenic parts of the spacecraft. (Ice could also do damage.)

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

#173

Post by LorenPechtel »

gjejcjekdnfnwja wrote: post #10

As an engineer, that slide looks completely reasonable to me. Its purpose was to communicate technical info, which it did adequately. Keep in mind that the subject matter is highly technical, given that we're literally talking about the Space Shuttle, and more than a high school level of reading comprehension is heavily implied. If the NASA personnel weren't competent enough to review technical data without a pithy s…

Putting the fact that you don't actually have any remotely suitable test data buried at the bottom is reasonable??

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

#174

Post by jacquesm »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #158
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.

The Risk Management manager character played by Demi Moore in the "Margin Call" movie is another example of this in the financial industry.

Awesome movie.

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

#175

Post by RaftPeople »

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…

> This isn't a failure of PowerPoint.

Agree and was going to say the same thing. Messages need to be created for a specific audience.

When I'm sending an email to non-tech mgrs that has a bunch of tech details like that slide, I typically separate more detailed stuff from the conceptual message:

Summary:

System performance is not good enough for go live.

Working on a few possible solutions.

Details (for those interested):

System x is connected to ...blah blah blah...

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

#176

Post by jacquesm »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #157
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but first it has to go horribly wrong. Same for security. After the breach there is plenty of budget.

I worked in security for a while, but luckily on the vendor side and not the consumer side. The old yarn in that area is when everything (security wise) is fine, management asks you "What are we paying you for?". When it inevitably turns pear shaped they ask, "What are we paying you for?" Fun times.

It's a variation on the prevention paradox.

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

#177

Post by throwaway173738 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #85
stinkbeetle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the medium is not conducive to dense amount of technical information that readers are expected to use to make or understand decisions. Other similar mediums like a chalkboard were not singled out because the problem was identified with PowerPoint specifically. And it wasn't a choice of mediums all with similar problems, but slides vs papers. From the article, > “The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint b…

But the problem, if anything, was that too much dense information was conveyed at all . Based on the analysis in the post, of the engineers had replaced that slide with one that said "Don't go forward with reentry", that might have saved lives better than any change in medium. To be clear, I'm in favor of abolishing PowerPoint for any non-ephemeral use, but the problem here was focus and framing of the info.

The engineer in question was probably trained by the organization to leave decision-making to management. In organizations like that you refrain from statements that sound like decisions.

Saying “more testing must be done before deciding to re-enter” would be equally valid.

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

#178

Post by xp84 »

notahacker wrote: post #154
xp84 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. My deck would have been: Slide 1: 48-point font Don't go forward with reentry Slide 2: 24-point font * Our foam collision dataset from experimentation only included pieces below X cu in. * Evidence points to this piece being at least Y cu in - 200 times more massive * Catastrophic damage to the wing cannot be ruled out This would have been a great PowerPoint, and I'm not convinced handing them onl…

Yeah, a slide like that would have been fine; fundamentally the slide is exactly like an academic paper in that some of the most interesting implications are just banal statements of the numbers in the data and qualifiers. In fact, the slide is much better than the academic paper... it doesn't contain much in the way of irrelevant data and qualifiers. In practice Tufte and bloggers and commenters are retconning messa…

I'm basically with you and let's be clear, I know nothing about the domain. But the word "limited" is doing a lot of work in that last sentence. Maybe a diagram showing relative size of the biggest foam chunk they'd tested vs. the size of the actual one would have been useful.

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

#179

Post by nuker »

Some asked DoD to use satellites to see the damage. Linda Ham declined the request.

"The imagery request was soon rescinded by NASA Mission Management Team Chair Linda Ham after she investigated the origin of it. She had consulted with Flight Director Phil Engelauf and members of the Mission Management Team, who stated that they did not have a requirement for imagery of Columbia. Ham did not consult with the Debris Assessment Team, and cancelled the imagery request on the basis that it had not been made through official channels." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disas...

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

#180

Post by nolok »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #97
mintplant wrote: post #9

My dad headed up the redesign effort on the Lockheed Martin side to remove the foam PAL ramps (where the chunk of foam that broke off and hit the orbiter came from) from the external tank, as part of return-to-flight after the Columbia disaster. At the time he was the last one left at the company from when they had previously investigated removing those ramps from the design. He told me how he went from basically wor…

It's funny how the thankless jobs of quality assurance become so critical so quickly. And I mean that ironically of course. To folks out there: do the important work, not the glamorous work, and you'll not only sleep well, but you might actually matter as well.

Like the old saying, the firefighter is a hero but everybody is annoyed by the fire inspector, even though he saves way more lives.
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