NASA-Huntsville safety official blows whistle on lapses, shortcuts

This is a very disturbing letter, because relaxation of safety standards have in the past led to bad calls by NASA officials that have killed astronauts, crashed Mars probes, and otherwise reaped a frightful harvest of expensive setbacks. It has many echoes of the circumstances that led me to leave NASA space work twenty years ago this month, after testifying to Congress over similar concerns.

images.spaceref.com...

a reply to: JimOberg


Can't be true, can it?

Link isn't working for me.

a reply to: JimOberg

20 years ago....props to you, buddy.....I actually have a hundred questions for ya!!

This may be what the OP is referring to:

nasawatch.com...

a reply to: JimOberg

Need we think that it is no accident or happenstance that our military is seemingly rotting away in its basic format and that NASA is working to build better jet engines(?) today rather than mining the Moon? Look around there are dozens of indications that since the black triangles started appearing in the mid-1980s that other areas, formerly of utmost importance to our national wellbeing have been allowed to slide. James, can you see the light of the UFOs and the dark of the triangles yet?

no luck with the link here aswell. one thing i always wonder is whos fault is it really? nasa's or the politicians who defund many programs. nasa could have been put between a rock and a hard place. its really quite sad seeing what has become of nasa compared to my childhood memories of nasa. there was always a vision of something greater filled with hope, new projects constantly going off, and constant scientific breakthroughs. i really hope nasa can get back on track and do something worth inspiring another generation.

Try this link, sorry...
images.spaceref.com...

a reply to: TheScale

Did you consider they could be spending much more than ever in the form of black projects?

Just something to consider.

Here's my prepared statement for the space subcommittee in late 1997. Within a few weeks I left the NASA program. .
www.jamesoberg.com...

Several years later I elaborated the theme in my book "Star-Crossed Orbits" [the Columbia catastrophe was yet to happen]:
www.jamesoberg.com...

That chapter in my 2002 book included a hauntingly prescient anonymous warning from one NASA-Houston worker: "We’ve become a parody of the worst of [Marshall Space Center, which supervised the shuttle propulsion system] just before Challenger -- a bunch of ‘yes’ men without the guts to tell the emperor he isn’t wearing any clothes. Under this administration and this Administrator, NASA has become an agency of lies and half-truths, especially with regards to safety.” Within a year, another shuttle and seven more astronauts were lost due to imprudent NASA management decisions, and NASA officials still insisted that nobody could have seen it coming.

Here I am being sworn in for the 1997 testimony.
www.jamesoberg.com...

Once away from NASA I was able to address the issue of safety decay directly:

In Scientific American, February 2000, I wrote:
"Many observers have been alarmed at the apparent increase [of failures], which could be a symptom of deeper problems that could lead to more failures in the future. . . . NASA will have to address its systemic weaknesses if it is to avoid a new string of expensive, embarrassing and perhaps in some cases life-threatening foul-ups."

In New Scientist, April 15, 2000, I wrote:
"Critics say that a number of accidents, oversights and failures in other NASA programmes indicate that other parts of the organisation are stretched to breaking point. NASA, they say, is repeating the errors that led to the Challenger disaster. The consequences of a future accident could, also, be fatal.. . . The cost of forgetting is now measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, years of delay and public humiliation. So far, no more human lives have been lost but the question NASA must answer is whether this will continue."

The following year [1998] I was invited back to testify again, concerning Russian financial shenanigans about Western money for their space program being siphoned off by corrupt officials. Here's me at that hearing [showing photos of mansions built for top space officials with US and other foreign funds], and NASA administrator Dan Goldin during my testimony.
c8.alamy.com...

NASA head Dan Goldin during my testimony...
l450v.alamy.com...

a reply to: JimOberg

I have family member of my wife working at Redstone during the Challenger. His company provided the bad part...... His job was to create and maintain the device that very carefully and safely mixed the solid rocket propellant like mom making cookies and the specs were an engineers nightmare. Mixing the fuel is kinda dangerous along the line of "Nitro" in Cowboy movies. Had to do the mixing from a mile away.

ETA

Thank you for your service to a worthy endeavor. And thank you for working to make things right. I would hesitate to make myself such a target even on ATS. I do see the point of proving you aren't some shill, but I would not have my name out there in your situation, or most for that matter.

originally posted by: Illumimasontruth
a reply to: TheScale

Did you consider they could be spending much more than ever in the form of black projects?

Just something to consider.

personally i think if any money is being funneled into a secret space program its being done through the airforce or navy myself. just watching what has happened to NASA appears to be a complete defunding of the infrastructure and scaling it back to just maintain our science projects going on. atleast musk is on the receiving end of some of the nasa tech so its getting out into the publics hands in some form.

originally posted by: JimOberg
The following year [1998] I was invited back to testify again, concerning Russian financial shenanigans about Western money for their space program being siphoned off by corrupt officials. Here's me at that hearing [showing photos of mansions built for top space officials with US and other foreign funds], and NASA administrator Dan Goldin during my testimony.
c8.alamy.com...

ive always wondered just what happened during the early ISS days. while at space camp as a kid i got to tour one of the ISS factories in huntsville and there were hundreds of sections being built for the ISS and that was just one facility. i understand the vast majority would have never been intended for use in space from the get go but if even 2% of what i saw had made it into space the ISS would be massive. its always left me wondering especially considering how russia was providing their own sections. curious how they had the whole metric imperial snafu aswell

a reply to: TheScale

You could easily be correct.

Just the "On the record" airforce black budget is astounding.

a reply to: JimOberg

Just to echo the sentiments expressed in that letter, a close friend of the family worked on the SLS program as part of quality control at Kennedy. He was also one of the engineers NASA called up to help with the ammonia pump failure on ISS a few years ago. He's now left NASA as well and says he would not want to be an astronaut due to severe safety problems throughout the program.