Page 6 - Aerotech News and Review, Feb. 17 2017

NASA pays tribute to three tragedies, lessons noted
by Linda KC Reynolds
staff writer
NASA centers across the country paid tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia Jan. 26 during a Day of Remembrance, and a special talk at NASA Armstrong Feb. 9 by Assistant Director for Strategic Implementation, Steven Schmidt.
“Even though the incidents of the three accidents were not related, the root problem was,” said Schmidt. His frank and sobering talk focused on the tragedy of Columbia. “We need to think about what happened leading up to those days.”
Columbia’s first flight took place April 12, 1981, with a two-person crew: Commander John Young, a vet- eran of Gemini and Apollo, and pilot Bob Crippen.
On Jan. 16, 2003, Columbia took off on its 28th mission from the Ken- nedy Space Station with seven astro- nauts: Rick Husband, William Mc- Cool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon.
During the launch of STS-107, a piece of foam broke off from the propellant tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. When Columbia re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, hot atmospheric gases penetrated and destroyed the internal wing structure causing the spacecraft to disintegrate.
Schmidt formed the board that investigated the accident from Feb. 1-Oct. 31, 2003. “I was the first guy in and the last guy out.” The commander of the mission, Rick Husband, went to the same school as Schmidt, so the disaster was close to his heart and he was very committed to the investiga- tion.
Instead of lessons learned, Schmidt said they were more like lessons not- ed. “Back in 1984, Columbia was con- sidered operational after four flights — in reality that’s not true. They were never operational, they were X-planes — they were experimental from the first flight to the last. All the shuttles may have looked the same, but they were all different.”
Showing real and animated video, Schmidt said that the application of the foam had been changed and some voids and debris were found in the foam. “It was only 1.6 pounds but it was traveling 700 feet per second.”
It was noted that foam had hit the shuttle six times in previous mis- sions, however, those in the know said it was still safe to fly since noth- ing happened. When a problem was mentioned about the foam during an Atlantis mission and photos were requested, an engineer was told he needed to bring up the issue through the proper chain of command. It was considered a maintenance issue and not an in-flight anomaly, which would have impacted a particular launch.
On Feb. 1, 2003, citizens from Dal- las to Louisiana filmed debris falling from the shuttle and volunteer organi- zations helped to search 2,600 square miles to recover pieces for investi- gation purposes. “You can see the type of people involved in collecting debris — out in wintertime in Febru- ary, running around in marshes and swamps, in snake infested areas — 40,000-pounds of 223,000 were recov- ered; about 30 percent,” Schmidt said.
Having several friends die in Air Force test missions, Schmidt con- firmed aerospace is a dangerous busi- ness. “We push the limits. The Air Force pushes the limits of aircraft to insure the pilots have an airplane they
can use. We push in the areas of tech- nology that haven’t been touched yet.” He said that all of the UAV (un- manned air vehicles) knowledge could be put in a basket since there is
so much more to learn.
“Space flight assent and descent is
measured in minutes. We have been flying since the 1960s but it is mea- sured in minutes. Our time in aircraft is measured in years. We are still learning about it. We don’t know ev- erything there is about aircraft flight, if we did we wouldn’t be doing this.”
The three tragedies are unrelated and completely different but the un- derlying issues behind them such as budget, schedule and political pres- sure and sometimes arrogance, are the same.
“If you don’t get something done on schedule, they will cut your budget.
“President Kennedy said by the end of the decade there would be a man on the moon — don’t you think there was pressure on that one? There are pressures in programs and projects we do today. There is undo stress because nobody wants to say they can’t do something — at NASA we can do any- thing — well, that can also be one of your biggest downfalls,” he explained.
He recalled being on programs and also working for other companies where everyone was waiting to see who would call chicken or hoping that inclement weather would scrap a flight so they would have more time to add instrumentation or confirm another test point. “Nobody wants to call off a mission but sometimes it is necessary — it is better to be safe than sorry.”
Since January 2004, 58 percent of NASA’s workforce are new and have never been involved in a flight trag- edy.
“It’s something you never want to
Photograph by Linda KC Reynolds
Steven Schmidt, Assistant Director for Strategic Implementation, gives a talk on “Lessons noted, not learned,” at NASA Armstrong. Centers throughout the U.S. honored crew members from Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
Schaefer updates community at AV Board of Trade
by Linda KC Reynolds
staff writer
Brig. Gen. Carl Schaefer, commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., felt right at home speaking to guests and members during an Antelope Valley Board of Trade luncheon at the Hellenic Center, where he briefed the latest and greatest updates on the Ed- wards Air Force Base mission.
“I love this group of people,” he said. “I love the energy in this room, but more importantly for me, I love all the support you give to the men and women who work day in and day out at Edwards Air Force Base.”
Representing about 12,000 people, Schaefer said the U.S. Air Force picked an accomplishment from Edwards to represent and celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Air Force titled, “Breaking Bar- riers Since 1947.”
On Oct. 13, Edwards will celebrate the anni- versary with a ceremony and activities at Edwards followed by a formal ball that evening.
Giving a brief history of the base, Schaefer said Edwards started out as a gunnery range in the 1930s, when Lt. Col. Hap Arnold was flying out of March AFB to drop bombs on the lakebed. Soon afterwards, the U.S. Army Air Corps was camping out on the lakebed until a larger presence grew to support World War II.
“In 1942 we established an airbase, actually, a very secret airbase we called North Base, where
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we tested the first jet engine.” Competing with Germany, the top-secret YP-59 was being devel- oped and tested while other parts of the base were used for various missions.
Gen. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947; and in 1949 Muroc Air Base was renamed Edwards Air Force Base honoring Capt. Glen Edwards who died in a YB-49 crash along with five others.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the base continued to test jets to protect against threats from the So- viet Union. From the first Columbia Space Shuttle landing in 1981 to the first flight of the B-2 in 1989, Edwards has tested nearly every major fighter in the U.S. inventory, including the latest fighter, the F-35 built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus refueling tanker that will replace some of the 60-year-old KC 135s.
“Your Air Force, which is the best air force on the planet, hands down, has been birthed through Edwards Air Force Base,” said Schaefer. “That’s the importance of this community and what you support at Edwards.”
Serving all branches of the military and nu- merous allied countries, Schaefer said that at any given time eight to 10 different countries are represented on base and that pilots from 69 coun- tries have graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, which was established at Edwards in 1951. “It’s not just an Air Force Base, it is an
See AVBOT, Page 7
Photograph by Linda KC Reynolds
Brig. Gen. Carl Schaefer, commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base, briefs guests at the recent Antelope Valley Board of Trade Luncheon about Edwards’ rich history and future projects including a new trainer, hypersonic aircraft and the importance of maintaining global power.
experience. We don’t want to rein- vent the wheel but we do if we don’t learn from past mistakes — its lessons noted not learned.”
He encouraged new engineers and employees not to be afraid of calling out if they feel something is not right. “If you think you have a schedule problem, wait until one hits the ground, then you will get all the schedule delays you can stand and you will get all the help you don’t want. There are no stupid questions in this business — we do aeronautics, and we do that job very well — don’t be afraid to speak up.”
NASA and other aerospace compa-
nies have hotlines in case employees feel something is wrong or unsafe, and want to voice concerns anonymously.
“We need to be ever diligent. A bureaucracy far removed from opera- tional realities has presented us a po- tentially dangerous paradox: pressure to reduce cost, a mandate to increase risk, all within the context of a core value system that supposedly consid- ers safety the foundation for mission success.
Remembering and honoring is ok,” concluded Schmidt, “but it is what lead up to that day that we shouldn’t forget.”
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