> I meant Feynman's later recounting of the whole affair
I've read that too. You're dangerously close to getting me to re-read everything Feynman's written, again. I don't know whether to curse you or thank you :)
> And then what? [...]
I feel we're in violent agreement as to what the actual problem at NASA was, yes, I'm under no illusion that if some engineer had raised these issues it would have gone well for him. This is made clear in the opening words of Feynman's analysis,:
[...] It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the
probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The
estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher
figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from
management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of
agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a
Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could
properly ask "What is the cause of management's fantastic faith in the
machinery?"
I'm pointing out, not to disagree with you, but just to use your comment as a springboard, that to an outside observer this whole process led to some "moronic engineering". Engineering is the sum of the actual construction & design process and the management structure around it.
The real flaw in the report is that it didn't explore how that came to be institutional practice at NASA, Feynman is the only one who tried.
> That's really not what I read behind the lines.
Regardless of what sort of dysfunctional management practices there were at NASA they couldn't have launched the thing without their engineers. If they were truly of the opinion that shuttle reliability was 3 orders of magnitude less than what management thought, perhaps they should have refused to work on it until that death machine was grounded pending review.
Of course that wouldn't have been easy, but it's our responsibility as engineers to consider those sorts of options in the face of dysfunctional management, especially when lives are on the line.
I think the engineers (and astronauts) accepted 1 in 100 odds of failure as a price they were willing to accept to be part of the project. That is not a "death machine", just a risky and exciting one. For comparison, that risk is equivalent to working 5 years in a coal mine in the 1960's.
https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-coal-mining...
Yes, which is fair enough, and personally I think that's fine. With odds like that you'll still get people to sign up as astronauts, and it'll be easier to advance the science. In the grand scheme of things it's silly to worry about those deaths and not say death from traffic accidents.
The real issue was that that's not how NASA presented it outwardly. I doubt that teacher that blew up with Challenger was told about her odds of surviving in those terms.
As human launch vehicles go I think the shuttle's reliability was fine. The reason I called it a death machine is that if you make a vehicle that explodes 1% of the time you better advertise that pretty thoroughly before people step on board. NASA didn't.
I've read that too. You're dangerously close to getting me to re-read everything Feynman's written, again. I don't know whether to curse you or thank you :)
> And then what? [...]
I feel we're in violent agreement as to what the actual problem at NASA was, yes, I'm under no illusion that if some engineer had raised these issues it would have gone well for him. This is made clear in the opening words of Feynman's analysis,:
I'm pointing out, not to disagree with you, but just to use your comment as a springboard, that to an outside observer this whole process led to some "moronic engineering". Engineering is the sum of the actual construction & design process and the management structure around it.The real flaw in the report is that it didn't explore how that came to be institutional practice at NASA, Feynman is the only one who tried.
> That's really not what I read behind the lines.
Regardless of what sort of dysfunctional management practices there were at NASA they couldn't have launched the thing without their engineers. If they were truly of the opinion that shuttle reliability was 3 orders of magnitude less than what management thought, perhaps they should have refused to work on it until that death machine was grounded pending review.
Of course that wouldn't have been easy, but it's our responsibility as engineers to consider those sorts of options in the face of dysfunctional management, especially when lives are on the line.