IFT4 analysis by Scott Manley
IFT4 analysis by Scott Manley
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Engineering issue ignored by executives? Where have I seen this before …
“ Space Shuttle Challenger repeatedly launched with damaged O-rings, but it never gave up!”
“Space Shuttle Columbia is repeatedly loses cooling panels, but it never gave up!”
Until they did give up
Engineer 1 "How do we know how strong this part needs to be?"
Engineer 2 "Um. Shall we test it?"
Engineer 1 "Yea okay." ... "Oh hey we learnt something."
Some random guy watching "Look at the fucking idiots over there. Testing things. Chumps"
What exactly is your point here?
I think it doesn't need rocket science to understand the point trying to be made.
The way I understand is that they're confused about the difference between test flights and operational missions.
The problem is that their point is nonsense.
This isn't a long-standing problem being persistently ignored, this is a test flight designed specifically to discover such problems. They were so keen to test how the system handled problems like this that they deliberately damaged the heat shield before the flight (somewhere other than where this particular problem occurred).
The implication that this partial failure of the heat shield is damning evidence of negligence is either ignorant or deliberately deceptive
I'd much rather they blow up an empty mockup than a manned shuttle, but yeah, ignoring known issues isn't great.