Launch Scrubbed, but Go to Post

So an hour ago, I showed up at the ISS Mission Evaluation Room to watch the shuttle launch. Last night, a friend of mine was asking me if I was going to get up at 6 AM to watch the launch. I wasn’t that enthusiastic about doing it, but realized that I had to option to go into my console in the MER and not only watch it on a nice big flat screen but I could also hear the other voice loops beyond PAO and CAPCOM if I watched it in the MER and used my headset.

This morning rolls around, my alarm clock goes off, and shortly thereafter I stumble into the MER, hoping that I didn’t miss the launch.

2 minutes later wondering why there weren’t more people in the room and I come to find out that the mission has been scrubbed. So here I am, 6AM on Saturday morning finding myself with some time to post my thoughts about the space program in an environment nurturing to such thoughts.

First off, watching NASA TV and having them talk about the mission was really exciting. They are going to accomplish a whole heck of a lot during this mission. With all the battery changeover, installations, robotics, hardware transfers, the fix for that truss element that got stuck, and all the other stuff that is to small to make the highlight reel, the 13 astronauts on board are really going to do a lot of highly technical tasks.

On the ground, when we change the configuration of hardware, there is paperwork to process, signatures to have signed, inspection after inspection and test to perform, and schedules to coordinate. To put RTV on the screws for some Orbital Replaceable Units (ORUs) on the ground, there are half a dozen pieces of paper that need to be signed, multiple schedules that need to be coordinated, and other things also necessary but to boring to mention. So when I watch the highlight reel and consider the hugs impact to the station that this mission is for perhaps the first time I don’t take for granted the comparative massive amount of work that the 13 astronauts are going to perform.

And even though they are the first to admit that they couldn’t do any of what they are doing without the thousands of people on the ground that are doing all of the prep work, which is true, it is also true that they are not just warm bodies implementing an inevitable laundry list of planned to death tasks. These people know their stuff and have the stamina to implement a huge change while coordinating with themselves and the ground. No “SPAM in an can” here.

Ok. So on to the second thought.

Another friend and co worker who was over last night was sharing with me what he had done at work yesterday. Our mutual co worker is out of town so when an issue with a piece of hardware came up that is slated to launch for the 17A/STS-128 mission he was the backup to handle the issue. It turns out that this hardware need to be changed from something it is into something that it isn’t right now and delivered, packed, and stowed to go into this flight that is scheduled for 8/6.

NASA has a very necessary procedure in place to make sure that we don’t launch the wrong stuff, and that procedure involves somethings called quality, configuration management, engineering, contracting, shipping, um… the people who do the physical change… and a bunch of other groups. So my buddy from work is telling me how this morning he gets this email about how this thing that is supposed to fly isn’t actually what it needs to be… and that we need to send it to a company to modify it, but before that can happen, there is a mountain of paperwork that needs to be competed to include all the groups that I mentioned above. And after it is done there is another mountain of paperwork that needs to be completed. And my buddy has spoken to just about everybody who is going to touch this thing and they are all pretty much on board to implement a schedule that will actually make this thing be delivered and inside the space shuttle in time for the August 8th launch.

I think that that is pretty awesome. I mean, people rag on NASA for being all inefficient, and granted, sometime is can be inefficient compared to other private operations like Google or McDonalds that don’t involve explosives and multi-billion dollar machines in space and international partnerships and risk to human life, but hey, a bit of inefficiency to enable things to happen safely and correctly can be allowed for in such a case, right? The point is that for this particular piece of hardware that my friend is dealing with, when program management says “jump,” a whole bunch of people say “how high” and we are getting the job done lightning fast. Maybe the whole NASA system isn’t so ineffective after all. (Lets know the difference between efficiency and effectiveness)

Lets say that you were getting a college degree and you wanted to get straight As. You would have to work pretty hard. The marginal effort to get each question correct on your tests would be a lot lower than the marginal effort for the C student to get their questions right on their tests. You might consider your effort to get that last question on the test right not very “efficient.” Well, what if I told you that you might die if you got the question wrong and that you might destroy a billion dollars worth of equipment if you didn’t get every question on every test of your college career right? If you had the money and the inclination, you wold probably do some pretty inefficient things to get those grades, but if you spent the time and had the staff, you could probably accomplish that takes (Assuming that your teachers weren’t whacked.) So NASA is kind of like that. Going into space is digital. You either reach orbit or you don’t. You either install the module on the space station or you don’t. Things either blow up, rattle apart, pop, or they don’t. And you have to get pretty much every question right on the test to achieve success. And there is a ridiculously large number of questions. NASA spends the time and staff to make sure that things work. And sometimes, when they need to, they expedite to get the right answer on the test in a pinch, like what is happening with my buddy. And when they don’t need to, things can be rather “inefficient.”

Call it Kool-Aid if you will, but I think that what’s happening with my coworker is pretty cool.

And on to my final thought. Twitter and the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD). Hmm. MOD, the people who are tasked with “operating” that station in real time, makes a policy that MOD people can not release of non-public information via Twitter and Facebook. That makes sense, I guess, I mean, we wouldn’t want whoever is on the MERLIN console in the MER to tweet “Well, my day is over because the O2 Pressure is dropping on telemetry feed ISSOGAV02″ which makes people thing that the station is depressurizing when it means that the electrolysis machine in powering down.

But I hope that the recent efforts by many at NASA, including many in management, to expand the openness and “stickiness” of NASA’s programs can go forward with the accelerating pace that they are with efforts such as www.nasa.gov/collaborate, because putting humans and science in space really is the best bang for the governments dollar to inspire, enhance, and develop our nations technical and intellectual abilities.

So in conclusion, to my friend who gave me a hard time for not wanting to get up at 6 to watch the shuttle launch, I am a space nerd. I do think that NASA rocks (never mind the Kool-Aid), and I do wax philosophical from 6-8AM on Saturday mornings.

Well my wife just called me and asked what the heck I was doing seeing as how the launch was scrubbed. She wasn’t to satisfied when I told her that I was making a blog post, because she thinks that 5 days a week plus saturday taking care of two kids is a bit much, so I’m heading home now.