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From: sdd@pyuxh.UUCP (S Daniels)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: An Everyday Lesson
Message-ID: <260@pyuxh.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Feb-86 16:48:44 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxh.260
Posted: Fri Feb 28 16:48:44 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 17:24:30 EST
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway, NJ
Lines: 19

This might be the wrong place for this, but I couldn't think of anywhere else.

Having followed the news from the public sessions of the Commission studying
the Challenger disaster, it seems that both NASA and Morton-Thiokol engineers
knew beforehand that launching in extremely cold weather was a tremendous risk
with potentially tragic consequences.  NASA and Morton-Thiokol management knew
it, and they decided to discard their best technical advice and launch anyway.

My rhetorical question:  How often have we seen the correct technical or
operational decision overturned by "higher management" because of the politics
of the situation?  Fortunately, most of us don't work in places where the cost
of doing that is measured in lives, billions of dollars, and national prestige.

Makes you sick, doesn't it.  Think about it the next time someone says, "It's
a great idea, but politically......."

(These are definitely mine and no one else's)
-- 
Steve Daniels (!pyuxh!sdd) "I'm counting the smiles on the road to Utopia."