Former CAIB Members Support White House Space Policy

Let’s see… four university Professors and an Aviation Safety Consultant. Of course they want more funding for research and aeronautics...

The letter said, "Third; it has been suggested by some that only a NASA-led effort can provide the safety assurance required to commit to launching goverment astronauts into space. We must note that much of the CAIB report was an indictment of NASA's safety culture, not a defense of its uniqueness."

Also, "Our view is that NASA's new direction can be A) just as safe, if not more safe , than government-controlled alternatives...

This is a powerful letter supporting the safety of crewed Commercial spaceflight (CSF). I don't think too many Senate or Congress people will be sighting the CAIB report anymore when attacking crewed CSF, after this letter.

Didn't they keep saying "Safety is our number on priority?"

Why did only part of the CAIB sign this letter?

Folks:

At last some sanity. Maybe now we won't get politically compromised launch vehicles and spacecraft. Maybe now we won't get negligent management that kills people.

Politicians hamstrung NASA into excepting a human space launch system with inadequate (read non existent) launch escape system called the Space Shuttle.

Are we going to let that happen again?

tinker

There are more than a few CAIB members missing from the signature line. I see academics and consultants well represented.... The ones least engaged in reality.

The Space News article says only 5 of 13 members signed the letter. This headline makes it sound like all members signed... ...misleading

Editor's note: did I say "ALL former CAIB members" ?

> I see academics and consultants well represented.... The ones least engaged in reality.

> Of course they want more funding for research and aeronautics...

The irony of two delusional guys talking about reality didn't escape me.

Darn those academics who think too much, and those safety consultants who sit around just thinking about how to take more money every day. Don't listen to them. Listen to your heart.

I think this is a very insightful and strong letter.
It is hard to poke any holes in it if one is so inclined.
They obviously spent some time drafting this letter.

The comments about wanting to get more funding for
research are IMO not very appropriate. These are
very distinguished academics, almost all with time
served in government positions. These are people
who have absolutely NO problem getting grants to
support their and their student's research. For goodness
sake, one is a Noble laureate.

I think the letter's intent is to stop any use of the CAIB
report for current political purposes which I feel is
a very supportable objective.

That said, I am not sure how much more can be gleaned
from this CAIB issue in the current space policy debate.

The CAIB recommendations are all about safety. That
is something we all (Republican and Democrat) want.
For crew access to LEO that implies well designed abort
modes for all stages of flight, if at all technically possible.
The Shuttle, while a wonderful technological achievement,
does not meet this standard. I think that both Orion and
"crewed" Dragon are designs that can be worked to meet
the CAIB objective. I am sure other designs can as well.

So, I am not sure how safety even comes into the debate as
to whether a commercial entity or the government "owns
the blue prints". Please everybody realize the debate here
is not about who builds the thing - that has almost always
been commercial entities. The GFE content of Mercury, Gemini,
Apollo, and Shuttle is probably in the 5% range at most. The
companies that built these system were North American,
Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Rocketdyne, Rockwell, etc.
It is not like the NASA centers have this enormous industrial
capacity to build rockets and space ships. The argument here
is who owns the blueprint, who (government or commercial) is
responsible for what, and how do we we mix private and
public funds to pay for the development of these systems. The
safety issues I think can be handled in either environment if
proper care is taken. If we are cavalier about safety, either system
can produce death traps.

Therefore, the real issue with the current space policy is not one of
safety, it is one of how in the world to move the current industrial
base (which is really not NASA civil servants, they only account for
about 10% of NASA spending) from today's structure to what
we want in the future.

We currently have no really good plan to get from here to there.
The layoffs are starting and are accelerating. Even though the money
is there in FY10 and the FY11 proposal, there is currently
no real plan to quickly put contracts in place to rehire these
folks who are the real holders of America's leadership in
space technology. We are talking about roughly 100,000 people. What is
going to happen to these people? Most won't go on welfare. They
will either retire if appropriate or move to other industries. Then
by the time it comes to hire these workers back, when the policy
has been fleshed out, and contract RFPs go out, I fear that there won't
be enough people who are qualified available for hire.

This, I think is the real issue we face today.

Forrest

To date only five of the 13 CAIB board members have signed off on the Obama plan and I know of one that has come out strongly against it.

At least one member of the Challenger Accident Review board (Armstrong) is against the plan.