STS-121 FRR ET Presentation
“… And then when reporters tried to get documents that went with this review, the Flight Readiness Review, NASA refused to post them, even though they had put the very same documents out for the public to see before Eileen Collins’ mission. … I got a hold of one of those documents that had to do with the external tank and I posted it on NASA Watch.”
NASA Presentation: STS-121 Flight Readiness Review External Tank Project (ET-119)
Editor’s note: Renowned Information presentation guru Edward Tufte has some comments on this PowerPoint presentation. His comments on NASA’s reliance upon the PowerPoint crutch and the pitfalls with using this crutch – appear in the CAIB’s final report. NASA also invited him to make a number of presentations across the agency several years ago. Alas, all of his suggestions seem to have been forgotten. Go to his page here and scroll to the bottom (but once you’ve read the latest entry, take some time to start at the top and work your way through).
“The tone and style of the presentation seem alienated from professional engineering. It almost looks like the slides were prepared by a PP designer, assisted by several engineers. Or maybe it is just the PP pitch style. I hope the actual engineering for the shuttle is a lot better than the evidence for the engineering shown in this presentation.”
