Bolden: The Importance of Risk
Message from the Administrator NASA and the Importance of Risk
“Much of the time, we work in an environment where the consequences of not getting things exactly right are very high. The good news is that our processes and culture are well adapted to doing these things very well. We must not lose that. Human spaceflight and flagship science missions can sometimes be a dangerous business. But, as I have said before, when you do stuff that nobody else has ever done, you have to be willing to accept risk. We have to be willing to do daring things. Put another way, risk intolerance is a guarantee of failure to accomplish anything of significance.”
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
NASA doesn’t seem to be risking much lately so I wonder what Bolden is talking about? Mainly NASA seems to have punted to let private companies take any risk. A good example is Orion which seems to be marking time at great expense. They keep talking about how something might fly sometime next year, except that what is flying is seriously overweight and has major structural problems with its pressure shell and heat shield. The problems have been known for half a decade but their is no courage in failing to rectify the problems and the risk they are taking is totally unnecessary.
Constellation: The Sequel?
I strongly believe that the message in his words is valid and important. And every once in a while the message needs to be restated, to remind those who have drifted into easy complacency and to inform the younger members of the team who perhaps haven’t yet learned that it’s OK to try and fail. The only way to never fail is to never do anything new, which is a pointless existence. To my mind, this (not shoe-pounding or formulating Mars plans) is leadership.
Risk is our business.
–Capt. James T. Kirk
I think Bolden is playing a cagey game. He is refusing to commit to anything but a whitehouse approved asteroid capture mission but he knows he needs to have more than one mission on his plate. Therefore, he’s playing with Inspiration Mars flyby and while actively denying a moon landing, setting up parameters for exactly that mission. It was just announced that a lunar rover landing mission is expected for 2017 and it will seek water. Why is NASA interested in finding water? I dunno, it’s sort like he is testing public opinion on various ideas w/o commiting to them. It could be a smooth move or …..it could backfire.
The “NASA Robotic lander” ‘Mighty Eagle’ has been flying.
I suspect that the replacement Project Morpheus lander will be making its maiden flight in the next few weeks.
Modern programs last about 4 years. Bolden needs to get the projects that near to finish before he informs Congress.
There are two different strategies to reduce risk. One is to do endless paper reviews, adding layer upon layer of redundancy. This way adds cost and weight, and seldom achieves real safety because actual failures are almost always due to unanticipated failure modes. The other is to get more experience with the system, discovering actual failure modes and correcting them without complicating the design. I see nothing wrong with flying the Morpheus and failing. Where I take issue is with the failure of the team to involve people with more experience and learn from them. They cut their ties with Armadillo, for instance, the intrepid group of semipros who originally developed the Pixel. They apparently had no communication with JPL, which (in the same week as the Morpheus crashed) demoed a landing on Mars with a system that had to negotiate 76 possible single point failures on autopilot, things as subtle as the possible development of pendulum oscillations in the lines suspending the rover. If you are going to succeed in something as inherently risky as rocketry, it is a good idea to learn from other people.s mistakes, not just your own.
, I ask you to continue to think about how we can identify and seize opportunities to make progress quickly and affordably. I did and came up with NASA centers building the rockets and spacecraft. Plenty of buildings and tools,transportation and storage. Stop some projects,that could be put off and use those engineers. Just material is very cheap. NASA is building the intertank for SLS. They are using the isogrid plate method. They did go to a cheaper aluminum, since they could not find plate thick enough to use lithium al. If they can build the intertank, they could build a complete rocket. It must not be a good idea since I came up with this a long time ago and they have not done it. That is the only idea I have, but at least I tried.