Ralph Roe Named NASA Chief Engineer, NASA
“As chief engineer, Ralph will be responsible for the overall review and technical readiness of all NASA programs. The chief engineer serves as the agency’s principal advisor on the execution of our programs and projects with proper controls and management of technical risks and ensures our work is planned and conducted on a sound engineering basis.”
Controversial Appointment At NASA, Daily Press (2003)
“A key player in the doomed Columbia shuttle mission was named director of a new safety office at NASA Langley Research Center on Friday. Ralph Roe, one of a team of people who dismissed falling foam debris as a threat to the shuttle during its final flight, is now director of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center.”
So, let’s review: Ralph is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from USC who get’s a job at NASA right of of school and rises up through the ranks. He is faulted in an accident that claims 7 lives. He’s then moved over to safety instead of being disciplined or fired. Now, he’s Chief Engineer. I understand that human beings make mistakes and deserve 2nd chances. I also understand that individuals who are given great authority (like Launch Director) are paid well and expected to “Be responsible” for the projects they lead. With literally Billions of dollars and lives lost, I am surprised and saddened to learn of Ralph’s new promotion. It seems to me that the NASA Administrator favors Ralph over accountability.
And Ralph was the man on the grassy knoll too. #GetReal.
I always have and still do have a problem with the fact that not a single head rolled after the Columbia accident.
Not a single person as far as I know lost their job over the deaths of seven astronauts.
In my opinion the entire mission management staff should have been canned but we all know they were just “reassigned”.
Perhaps he will pick Linda Ham as his deputy?
They got more funding … we know what would have happened in Russia … they fire heads all the time, failure does not mean promotion upwards.
Yep, not only did he argue against foam being able to damage the orbiter (along with Dittemore), good ol’ Ralph was initially absent — he had gone on vacation despite having a crew and orbiter aloft! I guess it follows the old adage that they’ll remember your name, but not remember why (and then go on to promote you).
Neither Roe nor any of the other Shuttle Program Managers or Orbiter Project Managers of the last quarter century impressed me in the least. All of them turned their heads when the system did not work quite right and they all failed to even try to fix the system. This is not news. The accident boards both recognized there is a problem with the NASA management; they would observe system failures and routinely decide that as long as no one had yet been killed it was OK to continue. They killed two crews and wasted about $10 billion of hardware this way. The accident boards called this normalization of deviance. Anyone who has paid any attention to the last few days of accident commemorations knows this. What is amazing is that the NASA Administrator flaunts it with a personnel move like this. Fact is there are plenty of other great people to choose from and they are not even considered.
All these comments are spot on. No one is being too tough. The fact is that these selections have more to do with career ladders than competency and best qualifications. Roe and others are people that learn to live in the pecking order and within the whole non-sense of fiefdoms throughout NASA. Poor management choices like this and the decisions these individuals make accumulate over years to lead to tragic accidents such as the loss of the crews of Challenger and our flagship Shuttle Columbia.
It’s wrong to blame Roe for anything. The shuttle accidents were preventable(in a perfect world) but the design was flawed from the very beginning. NASA did the best they could with the knowledge they had, often under extreme pressure to launch. Understandably, It was hard for them to believe cold and foam could take either spacecraft down.
With that being said, think about how crazy it was to launch the first shuttle(with humans on board)back in 1981 without testing it first!
My comment does not blame Roe specifically for the loss of the Columbia crew but the management during Columbia is accountable for the loss. Such a complex machine was flawed but the problems that arose were preventable. In both Challenger and Columbia, the management/engineering system supporting launch knew of the issues and ignored or normalized deviances. Also, there are instances of poor engineers that climb the ranks of management. Rather than trust the judgement of the good and excellent engineers working day-in day-out with the hardware, they choose to use their poorer ability to assess and/or do not choose to error on the side of caution. Take the two tragic events as snapshots of flawed management systems. Knowing how people climb in the NASA system, taking from the ranks of the management that was in place during Columbia is a poor choice.
And yet I’ve heard engineers state they didn’t think foam could puncture the shuttle’s wing..and were very startled when the post Columbia tests proved them wrong.
I guess you miss the point. Its not just up to any engineer off the street to guess what might happen, it was up to the Orbiter Project Manager to make sure that particular system was managed, understood and problems reported and adequately dispositioned. It was the failure to manage the process and the organization to make sure a known problem was being properly handled that caused the Shuttle accidents.
No, BlingSlade, you are wrong.
Yes, both Shuttle accidents were preventable.
It should not have been hard at all for them to believe that cold or foam could take the spacecraft down. Both were simple physics.
In the case of Challenger it should not have taken a Nobel prize winning physicist to show that cold effected the resiliency of a material.
In the case of Columbia there was no one left at NASA that even understood the characteristics of RCC and that it was a ceramic that was not tough-just like most ceramics it was brittle. How do you have a major life-critical system with no one in the program that understands it? Furthermore, the fact that inspections had failed to identify that the panels were getting thinner and more brittle with age and flight time was a failure. And the idea that major pieces of the thermal protection on the ET were hitting and damaging the Orbiter heatshield had been recognized for a long time and yet no one attempted to take any action.
And you are also wrong to say that the design was flawed and therefore NASA did the best… this is real bull crap to put it kindly. NASA developed the system. NASA’s job was to make sure it understood and was watching the system. NASA’s job was to recognize technical problems and correct them. The Challenger flaw was fixed relatively quickly and inexpensively, after it killed a crew.
Given time and effort the foam and tile issues could have been resolved. The evidence was in hand during Columbia’s last mission that there was an issue. The engineers recognized this. Remember the mission manager decided both there was no sense worrying about the problem and why even bother to hold mission management meetings.
It was fully within NASA’s and the Shuttle Program Manager’s and Orbiter, SRB and ET Project Manager’s responsibilities and authorities to recognize and communicate the issues, and to take proper action. And they should not have been waiting for problems to materialize; they should have been looking for problems.
No, NASA doesn’t get a pass on these. All of the managers that were in place and that had failed in their functions should have been moved out of the critical path.
I always thought that some of them should have fallen on their swords before congress as a space shuttle program turned into a boondoggle of epic proportions.
It is all just a chummy club – no wonder our space program isn’t what it used to be. Nepotism and favoritism trump competence and accountability!
Look no further than Congressional Leadership. Congress appointed Griffin to do the dirty work with ESAS in 2005 (the goal of the analysis was to eliminate all 3 launch solutions), while they had to play the dirty tricks in 2010 with 70 and 130 mT.
The advancement criteria is 1) shuttle derived and 2) everything must be outsourced when finding the best qualified executives including appropriate sources for minority and female candidates and candidates with disabilities. If the person is able to assert as fact things one knows or suspects not to be true, then depth of knowledge is also considered.
Griffin Cleans House-
http://www.spacepolitics.co…
The screening process has been in the works for decades and the bar keeps being lowered.
CAIB, Augustine, Rogers, and the rest of the commissions recommendations are cast aside for politics. “Let us make recommendations to ensure NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources”
Yet the gap was going to closed by starting four, no five engine development programs for the wrong sized LV. Seriously?
What took NASA, oops Congress, so long to recognize the fact that solid rockets need a bigger abort system to keep the crew alive or was the issue actually brought up very early in the ESAS process? http://www.youtube.com/watc…
http://www.thespacereview.c…
Given Apollo 13, why is NASA, oops Congress, forcing NASA to take Orion to Mars when the earth ascent/reentry vehicle should be at best powered down at L2? Reusability ever considered?
Costs? Internal NASA studies show alternatives 10s
of billions less. http://www.spaceref.com/new…
NASA Leadership Response?
“If you want to get out of LEO with any useful crew the rocket must be capable of 130 mT. The floor of 130 mT was very intelligently set based on decades of engineering analysis and is the minimum for a few people on the moon for a few days… and requires development of an interplanetary cruise vehicle that must include at least an extended duration CEV.” stated by numerous NASA, contractor, and Congressional Leaders
Recall that ESAS did almost the exact opposite of Griffin white paper:(GWP) http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lun…
GWP: “Stage 2 initiates human exploration of the solar system with a variety of destinations including “near Earth objects” such as asteroids, the Lagrange points; and the vicinities of the moon and Mars. Note that human landings on the moon or Mars are not included, although landings on the Martian moons (Phobos or Deimos) could be made, as they have negligible gravitational attraction and no atmosphere…both safer and more cost effective than going directly to the planetary surfaces as landing and ascent vehicles would not be required.” –Yet part of Congress states that ARM is dead and go with the one legged lunar stool.
GWP: “SEL2 is an excellent location for space telescopes…and these telescopes will require servicing. SEL2 is also an excellent point from which to stage missions beyond Earth’s gravitational field. Such a staging node is of no value for a single planetary expedition or for an architecture built primarily around expendable mission hardware. An interplanetary vehicle station at SEL2 is reused for many trips to multiple destinations, the energy savings achieved through the use of such a staging node are significant…and supplies can be ferried on slower but more efficient trajectories, possibly using EP.” –But Congress had to go to the moon first, skip JWST servicing, and keep everything expendable with their “acts”.
GWP “During the time frame addressed by this report—the next several decades—the cost of access to Earth orbit can hardly be less than several thousand dollars per kilogram” –so the whole premise of retaining HLV hinges on this faulty cost estimate from a white paper with few references and numbers despite decades of studies.
At least Griffin stated the obvious “There are some plans which are so stupid that you know that that plan will not come
to fruition.” Now was he referring to Asteroids or HLV/Orion?!
Lori Garver says NASA should not build the SLS http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
To infinity and beyond. Or is infinity the time scale?
Wow, tough crowd
Indeed. As a non-NASA employee but space geek nonetheless, I like to watch these discussions among folks who know what is happening, gleaning between the lines, learning how things operate.
I’m puzzled by the tone of these comments as well, I confess, and the call for blood. It is not clear to me how it makes sense to discard a seasoned employee involved in a danger-prone enterprise because of failure- even if we lost 7 heroic people. Perhaps there are other issues with this individual. I only know what I read.
I often see NASA criticized for being too safety-adverse. I can’t square that attitude with a policy of firing people when there is an accident. Rockets blow up. It’s the sad truth that we are operating wooden ships across a great and vast sea.
And the one thing that will turn these ancient boats into sleek, modern cruisers is experience- in design and in operation. Can’t do that if people are afraid of losing jobs; neither can the institution move forward collectively if individuals cannot learn from error.
(One more thing: I never understood why O-rings weren’t tested in low temperatures. Anyone living in Florida- I live on the SW coast, where freezes are very rare, but the Space Coast freezes regularly- anyone in Florida knows winter can be damn cold. And they sure have cold temperatures in Utah as well).
“One more thing: I never understood why O-rings weren’t tested in low temperatures.”
Actually the question to ask is whether the requirement to operate in those cold temperatures was ever levied on the SRB’s and if they were, if those requirements were properly vetted and verified (obviously not, given the outcome).
IIRC, that was the point Roger Boisjoly (sp) was arguing: the launch needed to be scrubbed because the SRBs were outside of the environmental design parameters.
As a fellow outsider, I’ve seen comments from the trenches that suggest a belief that NASA management needs a major shake-up, and a frustration that management suck-ups get promoted while “squeaky wheels” get frozen out or sent to work in archives.
People should indeed be able to “learn from their mistakes”, but how many times do they get to repeat the same mistakes before we’re allowed to say the organisation is broken?
Likewise, NASA managers are accused of being “risk adverse” in a very narrow way. Avoiding “risk” means avoiding being the one who makes the contradicting decision. They even call it “go fever” when it comes to launches. (Read Wayne Hale’s recent blog entries. You can easily see similar conservations before Challenger when scrubbing might have meant months of delay, and initiating an expensive O-Ring testing and upgrade program that may have been for nothing. Would you want to be that manager, in an organisation as bitchy-political as NASA? Easier to just say “go”.)
This is the “risk aversion” that refuses to have inexperienced astronauts do an EVA to assess damage because of the risk to the shuttle or to the astronauts if they screw up, but sees no problem in letting those same astronauts reenter in that same shuttle without known if there’s damage. See the difference between the two types of risk?
Paul, not sure of your point here?
If the Challenger launch was scrubbed it would not have initiated “months of delay” nor would it have initiated “months of O-ring testing”.
As a matter of fact the launch had already been scrubbed I think 4 times before the 28th.
If I were the manager in the bitchy-political organization that IS NASA and my deeply held beliefs were called into question I am NOT the guy to just say “Go” because its easier to get along and that is called Integrity.
Regardless of whether you are a civil servant or contractor Truth and Integrity are not popular traits at NASA and will not advance your career and I know from experience as I have died on my own sword many times.
Michael,
Read the CAIB report and you will see where the mission management teams were called out specifically for failing to hold some of the daily mission meetings “just because mission managers thought everything was fine why have the meeting”
This type of behavior translates to negligence and there is a stark difference between negligence and normal failure.
Hence the “calls for blood”
Actually I have read the report, admittedly not recently. Thanks for the reminder.
I once held some of the same opinions about Ralph Roe that were expressed here. Some of those impressions were based on articles in the press like the Atlantic Monthly Article on Columbia’s Last Flight. You have to ask yourself, “how could the author really have known some of the things he wrote for effect in that article?”
In my direct personal experience, whether it’s because he learned a lesson from Columbia or he was always that way, I have always known Ralph Roe to be an intelligent, capable, competent engineer of the highest personal and professional integrity – in areas of both safety and engineering. In addition, Ralph is an excellent manager and leader. He demands performance from the people who work for him and he insists they always back their claims with solid data. Ralph did an absolutely outstanding job standing up the NASA Engineering and Safety Center and in leading and managing it since its inception. Ralph is especially insistent that dissenting engineering and safety opinions are aired and considered. Ralph genuinely cared for the people who crewed Columbia and that accident hurt him as badly as it hurt anyone. Ralph never, ever places his personal career above the interests of engineering excellence or safety. He is not afraid to speak truth to power, even at great personal and career cost. He is exactly the kind of person you want in the position of NASA Chief Engineer as a guardian of NASA’s Engineering Excellence and Integrity and Dedication to Safety.
Well, maybe he learned a lesson from Columbia, as you say. In most organizations, if the screw up is that big, your career doesn’t survive.
NASA has not done much in the last ten years other than come up with a design for a new spacecraft that is too large and too heavy; these were basic mistakes in requirements and early design definition; did Ralph have a role ?
Fact was, Ralph was in charge of a lot of the program back during the years immediately prior to and including Columbia. He had the power and the authority then.
After the Apollo fire how many of the Apollo managers remained in their positions?
Is it really accurate to compare NASA’s work with that of ‘most organizations’? Isn’t it the case that NASA’s endeavors are more properly called- well, at the least, design development, and that s*it will happen?
Are astronaut deaths acceptable? Please. Of course not. But I’ve read enough by astronauts to know they are fully engaged in assessing the risk and they willingly engage to move the ball forward.
NASA is an engineering organization. The job of the Program or Project Manager, like Roe in 2002, is to manage that organization.
No, s*it does not just happen if you are doing an adequate job of managing the organization and its processes.
These managers can take the disposition of the ostrich and hide their head until everyone gets surprised, or they can actively manage the organization and process and make sure each system and function is properly covered, understood, and managed.
As the accident boards pointed out in both the Columbia and Challenger cases, the problems were known and had been identified but no effort had been made to manage either of them.
I do take your point that many problems identified in both reports were known but not managed, and that proper management would have avoided certain failures.
This discussion has bounced back and forth from the particular to the general.
“No, s*it does not just happen if you are doing an adequate job of managing the organization and its processes.”
I wonder about that. Is it really possible to engineer new ventures without failure? Isn’t failure part of the process?
Both reports faulted NASA for not realizing these systems are much closer to experimental than operational. That being the case, is there any level of ‘managing’ all avoid all unforeseens?
My information does not come from articles or 2nd hand. I know him personally as well – and this is not my experience. He is a perfect example of going along to get along. That is the way to advance at NASA and that is why NASA is no longer advancing. They are all about protecting themselves and their friends (and in this case family). Ralph’s wife Lesa has also (very quietly) gotten a new job at HQ (as Robert Lightfoot’s deputy). No selection criteria for that job either and she was head of Langley during the security fiasco and has been promoted well beyond her capability. But once Lesa moved, NASA was all about finding a spot for Ralph. Got to keep it in the family. Tax payer be damned.
“Going along to get along”
This is EXACTLY the NASA way and it is this way at each and every center.
That is so so true…..at NASA to advance you go along to get along. The way most NASA SESers advance is to never..EVER! disagree with the boss. Very few major organizations end up
with such a milk toast stereotypical line of senior managers.
Ha! I don’t know the people that are the subject of this article so I can’t comment there, but I have to agree about the culture at NASA and how rocking the boat is frowned upon (at best).
After the Columbia accident, we were asked to go through a period of “soul searching” and come up with suggestions to improve how things were done at the agency. I stood up at a department meeting and said, “Does anyone here really believe that NASA will change the basic, fundamental ways it does business?” Nobody said anything, but I got several dirty looks.
I don’t know guys. I have work at HQ, and two centers, and there is plenty of very competent people who express strong opinions and openly disagree and challenge management decisions. There are bad apples everywhere, but I think NASA is the best managed agency. We do fail at some things, and failure can be tragic, but space is a difficult business that gets complicated by politics. I think NASA can improve, but I also think that it can stand proudly on its record. Now go back to work,,,.
G
I’ve worked at seveveral centers, including HQ. There are some good and competent managers and there are some who are not. As one blogger said, ‘at NASA you go along to get along, and that is how you advance at NASA, and that is why NASA is no longer advancing’. Gelbstoff says go back to work. Fact is there really is not enough work to go around because we are not advancing and many talented people are not being used. The NaSA people collect paychecks but a lot of us are not. And yet the budget has not declined that significantly so I’LL have to wonder where all the work is.
I know of instances in the human space business where manager after manager, usually promotion after promotion, they bring someone in who has zero knowledge of the job and zero demonstrated ability to get the job done. And after a year or two they move that person on and bring the next unqualified manager in, and after ten years when you see how little has been accomplished, you wonder why they have not seen the super qualified and capable and hard working and competent people who were there the entire time. The program is not in good shape and has not been since Columbia.
I don’t doubt you, but in my experience, it’s was people that were already high up in the food chain who were able to get away with challenging higher management decisions. As a person down in the trenches, you simply didn’t question an established policy dictated by the higher ups. Yes, this is true everywhere, but I found it to be acutely so at NASA.
I won’t argue about NASA being the best managed agency. I’ll just say my opinion is that that is not saying much considering the rest of the federal bureaucracy.
“but I also think that it can stand proudly on its record.”
I actually think that is one of the big problems. Too much looking back and assuming since NASA was the elite agency in the past, it still is today.