NASA's #JourneyToMars Thing Is More Notional Than Ever
Lightfoot says he does not know if they will meet a 2033 date for getting humans to Mars. Perlmutter quotes Yoda saying "do or do not". pic.twitter.com/5niBsNNWZh
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 7, 2018
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It is my belief, originally following Challenger but then further deepened post-Columbia, NASA suffers from an aversion to risk, and, as part of this risk averse nature, expresses it as performance anxiety. (I am avoiding further humor along this axis… but I’m sure y’all can fill it in.)
After each of the accidents during the STS era, we heard, over and over, about “NASA management”.
And it struck me, and I’ve used this quotable:
“Leaders maximize gains; Manager merely minimize losses.” – me
And, yeah, NASA “management” provided the inspiration.
“Aversion to risk” doesn’t necessarily mean “risk” to safety of astronauts, but career risk to an individual. SLS suffers from the same flawed management that led to the Shuttle losses. The same tendency to ignore or wave away problems with safety, because raising those matters risks exposing the whole program, and no manager wants to be “that guy”.
Well, I never focused just on risk to astronauts, there are POLITICAL risks, too.
With this whole delay through lunar orbital platform gateway they will be lucky if they get to presidents request of boots on the moon by 2033 nevermind when they might get around to heading out to Mars.
Don’t break the ongoing rule… Mars is always 30 year from today.