Public Pays Tab for NASA, Then is Told to Get Lost

Orlando Sentinel ^ | May 13, 2003 | Mike Thomas

[anymouse]

Admiral Harold Gehman, who is in charge of investigating the shuttle Columbia accident, must be having flashbacks to his secretive investigation of the USS Cole terrorist attack.

Evidently, he also doesn't think the public should be in on his investigation into the Columbia disaster.

Gehman, appointed by NASA, thinks nobody other than his panel should know all the details of the Columbia report.

We're not to worry our pretty little heads about what transpired in all those secret interviews with NASA officials. We're just to assume the panel asked the right questions of the right people, reached the right conclusions and made the right recommendations.

Gehman also put Congress on his do-not-need-to-know list.

NASA has been quietly paying the civilian board members on Gehman's panel. This allows them to be classified as government employees and conduct business in secret.

If you recall, these are the same civilian board members that were put on the panel to ensure its independence and credibility. But if you are getting up to $2,500 a week, it raises questions about your willingness to bite the hand that writes the check.

There was skepticism about Gehman's panel as soon as NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe formed it.

The criticism waned. But now comes this display of arrogance.

Not only will the public be excluded from interviews of key NASA officials, it also will be excluded from details of those interviews when the panel's report on the Columbia disaster is released.

I could understand it if there were some compelling need for secrecy, as was the case with Gehman's investigation of the USS Cole. But embarrassing mistakes by NASA managers hardly qualify as state secrets.

The public paid for the shuttle.

The public saw its seven astronauts killed when the orbiter disintegrated.

The public turned out in droves to help NASA recover debris.

The public is paying for the investigation.

The public will pay the billions this accident eventually will cost.

Given all that, I think the public has a right to know what happened. We should know the involvement of every top NASA official associated with Columbia from its launch to its demise.

We should have names and versions of events, not necessarily in the context of assigning blame but to understand what happened and create a historical record.

The idea that secrecy is the only way to guarantee NASA managers will talk openly is nonsense.

You put people under oath and you ask them questions. If they don't answer the questions, you remove them from their jobs and, if need be, you prosecute them.

That formula worked well during the investigation of Challenger.

[anymouse]

Or Never A Straight Answer. :)

Or worse, Need Another Seven Astronauts. :(

[RightWhale]

The opening of America was not profitable for a long time. It is still the same.

What opened the West was the railroads. Private industry. But wait! How about the 200-mile wide rights-of-way the government granted to the railroads, think that had something to do with the willingness of the railroad barons to undertake the building of railroads in the West?

It worked once, it has worked more than once in history. The Thirteen Colonies were government grants. Hugh success. Maybe it will work once more, in opening Outer Space. Cost = nothing. Just a gov't assertion of sovereignty and a permit. A couple pieces of paper. Should be easy.

[meema]

Then they will just have to shut nasa down if they won't have a real honest independent investigation.

Congress AND President Bush had better make them start all over, because this is nothing but a cover-up.

They have lost me.

[meema]

I wasn't going to bring this up, but your comments to me are condescending.

[Frank_Discussion]

"If you don't understand the simplicity of that, I can't help you."

If this is what you're referring to, I'm sorry. Truly and without any sarcasm. Condescension was not the goal.

I pride myself on civil discourse and with as little flaming as possible - I mean no offense to anyone save trolls. And I don't think you're a troll.

However, let me try to restate what I meant:

The anonymous testimony isn't meant to hide data from the public, rather it allow more unadulturated data to come forth by protecting the source. Witness protection is the term I like to think of in this case.

I think that the concept of "need-to-know" and "privacy" are very important. The tone of my comments got a little nutty because there are a lot of people who would demand to know anything about anybody if it satisfies their curiousity and gives them a target to hit when the fit hits the shan. This has been particularly out of control in regards to the Columbia investigation.

Under the guise of privacy in particular, without the anonymous testimony, a whole bunch of folks would be pleading the fifth right now, whether they were guilty of anything or not.

[bvw]

No. That is not the reason. It is your guess. Be honest.

[bvw]

Is this your creed: " That a government for the government, by the government and of the government shall not perish from this Earth."?

[r9etb]

Is this your creed: " That a government for the government, by the government and of the government shall not perish from this Earth."?

Oh, please. I'm really disappointed to see you resorting to this sort of response.

My comment is based on the same reasoning that the NTSB keeps its investigations close to the vest: simply because the investigation would most likely be hindered by an unfiltered and completely transparent data dump containing any number of unfiltered "what-if" theories, not to mention volumes of hard-to-interpret data.

[bvw]

This is NOT an NTSB investigation. And chances are after the dozen solid years of emphasis on diversity excellence over technical excellence in promotion and management, chances are the NTSB could use some fully public juried investigations rather than the closed "expert" clique they now have.

[r9etb]

This is NOT an NTSB investigation.

It's fully equivalent to an NTSB investigation. A quick look at the various airliner-crash related conspiracy theories that abound will tell you why "fully public juried investigations" are in practice inferior to a closed system.

[bvw]

Righto. The public can't be trusted. The rabble needs their betters to do the important stuff for them behind closed doors.

[meema]

OK. Your apology is gratefully accepted. I have loved NASA all my life. My 3 generation family flew from Chgo to FL about 7 years ago for the sole purpose of watching the Endeaver blast off. Are you old enough to have watched and listened to ALL the Challenger Investigation? I still have all my (self)edited tapes beginning with the LIVE tapes of that tragedy as it happened.
I am not interested in embarrassing anyone. But Columbia seems to be much the same management problem as Challenger.
That scares me. If they don't bring it out in the open, they won't change.
If they don't change, as in, improve, they don't deserve to send brave souls up anymore.
I truly don't trust them now.

I'm sorry I took so long to get back to you, and I do thank you for understanding why I was upset with you. And you're right. I'm not a troll. See you around the boards.

[Frank_Discussion]

Yes, I'm old enough to have audited the Challenger, though I have not throroughly done so. However, I remember watching the news at the time, and the coverage at the time was of meetings VERY close to the vest.

Right now, Columbia's investigation is a pretty open process, more data immediately, and easily accessable. They've merely allowed names to be omitted in some cases, while the system data flows on.

I agree with you on one point: Management is a beast that devours a lot of good work at NASA.

[meema]

Challenger's investigation was carried on c-span, and it was totally independent and very, very little was/is kept from us.
For me, that is the benchmark Columbia should strive for.