Artificial Date Drives Space Shuttle Safety Analysis

It is striking how the ‘magical’ 2010 date for STS shutdown is once again driving Safety Analysis at NASA, after the CAIB report made such a big deal about the role that the artificial ‘Node 2’ Assembly Complete date played in Columbia’s demise. Its amazing that date has been so carved in stone, when the circumstances that it was conceived under by CAIB could not be expected to anticipate how things would play out in the years following Columbia.

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_discovery_call_060727.html

I think that real leadership would be NASA completing the communication loop with the Administration and advise them that a 2010 shutdown for the STS is not looking doable. Its incredible that so much cash could be invested in making the vehicle safer, and then this artificial date (a) is creating the circumstances to start cutting safety corners again by increasing schedule pressure and (b) is going to undercut that investment in safety by taking the STS out of service when its arguably as safe and effective as its ever been.

---

"We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them." - Seneca