Author Topic: James Webb Space Telescope  (Read 71734 times)

Offline bknight

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #60 on: June 05, 2016, 08:23:04 PM »
I think the Columbia disaster was worse. The technical details of the failure were different but the management failures were the same. They didn't learn from Challenger.
I agree  100% with they didn't learn, which was the original intent of the thread, would the same type of mistake be made with JWST.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
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Offline Peter B

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #61 on: June 06, 2016, 08:54:24 AM »
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course

Superb article by James Oberg which details the problems with the spacecraft - or, more precisely, people and processes within JPL.


What a complete and utter cock-up!!!

A multi million dollar probe was lost because people didn't fill in the correct forms.... that's bureaucrats for you!!!

I'd disagree that there's anything unique about the ability of bureaucrats to stuff up. In my experience people in private enterprise can manage it just as well.

A good example here in Australia in the last couple of years is how one of our two major supermarket chains, Woolworths, seems to have thrown away half a billion dollars on a largely failed hardware chain called Masters. They seemed to manage to do everything wrong: they opened stores a long way from where people lived (compared to the most popular chain which has stores in town centres); they managed to have their stock ranges out of season, thanks to being tied to an American chain; their staff included a lot of inexperienced juniors (compared to the most popular chain which employs a lot of retired tradesmen); and they engaged in a lot of pointless micromanagement (staff are required to park their cars tail-in).

Offline sts60

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #62 on: June 06, 2016, 09:28:26 AM »
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course

Superb article by James Oberg which details the problems with the spacecraft - or, more precisely, people and processes within JPL.

What a complete and utter cock-up!!!

A multi million dollar probe was lost because people didn't fill in the correct forms.... that's bureaucrats for you!!!

You should re-read the article.  It wasn't about "bureaucrats not filling in the right forms".  It was much more complicated than that

Offline smartcooky

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #63 on: June 06, 2016, 11:07:20 PM »
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course

Superb article by James Oberg which details the problems with the spacecraft - or, more precisely, people and processes within JPL.

What a complete and utter cock-up!!!

A multi million dollar probe was lost because people didn't fill in the correct forms.... that's bureaucrats for you!!!

You should re-read the article.  It wasn't about "bureaucrats not filling in the right forms".  It was much more complicated than that

Oh, I am well aware of that, I was just pulling out a sound bite....

"Although the navigators continued to express concern about the spacecraft trajectory, NASA's Stephenson explained why there had been no management response. "They did not use the existing formal process for such concerns," he stated. JPL has a special form to invoke a so-called incident surprise and analysis procedure, and the navigators did not follow the rules about filling out that form to document their concerns."

Its this kind of bureaucracy that really pisses me off. I had it in the Air Force so I'm familiar with the types of pen-pushing shiny-arses who stand between safety and success. It is exactly this kind of attitude that results in things like the Challenger and Columbia disasters; the engineers warn of the dangers, the paper shufflers and bean-counters don't listen....BANG! More dead people!
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline sts60

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #64 on: June 06, 2016, 11:47:47 PM »
Ha, sorry.  I should have realized you understood it better. 

Although I don't have time right now to pontificate, this sort of thing is of much interest to me, as safety & mission assurance (S&MA) is basically what I currently do for a living. 

Offline bknight

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #65 on: November 08, 2016, 05:48:23 PM »
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline bknight

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #66 on: February 15, 2017, 05:55:41 PM »
Good to have a back up plan for Hubble in case JWST fails.  There is a good animation of the deployment of JWST, so many places for a failure.  I hope that all goes well.

http://www.universetoday.com/133429/dream-chaser-spacecraft-may-used-hubble-repair-mission/
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #67 on: February 21, 2017, 10:08:51 PM »
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course

Superb article by James Oberg which details the problems with the spacecraft - or, more precisely, people and processes within JPL.

What a complete and utter cock-up!!!

A multi million dollar probe was lost because people didn't fill in the correct forms.... that's bureaucrats for you!!!

You should re-read the article.  It wasn't about "bureaucrats not filling in the right forms".  It was much more complicated than that

Oh, I am well aware of that, I was just pulling out a sound bite....

"Although the navigators continued to express concern about the spacecraft trajectory, NASA's Stephenson explained why there had been no management response. "They did not use the existing formal process for such concerns," he stated. JPL has a special form to invoke a so-called incident surprise and analysis procedure, and the navigators did not follow the rules about filling out that form to document their concerns."

Its this kind of bureaucracy that really pisses me off. I had it in the Air Force so I'm familiar with the types of pen-pushing shiny-arses who stand between safety and success. It is exactly this kind of attitude that results in things like the Challenger and Columbia disasters; the engineers warn of the dangers, the paper shufflers and bean-counters don't listen....BANG! More dead people!

How many people have military stuff ups killed? 

Offline smartcooky

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #68 on: February 22, 2017, 05:22:41 AM »
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course

Superb article by James Oberg which details the problems with the spacecraft - or, more precisely, people and processes within JPL.

What a complete and utter cock-up!!!

A multi million dollar probe was lost because people didn't fill in the correct forms.... that's bureaucrats for you!!!

You should re-read the article.  It wasn't about "bureaucrats not filling in the right forms".  It was much more complicated than that

Oh, I am well aware of that, I was just pulling out a sound bite....

"Although the navigators continued to express concern about the spacecraft trajectory, NASA's Stephenson explained why there had been no management response. "They did not use the existing formal process for such concerns," he stated. JPL has a special form to invoke a so-called incident surprise and analysis procedure, and the navigators did not follow the rules about filling out that form to document their concerns."

Its this kind of bureaucracy that really pisses me off. I had it in the Air Force so I'm familiar with the types of pen-pushing shiny-arses who stand between safety and success. It is exactly this kind of attitude that results in things like the Challenger and Columbia disasters; the engineers warn of the dangers, the paper shufflers and bean-counters don't listen....BANG! More dead people!

How many people have military stuff ups killed?

Where would you like me to start?
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline Zakalwe

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #69 on: February 22, 2017, 05:27:34 AM »
Good to have a back up plan for Hubble in case JWST fails.  There is a good animation of the deployment of JWST, so many places for a failure.  I hope that all goes well.

http://www.universetoday.com/133429/dream-chaser-spacecraft-may-used-hubble-repair-mission/

That looks like vapourware to me. How would such a system get to the HST orbit? And de-orbit? Is it big enough to allow astronauts to suit up for EVA? Does it even have an airlock to allow EVAs?
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' " - Isaac Asimov

Offline Kiwi

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #70 on: February 22, 2017, 08:19:34 AM »
How many people have military stuff ups killed?

For a start, just one example: 2,721 Kiwis killed and 4,752 wounded at Gallipoli between 25 April and 19 December 1915* in a monumental stuff-up by the British, who kindly saved their own troops and put the colonials in the front line. Then there were all the Australian casualties from the ANZACs... But we're wandering off topic, so this should go to a new thread.

* Two Hundred Years of New Zealand History, A W Reed, Reed Trust, Wellington, 1979, pages 207-208.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 08:35:27 AM by Kiwi »
Don't criticize what you can't understand. — Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” (1963)
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Offline Glom

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #71 on: February 22, 2017, 09:17:30 AM »
I think troops from the metropole did plenty of dying elsewhere.

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #72 on: March 28, 2017, 06:13:53 PM »
How many people have military stuff ups killed?

For a start, just one example: 2,721 Kiwis killed and 4,752 wounded at Gallipoli between 25 April and 19 December 1915* in a monumental stuff-up by the British, who kindly saved their own troops and put the colonials in the front line. Then there were all the Australian casualties from the ANZACs... But we're wandering off topic, so this should go to a new thread.

* Two Hundred Years of New Zealand History, A W Reed, Reed Trust, Wellington, 1979, pages 207-208.

Casualties from the UK at Gallipoli amounted to 73,485 so your opinion is not borne out by a moment's research. 

Offline sts60

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #73 on: March 29, 2017, 01:00:07 AM »
Took this picture today....  JWST at Goddard, with vibration and acoustic testing completed, prior to departing for JSC.  Next up, thermal/vac testing at JSC's Chamber A, in which the Apollo CSM stack was tested.


Offline Kiwi

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope
« Reply #74 on: March 29, 2017, 09:23:09 AM »
Casualties from the UK at Gallipoli amounted to 73,485 so your opinion is not borne out by a moment's research.

Fair enough. But small countries often think the following types of figures are more important. I'll use the third kind of lies, statistics, :) but was last taught maths in 1964 so could be a little rusty.

Gallipoli casualties divided by 1914 population
UK – 73,485 / 46,000,000 = 0.0015975
AU – 28,150 /   4,948,990 = 0.0056880
NZ –   7,991 /   1,158,436 = 0.0068981

56880 / 15975 = 3.56
68981 / 15975 = 4.31

Therefore, on a population basis Australia had three times and NZ had four times the casualties of the UK.

Figures from these web pages:--
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/interactive/gallipoli-casualties-country
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/british-empire-facts-and-stats

We do the same with medals at the Olympics and often come up shining.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2017, 09:46:23 AM by Kiwi »
Don't criticize what you can't understand. — Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” (1963)
Some people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices and superstitions. — Edward R. Murrow (1908–65)