BATALI@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU (John Batali) (03/04/86)
The reason I sent my "Paranoia" message was mostly to provoke some responses from "insiders" at NASA to post some juicy bits about what went on and what is going on now. Alas, that effort failed. I don't buy at all this "speculation is bad" argument which NASA presented on the afternoon of the explosion and which two messages have parrotted. Speculation is precisely the way to locate possible sources of the problem. NASA seems to prefer to keep the investigation narrow and controlled, thus limiting the amoung of changes which must be made in the aftermath of the investigation. Speculation might expose more problems. More problems mean more changes, mean that beaurocrats will lose power. A good illustration of this comes from the revelations about the Thiokol meeting. Had there been no gag order, the engineers at MT would have been on the phones to the press the day after the accident. As it turns out, the photos of the accident pointed pretty clearly to the seals (and thus to MT) as a part of the problem. But had there been no such clear evidence (which, by the way, was subject to press "speculation" even during the day of the explosion) we might never have learned about the late-night arguments. And even more alarming: How many other groups of engineers watched the launch with trepidation, having lost last-minute or ongoing disputes with managers about the safety of their subsystems? With the gag order and no public evidence we may never know. Again, the only such group to surface was the Rockwell ice team who also suggested that the launch be delayed -- and the matter of ice all over the launch pad was also public knowledge and a matter of "speculation" the day of the accident. The thing that really bothers me is the dramatic contrast between the almost mystical devotion to space evident in some of the contributors to this list (a devotion I share) and the fact that NASA, which should be the keeper of this sacred flame, appears to be acting like just another goverment agency.