METH@USC-ISI@sri-unix.UUCP (09/20/83)
FROM AVIATION WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, September 19, 1983:
BEGGS ENDS PLAN TO STORE SHUTTLE ORBITER
NASA head James T. Beggs has reversed an agency shuttle
program office decision that would have placed the orbiter
Columbia in storage for two years and made the spacecraft
available for spare parts cannibalization half that period...
Shuttle managers had treated their earlier decision as a
routine adjustment of program assets and therefore had not
included Beggs in the planning. He immediately reversed it,
characterizing it as bad political and engineering policy...
"I think they were wrong in considering it that way,"
Beggs said, "but I can understand why they would." ...
"There are two reasons I felt it was a bad thing to do.
One is that it is bad engineering policy to make a hangar queen
out of a flying airplane.
"It would be a very bad thing to lay Columbia up and
cannibalize it because I don't think we would ever get it back to
the condition it's in now.
"The second reason is that it would leave the wrong
impression not only politically, but also with our customer
base..."
-------REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (09/22/83)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> I think Beggs is warming up to the job, and may turn out quite well. People are doing bad things behind his back, but as soon as he finds out about them he is overruling them. Maybe we should all write him letters congradulating him on his decision to keep all existing shuttles in working order, and offering him our support in getting Congress to fund a fifth shuttle.