THE "ARUBINIZATION" OF NASA

Here's a riddle ...

What does NASA have in common with the criminal investigation department of the Aruban police?

The answer?

Far too many very scary things!

First, both have a problem they can't solve. Both look like complete clown organizations in the public eye right now and BOTH protest that THEY aren't the problem!

Two years ago, COLUMBIA burned in the upper atmosphere while returning to Earth. The cause, which NASA itself resisted for several months - was foam insulation breaking off the external fuel tank and damaging heat shield tiles during the uplift phase.

Fast forward to today - and what has changed? Nothing - we have DISCOVERY in orbit, and due to the fact that foam insulation broke off of the external fuel tank during uplift - we now have several - more than several - damaged heat shield tiles. Oh, and DISCOVERY has a NEW problem too - peeling "gap filler" between the tiles.

Eileen Collins, the commander of STS-114 says that everyone is talking about the one or two things that aren't working on DISCOVERY right now - but no one mentions the fact that there are over two million parts on DISCOVERY that ARE working.

That's great Ma'am. May I remind you that that is EXACTLY the situation that COLUMBIA was in just prior to it's loss during reentry?

My message to Commander Collins is this - it's great that the onboard bacteria incubators and the toilet are working on DISCOVERY. We're all happy about that part! However, what good are they going to do you when DISCOVERY has to plow back into the upper atmosphere through temperatures of THOUSANDS of degrees?

It's incredible to me that a commander of an STS mission can just blow off a critical deficiency this easily.

And that psychology of deficiency doesn't stop with the space shuttle commander either ...

NASA has said that, no matter what they do, they will never be able to keep foam insulation from peeling off the external fuel tank during uplift. They just have to accept the fact some insulation is going to come off.

What?

So they've admitted defeat on the issue. One things for certain, if you BELIEVE that you can't solve a problem - you can't.

The space shuttle program was grounded for two years after the loss of COLUMBIA. What did the engineers at NASA do to ensure that there wasn't a repeat of the disaster on DISCOVERY?

I can't think of ANYTHING they did. They still have foam insulation that sheers off during launch - and the heat shield tiles are still being damaged when it does. The only thing I can see that NASA did was install a lot of little neat nifty cameras on the outside of the shuttle so they could ...

WATCH INSULATION FLY OFF!

And go ...

"Wow!! Oh Gosh! That's not good!"

They still don't have any confidence that they can repair damaged tiles in space -- well, that's only partially true. They do know now that they can repair them - but they have absolutely no clue as to whether or not those repaired tiles will survive reentry. I haven't even seen a test that is planned to determine if repaired tiles will survive reentry - NASA hasn't come up with one. I guess their plan was to do a "Hail Mary" (cross your fingers and pray it works) test the next time a shuttle had to return with damaged tiles.

How about carrying up an empty capsule sheathed with some damaged tiles? Then have the crew repair them and throw that through the atmosphere to see if they work?

And, this new problem with the peeling insulated gap filler is completely unanticipated by NASA.

I don't know what is going on over at NASA - but it isn't good. And their denial of the problems is a clear indication that the current management staff over there can't fix them.

It's the "Arubination" of America's space program - and it's distressing!