CompuServe Messages

I'll bet they produced the machines with good oversight, communication and technical consulting with someone who was intimate with the design process. If those folks are scattered to the four winds, the "restart" process will not be smooth, efficient of quick even if just for the "why did they do it that way – lets do it this way (time passes) Oops! Thats why they did it that way! Case in point! Challenger accident. NASA violated its own rule that Lockheed would have to capture 80% of the existin Rockwell launch team in order to assume the launch processing contract. In my group (Ground Launch Sequencer and Integration) responsible for the integration of all systme fucntions and orbiter/gound operations for the last two hours of the countdown, of the 14 people at Kennedy that worked in Rockwell for me, the 4 more from Marting Marietta and 2 more from USBI that were on my team, only six stayed and they averaged less than two years on the job. That was representative of all the Launch team engineering groups. So, that God-awful day, someone somewhere said the same thing! (Why on earth would anyone put an ambient temperature limit as a launch commit criteria – override it – go for launch). You can't measure experience and continuity in a spreadsheet but it sure as shooting has an impact on the outcome. wmc – via Autopilot!