Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in event of success. – Apocryphal ad…

Immediate reaction from many people in the Houston area was that the Orbiter disposition decision was politically tainted.  For example, this was the explanation of my old Rice classmate Annise Par…

Sometimes a Code of Ethics helps in decision making

Immediate reaction from many people in the Houston area was that the Orbiter disposition decision was politically tainted.  For example, this was the explanation of my old Rice classmate Annise Par…

I’ve been on a pilgrimage.  A pilgrimage of the old-fashioned kind.  It was not something I thought I would ever do.  The terms pilgrim and pilgrimage are used frequently these days …

Prior to the Challenger accident, the theory was that riding on the space shuttle was like riding on a modern jet airliner; passengers are not provided with parachutes and pressure suits. Challenge…

This week’s crash of a commuter train in New Jersey plus other recent events got me thinking about the lessons I have learned the hard way through several accident investigations. One of the toughe…

From the Rogers Commission to reading Dr. Diane Vaughn’s book The Challenger Launch Decision took me 17 years.  For all those years I had learned the wrong lesson about the loss of Challenger.  The…

Early on I decided that riding the NASA ‘corporate’ jet was not a real advantage.  NASA had acquired a number of used Gulfstream II corporate jets to be converted to Shuttle Training Aircraft.  Sup…