Letter: NASA never has been competent

Friday, Feb. 7, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

A story in the Feb. 4 Sun, "Engineer's report warned of foam damaging tiles," reinforces my memory back to the day when the first space shuttle was finished.

Back when I was a consultant for a subcontractor for Rockwell, I attended a lecture in Los Angeles that was held by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. North American Rockwell's vice president for program management was a guest speaker, and he was asked: If he had it to do over, what would he change?

He answered that they would not have used tiles, but they were forced upon them by NASA. As reported in the article in the Sun, there were problems earlier with missing tiles. Of the thousands of tiles, all were different and had separate part numbers. What a logistical nightmare!

NASA has never been a competent manager. Back in the days of Apollo, they managed to screw it up so bad that somebody had to call up Gen. Sam Phillips to take it over. The space shuttle program was, to an extent, a giant WPA, but it gave us dominance in near space that has significance in military if not in technical achievement. Notice my use of the past tense -- I think it's over.

LORRIN PETERSON

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