Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Montezuma on August 03, 2003, 10:41:31 PM
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July 31, 2003
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Boeing Brain Drain Linked to Shuttle Disaster
- The firm lost key players in moving engineering staff from California to Texas, investigators say.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer
Investigators say Boeing's loss of key engineering talent in recent years played a role in the company's flawed analysis during the Columbia mission that the crew would return safely.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board is likely to include such a judgment when it delivers its accident report later this month, though its formal findings and conclusions are still under review, according to four sources close to the board.
At issue is whether Boeing Co.'s relocation of its space shuttle engineering staff from Southern California to Texas in 2001 resulted in a brain drain. Boeing officials said they are not aware investigators have reached a judgment and disputed the contention that the move weakened the company's engineering staff.
During the Columbia mission, Boeing engineers provided three critical reports that concluded foam debris that struck the shuttle shortly after launch had not catastrophically damaged its thermal protection system and that the seven-member crew would return safely. In fact, the investigation has found that foam debris almost certainly did breach the leading edge of the left wing, which led to the orbiter's breakup over Texas on Feb. 1, killing the crew.
The reports influenced all the key decisions by NASA managers, who then downplayed the entire foam event, investigation board chairman Harold Gehman Jr. said in the spring. As a result, the board became keenly interested in how and why Boeing erred.
Boeing's technical assessments for NASA were performed by its engineering staff in Houston, which until 2001 had been located in Huntington Beach.
About 80% of the 500 engineers in California refused to move, forcing Boeing to hire and train new workers in Texas. The Columbia flight was the first time Boeing's staff in Texas had primary responsibility for providing NASA with engineering support, according to accident board investigators.
Engineers in Huntington Beach have told Columbia investigators that they would have reached different conclusions during the mission than their counterparts in Houston. Boeing space shuttle program manager Steve Oswald acknowledged in an interview that he had heard those allegations.
"For these guys back at Huntington Beach to say that they would have come up with a different conclusion bothers me," Oswald said. "If they thought that, they should have come forward during the mission. To not do so is unconscionable."
Columbia board investigators say the disaster had many causes and the Boeing relocation may be just one part of a complex set of forces that led to the tragedy.
"We might never know if they hadn't moved whether they would have had the expertise to reach a different conclusion," said one of the board sources, who asked to remain anonymous. "But the move did have an impact. When you lose expertise, you can't replace it. It is a retention problem."
Oswald said Boeing made extensive efforts to train engineers and capture all of the know-how that the Huntington Beach contingent had gathered over 20 years of supporting the shuttle. Although some key people were lost in the transition, the transfer resulted in a stronger team, he said. Moving the engineers closer to the shuttle office at Johnson Space Center has improved communications, he said.
During the Columbia mission, the Boeing engineers were part of a large task force that attempted to determine whether the foam falling off the external tank 82 seconds after launch caused any damage.
An analysis of launch photos indicated that the foam could have hit the wing's leading edge, but it was considered far more likely to have hit the thermal protection tiles on the underside of the wing. So engineers spent more effort to assess possible damage to tiles.
The Columbia board has determined that the Boeing and NASA shuttle engineers lacked the proper analytical tools and tests to properly assess the foam strike. For example, Boeing engineers were forced to use data that analyzed the potential for ice to gouge the leading edge, which is made of reinforced carbon carbon.
The engineers thought ice would overestimate the potential for damage, but as investigators later found out, it underestimated the problem. Rather than gouging the leading edge, the foam broke a hole through the structure with blunt force.
On Jan. 23, engineers decided that the foam would not have damaged either the tiles or the leading edge. Boeing advised NASA that the leading edge panel would not be damaged even if hit by a 20-by-10-by-6-inch piece of foam traveling at 720 feet per second and striking at a 21-degree angle.
Columbia investigators have demonstrated that the analysis was wrong. In a test earlier this month, a gaping hole was blown into a replica of Columbia's leading edge by a foam block fired out of a gas-powered gun. The test foam measured 19 inches by 11.5 inches by 5.5 inches and traveled at 777 feet per second.
"It was not intuitive to anybody that the reinforced carbon carbon was going to lose a battle with foam," Oswald said. "The entire community in our wildest dreams couldn't have imagined that foam could break the leading edge. We will have to live with it."
The Huntington Beach engineers said they would have reached the same conclusion about the leading edge, but would have warned NASA that the foam could have catastrophically damaged the tile, Oswald noted. The result would have been a warning about the foam, but for the wrong reason.
One space shuttle engineer at Huntington Beach, who did not want his name used, said it is widely believed at the plant that the California work force is more experienced, particularly in the area of thermal damage analysis, and would not have made the same errors.
Another engineer said the Texas staff was well trained and equal to the California staff in some areas but not in all.
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So, like, what? There are no telephone lines between Texas and Cali now?
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Sounds like the report could have been written by a SPEEA rep. :rolleyes:
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"My mind is going. I can feel it." -- HAL 9000
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so your saying it's the fault of the engineers that stayed in Huntington Beach, their refusing to move to texas caused the Columbia to crash?
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Originally posted by john9001
so your saying it's the fault of the engineers that stayed in Huntington Beach, their refusing to move to texas caused the Columbia to crash?
Are you asking Ralph Vartabedian? Because I don't think he reads the boards.
-Sik
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yes, but the question was rhetorical, i did not expect a answer.
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Originally posted by john9001
yes, but the question was rhetorical, i did not expect a answer.
Sorry, it looked like you were trying to clairify the position of someone who isn't here.
-Sik
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hire me hire me, I am the best there is!!!
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There is this problem in aerospace. Anyone is replacable. At least that's what management thinks. They think that management cann't be replace. So they layoff thousands of line emploees and keep the managers. Doesn't matter if the company is top heavy. If you know lean management, they are considered none productive, or some tearm like that. The ones that make the money for the company is the line production people. That includes engineers. I've seen where companys like Boeing and Lockheed will layoff their engineers. Then when they need something done, nobody is around to fix the problem.
I see it on the F-16 production line. They have engineers here that are still new to the field. They don't know what they are talking about. But they think know better than the guys building the aircraft when we come up with a problem that the designed.
So it doesn't surprise me that Boeing lost alot of experance when the moved to Hoston. My only question for the engineers in Huntington Beach, why didn't you take the offer to move out of California? I'm glad I moved away years ago.
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Originally posted by firbal
My only question for the engineers in Huntington Beach, why didn't you take the offer to move out of California? I'm glad I moved away years ago.
Did you move because you wanted to or because you had to?
Despite all of California's problems, one major reason that the state has remained a global economic power and leader in technology, design, defense, media, etc. - is that a large number of very talented people want to live here.
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Originally posted by firbal
My only question for the engineers in Huntington Beach, why didn't you take the offer to move out of California? I'm glad I moved away years ago.
I'm guessing its because there's better beach volleyball in California, and more AVP tour stops there. And surfing.
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I moved away to go to school. I still have sisters in the LA area. So I visit from time to time. Tho I still like SoCal, there is no way I'm moving back there. The racial tenions, high cost of living, the state government that thinks your money is their's and such. Washinton state is getting there also. I'm glad I left there last year. That was because I was layed off. Or I'd still be there living in my Codo. Now I'm making a bit least than at my last job but I can afford to to live here. In fact I can buy a real house that I can afford.
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Firbal, it's been ages since I've seen you. Where are you at in Ft. Worth? :D
I seriously doubt something as meanial as a relocation had major effects on the Colombia. :confused:
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seriously, why would anyone want to move to texas if they were not going to get a significant payraise?
Its only going to get hotter and hotter each year because of global warming.(because they need SUV's for really no reason.)
The produce is almost 3rd world quality. bugs are big yadda yadda yadda.......