Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, ‘Dammit, stop!’ I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.
From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: ‘Tough’ and ‘Competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write ‘Tough and Competent’ on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.
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USNS poster, so I’m at a bit of a loss.
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More details:
The first half begins just below the Port of Houston Authority Turning Basin (the very end of the channel) and continues down to Green’s Bayou. The second half takes us from there to Morgan’s Point at the head of Galveston Bay. From there we still have 31.5 miles of channel across the bay to the pilot station outside the Galveston jetties.
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Well hell. It’s grey and cloudy here but if it clears up by tonight you might want to head to somewhere with a good Eastern view (think the Western Shore of Maryland, Annapolis, etc) to catch a glimpse of a big Minotaur rocket going up from Wallops Island, VA
These things are pretty visible for quite a distance so if you want to do something cool with the kids it’s an option (if–if–if it clears up tonight, and the current forecast is not looking good). They put out some really bright flames and can be seen for about 800 miles. Last minute updates here:
Live Stream: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/webcast/
UPDATE: 5/19/09 at 7:55 EDT LAUNCH!
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You read about in my blog three weeks ago. Too many cars on the water.
Now the local papers are writing about it. Recession Leads to Backup at Local Anchorage.
Glad I don’t subscribe to a newspaper that tells me what I can already see outside my window.
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Floating parking lot full of new cars?
For the last few weeks, I’ve noticed up to the north a couple of RO-RO ships sitting in the Annapolis Anchorage (a deep water anchorage where ships often wait for room on the Baltimore dock to free up before heading to port). I can rarely make out ships up there as they don’t stay that long and due to the Earth’s curve the low lying bulk carriers are usually pretty hard to see.
But roll on roll off (ro-ro) car ships are big bulky looking vessels that catch the sun pretty well and really stand out. I’ve noticed a couple of ro-ro’s up in Annapolis for going on two weeks now, which seems a bit odd. Until I read this story about the backup facing auto importers and exporters in the US, Europe and Japan.
In Baltimore, the MPA moved inventories of Hyundai cars to airport parking lots to make room for cars still on the high seas. The port agency bought about 15 acres of land across from the Dundalk Terminal for overflow space for cars about six weeks ago, but has not yet had to use it. “That’s because the Korean manufacturers, who had never shut their plants down, have cut back production by 30 percent,” the MPA’s White said.
One really wonders if that’s what I’m seeing–a ship full of cars with no place to dock as no one is buying. Or maybe they don’t have the business to export for the GM’s backed up at the plants in Baltimore (apparently there are something like 57,000 new cars sitting around collecting dust in Maryland).
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Was putting the kids to sleep and he was just about down when the wife screamed for me. I ran out of bed and looked out the window but all I could see in the front yard was thick grey smoke, so thick it activated the motion detector lights. She said the neighbor’s house was on fire and I could just hear the first fire truck siren approaching.
I threw on my shoes and saw that the neighbors was pretty heavily involved with flames coming out of one side of the house. I started screaming for her and jumped her fence to run up to her door, but then my other neighbor started yelling ‘we got her over here!’. Guess I didn’t have to do my Rambo routine on her front door.
I then looked down the road and saw the fire truck was stuck in the main parking lot, unsure which dirt road to follow. I took off at a full sprint to get their attention, and then waved them back to the house on fire (again running). I must have sucked down a ton of smoke because I’m still coughing nearly an hour later.
The house was an old 40s beach shack with numerous ‘less than code’ updates. They had to saw through the roof to pour water down into the fire, and I’m not sure how much damage was caused.
The fire department went to three or four alarms. The first and second due pumpers from all 4 stations within 10 miles (North Beach, Dunkirk, Huntingtown, Prince Frederick) along with the two Towers, at least two rescue squads and three tankers that I could see. The first due engine, tower, and rescue squad were on our road, but on the main road I counted 8 other engines and other vehicles. God forbid their was another fire in the Northern part of the county.
Anyway, she’s ok, if a bit shocked. The Red Cross was here in 20 minutes and are taking her away for the night. I can still here the engine revving up the pumps every now and then as they battle extensions (this was a really old house).
In the background of this photo you can see some of the trucks lined up on the main road.
I’m going to try to clean out my lungs.
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