Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2003 NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Dinner Speeches
Dinner Speeches
Pages 131-140
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From page 133... ...
Roger has submitted a memo to his Thiokol management expressing his concern about the sealing problem, saying that failure of an O-ring seal could cause a "catastrophe of the highest order." Months later, on the evening before the Challenger launch, the O-ring issue becomes the central topic of debate during a teleconference between the engineering team at Morton Thiokol and NASA teams at Marshall Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center. The forecast calls for temperatures well below 50 degrees during the launch window, and Morton Thiokol has recommended that the launch be postponed until temperatures rise above 53 degrees.
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From page 134... ...
I personally learned a great deal from the Challenger accident. Although I was not in the shuttle program chain of command, at the time of the accident I was director of NASA's Ames Research Center; during the return-to-flight effort, I was at NASA headquarters as associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology.
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From page 135... ...
In any project, you must manage cost, schedule, performance, and risk. If the first three are fixed, as they were for the NASA Mars missions that failed in the l990s, then the only relief valve available to a program manager is risk.
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From page 136... ...
· An outstanding technical perspective is worthless without effective communication whether you are communicating research results, managing a project, or trying to influence NASA management the night before a launch. · I have heard papers presented at conferences where you know the person has spent years doing excellent work, but only 10 minutes preparing the presentation of the work.
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From page 137... ...
They recognized an opportunity to expand their business bases, eliminate excess capacity, and increase shareholder value. Of the many major defense contractors at the beginning of the 1990s, only a handful managed to survive and prosper.
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From page 138... ...
My primary customers were aircraft designers who were using wind tunnels and linear analyses but needed a more cost-effective way to get better designs. My other "customers" were the people at NASA headquarters who sponsored my research.
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From page 139... ...
· The more experience you have and the more you are able to learn quickly, the more effective you can be in solving tough problems. And your knowledge base must extend beyond engineering, because developing appropriate system solutions to society' s problems often requires cross-disciplinary technical knowledge, business expertise, and political and social awareness.
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From page 140... ...
Grabbing the class's imagination with his growing enthusiasm, Bobby reveals that he will create "advanced technologies that will reduce pollution and save the world! " The class erupts in cheers.
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