Managing The Risks Of Spaceflight, 40 Years After Challenger

As we enter a new age of space travel, a former NASA astronaut says that rather than accepting risk, we should try to control risks.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ira Flatow?

  I'm Ira Flatow and you're listening to Science Friday. Today on the podcast, thinking about spaceflight and risk. Forty years ago this week, the space shuttle Challenger exploded in flight 73 seconds after it had lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center. All seven crew members were killed. In the months that followed, the tragedy was traced to a failed O-ring in one of the shuttle's rocket boosters due to the cold temperatures at launch time. Now with Artemis II mission, preparing for a launch to circle the moon, what have we learned about spaceflight and risk? Joining me now is Jim Weatherby. He's thought a lot about this question. He's a former NASA astronaut who went to space six times, commanding five shuttle missions,

• 0:48Ira Flatow?

  more than anyone else, and later he became head of flight crew operations for NASA. He's also the author of the book Controlling Risk: 30 Techniques for Operating Excellence. Welcome to Science Friday.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Thank you very much, Ira. How are you today?

• 1:03Ira Flatow?

  Thank you, I'm very fine. When the Challenger disaster occurred in 86, you had been selected as an astronaut, but you had not flown yet. Did that change how you thought about the job and the mission and the risks?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Well, I was accepted in 1984, so I had been an astronaut for two years. In fact, the first launch I ever saw in person was the Challenger accident. I was down at the Kennedy Space Center, relaying weather information and wind information to the Mission Control Center. I would have to say, no, it really didn't. I had been a naval aviator for about 10 years, I think, and I had seen and experienced tragically death and destruction. And I have a theory that it really affects you one time, and then after that, although

• 1:58Speaker 01

  still tragic, you're able to process and think about the mission.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  I knew spaceflight was inherently dangerous and so that did not change my opinion at all.

• 2:11Ira Flatow?

  I remember how people were surprised that the accident occurred, but it was the part of accepting that as part of the risk?

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Well, I would say it quite differently, Ira. We never really want to accept risk. What we want to do is control the risk as an operator. You know, you've heard the the basic way that we assess risk is to assess the risk and the benefit. But I think of a third thing in addition to the risk and the benefit. I always think about how much control do I have? Can I control the risk? And if I can, then I'm willing to accept the risk as long as the benefit is great.

• 2:57Ira Flatow?

  So how would you have controlled the risk of this launch?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Well, after the tragedy, it's clear that the managers made incorrect decisions based on not processing or receiving the information that was coming from people like Roger Bojale, the engineer who predicted this problem. And so it's actually quite obvious after the accident. In fact, so many accidents are kind of the same thing where you have managers who are either ill-informed or ignoring data that are making incorrect decisions. So the best thing to do is to accept and evaluate all information that's coming to

• 3:46Speaker 01

  you before you make a decision.

• 3:48Ira Flatow?

  So did the safety culture at NASA change? Or how did anything change about managing the risk there?

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Well, it did specifically. New leaders came in place. Roger's Commission was formed by President Reagan to assess the accident and make recommendations. Recommendation number two in the Rogers Commission report. Essentially was that the director of flight cooperation, who at the time was George Abbey, be elevated in the NASA hierarchy. In other words, pay more attention to what the flight crew and the operators and the mission controllers are saying, the operational people, give them more weight in their decision-making ability. So yes, the culture did change after Challenger,

• 4:35Speaker 01

  but remember, it also changed after the tragic Apollo one fire, January 27th, 1967, where three astronauts perished in the fire. New bosses were inserted then. George Lowe took over, and he mentored George Abbey, and then George Abbey mentored me for 20 years while I was at NASA. And then we had the third accident, the Columbia accident. I was responsible as the search director to find and recover the human remains of the Columbia crew. And so the culture does change after accidents, but the bosses that come in, who really shaped the culture, either retire or are moved years later.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And generationally, the culture tends to degrade if you're not careful, if you don't have great leaders at the top making wonderful decisions.

• 5:29Ira Flatow?

  You mean the corporate memory is gone?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I believe it's a generational thing. If you experience that kind of an accident or tragedy, you never forget. But eventually you retire and new bosses come in who had not viscerally experienced the tragedy and the devastation. And they tend to, you know, they're not doing things intentionally incorrectly, but they're, in their zeal to accomplish missions, rather than accomplish missions correctly, then the culture tends to degrade. The culture in organizations will always degrade unless you have leaders at the top.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Who are constantly nurturing the culture to ensure that it always stays vibrant and healthy.

• 6:21Ira Flatow?

  And how do you do that? Do you do you make people aware of the past? What's what's a method that these new managers would use?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  There are only two ways humans learn, either experientially, if you go through a tragedy, and we find leaders in organizations who have held somebody in their arms dying after a tragic event, they never forget. So experientially is one way that humans learn, but the only other way humans learn is vicariously through the experience of others. And so we tell stories. And so, as you point out correctly, keep it alive, talk about the tragedies and make sure that people never forget.

• 7:01Ira Flatow?

  Are you comfortable with where managing risk at NASA is now?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  So I'm not involved in how risk is managed at NASA now. What I see from the periphery, I really like Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of NASA. He clearly understands. He has flown in space a couple of times and done a done a spacewalk. The culture in every organization is greatly dependent on the leader at the top. So from that perspective, I'm very encouraged. They have a great administrator, who I think is going to ensure that they make the proper decisions to carry out the mission of NASA. And and so people on the earth can benefit.

• 7:44Ira Flatow?

  We've seen a big shift from space being the realm of just huge government operations to now we're seeing tourism, an emphasis on private spaceflight. Does having business and the profit motive in the mix change the risk equation?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Doesn't really change the risk equation. I, by the way, I also think that commercialization and and turning over to private entities is the natural flow in transportation. We have historical precedence in America. When we first created the railroads, they were government subsidized because it's a very expensive proposition. But fairly quickly, companies figured out they could make money from from transporting cattle. And so private companies took over railroads. Same thing with aviation. Initially, US mail, air mail.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Was subsidized by the government, but eventually companies figured out we could make money. So in the space business, I think it's a natural flow. If we can figure out how to make money in space, then it's appropriate to have space be commercialized and turned over to private entities. NASA will always have a mission of overseeing and integrating all the various functions, providing the regulations and really doing the dangerous exploration missions as we push out farther into the solar system.

• 9:15Ira Flatow?

  But do you think that the private space realm is as concerned about managing risk as the public would because it was owned by the public and beholding to them?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Well, it all goes back to who's the leader at the top of the organization. If you have a leader in a private entity or a government entity who really understands risk and how to make the proper decisions, it doesn't change. You really have to understand that flying in space is inherently dangerous. And so we must control the risk, make the proper management decisions. It's a combination of two things. You must have rules-based procedures, which come from managing the risk, which corporations typically do and entities, organizations. But you must supplement the rules-based procedures with a suite of principles-based

• 10:10Speaker 01

  techniques, which the operators tend to think about. If I'm facing the risk, I have to have a method for controlling the risk. If I'm a manager or an engineer in an office, I can manage the risk by changing the policies and the procedures or even the mission. But as an operator who straps into the vehicle, we have to be able to control the risk. So we do follow the rules, but we follow these suite of principles-based techniques to supplement the rules.

• 10:43Ira Flatow?

  Well, I imagine if you don't. Control the risk well enough, you're going to go out of business, right?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:51Ira Flatow?

  Do you think about that? Are you a consultant on risk?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  That's what I do now. I'm passionate about helping companies that are specifically working in dangerous environments to be able to not only manage the risk properly, but to control the risk. And I love traveling around the world and talking to companies and organizations about this concept.

• 11:16Ira Flatow?

  We have to take a break, but when we come back, looking ahead to modern spaceflight and the upcoming Artemis II mission to the moon.

• 11:30Speaker 02

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• 12:13Speaker 02

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• 12:28Speaker 03

  Support for Science Friday comes from the William K. Bose Junior Foundation.

• 12:38Ira Flatow?

  NASA is preparing for the launch of the Artemis II mission, as you know, planning to go around the moon as early as next month. What do you think is going through the minds of the crew and the launch team for that mission?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Well, I exchanged emails with Reid Wiseman, the commander, about a month ago. I spoke with the crew and Victor Glover, the copilot, about a year ago. They're ready to go. They've been training for a long time. They understand the risk. They know how to control the risk, and I think they're eager to go.

• 13:10Ira Flatow?

  So what are the factors that you use in controlling risk for a giant mission like this one?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Oh, there are many. So the crew will attend meetings. They'll have conversations with all levels throughout the organization, all the way up to the administrator. Again, going back to the Rogers Commission, after the Challenger accident, when that commission made their recommendation number two to elevate the position of the flight operations director, there was an emphasis on making sure that managers received inputs from the operators, from the operational perspective, from the pilots, the people who are strapped into the vehicle. What are the kinds of things you think about? How can you control the situation? How can you help us? How can we work together in the mission control center and the flight crew?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And it's a huge team effort, but you really have to pay attention to the operational concerns that the crew has.

• 14:09Ira Flatow?

  Yeah, I remember going back to the first missions where they were designing a capsule in the Mercury series, and the astronauts said, can you put a window in here so we can see outside? Kind of that kind of feedback? Is that what you're talking about?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Well, exactly. And by the way, a window is not just for the aesthetics or to take glorious pictures, but it's also to be able to control the risk. And so one of the later missions, I think it was the final mission of Mercury, where they had problems with the system and the pilot had to take over manually. The way he did that was looking out the window with a reticle where he could precisely align the vehicle with respect to the horizon. Similar kind of thing with the mission when they come back to the moon. They have to hit that angle of the atmosphere precisely.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  And if the system is having trouble, which sometimes it does, the humans need to take over. You know, 98% of the time, the system is better than the human. But 2% of the time, and these are not accurate numbers, I'm just, you know, rules of thumb, the human has to be ready to take over. We have better judgment, we have intuition, and essentially, we have a fear of death. The computer does not, and it will crash periodically and take the humans with it when it does.

• 15:37Ira Flatow?

  You're an astronaut who had extensive Navy flying experience, hundreds of landings on aircraft carriers, right? Do people with that sort of background have a different perception of risk from astronauts who've been selected as engineers or scientists or some other specialization?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  I think yes, and that's why they are the commander and the pilot on the mission, because we have, throughout our careers, developed an ability to really assess the situation, not let our emotions carry the day, but rather respond correctly, make the right decisions. You know, I learned from Chuck Yeager, I heard him one day talking about the system. If you really understand the system, when bad things happen, you will be able to figure out the answer, even if it's not on the checklist or the procedures, because you really understand how the system works. And that's the kind of mentality that

• 16:34Speaker 01

  operators have, that engineers, as great as they are, don't really have that in their psyche.

• 16:42Ira Flatow?

  So how much do you, as a crew member or someone flying in the capsule, how much do you say, do you have to the engineers, you know, I'm not sure this is a safe idea, I don't feel comfortable with this, can you change something?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  It's a constant push. The engineers will always try to, and the managers, try to automate things, essentially take the human out of the loop, and the operators are continually trying to leave the human in the loop. You know, I'm a big proponent of automation and computers and systems. They're really good, they're accurate, they're fast, they don't get tired as long as you feed them electricity, but they must be programmed precisely. The human has other advantages, judgment, intuition, you know, for example, I can land on any runway in the world without ever seeing every runway in the world. The computer can't. It must be programmed precisely for the landing that it's going to make.

• 17:39Ira Flatow?

  Do we really need astronauts in this flight around the moon? I mean, aren't we at a level where you could just fly them by wire? I mean, just the computers fly the capsule and comes back by itself?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Well, that's what we've been talking about. 98% of the time, you're probably right. 2% of the time, you need the humans. But more importantly, when it's time to go back to the moon and land and onto Mars, it's really the human element that inspires people. Humans, you know, I'm not worried that AI is going to take over the world for a long, long time. Humans have the better judgment, the intuition, we can tell the story. We can learn much better than the computer. Computers don't really learn, they're programmed. Humans learn. And that's why, you know, it's our genetic destiny as explorers and you always have to have the human in the equation.

• 18:35Ira Flatow?

  Well, Jim Weatherby, this has been a really interesting interview. Thank you for taking time to be with us today.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Ira, thank you very much.

• 18:42Ira Flatow?

  You're welcome. Jim Weatherby, former NASA Shuttle astronaut, former Director of Flight Crew Operations for NASA. He's also the author of the book Controlling Risk: 30 Techniques for Operating Excellence. This episode was produced by Charles Burquist. Thanks for listening and we welcome your feedback. Yes, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts or give us a call and tell us what's on your mind. 877-4-SY-FRY. I'm Ira Flatow. We'll see you soon.