Originally published February 21 2006
Former astronaut shares harsh lessons of NASA's mistakes
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Colonel Mullane, who retired in 1990, now gives motivational speeches on the importance of teamwork. He recalls his reluctance to second-guess the pilot, which caused his shuttle to crash.
But their attention sharpens as a video screen shows a space shuttle preparing to launch and a thin, reedy voice begins to describe what the takeoff feels like - from the inside.
In his talks and in a new book, "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut," he says he is trying to take the lessons he learned in a life of flight - including the harsh lessons of NASA's deadly mistakes - and distill them into something that people can apply in their terrestrial lives.
When he speaks of the importance of teamwork, he describes the rigors of preparing for a mission for months or years.
When he talks of the importance of having the courage to speak up, he need only recount the time when, as a weapons and navigational systems operator on a fighter jet, he failed to challenge a pilot who continued to fly after "Bingo fuel," the point beyond which a plane may not have enough fuel to return safely to base.
Despite the "little voice in the back of my brain" that told him to say something, Colonel Mullane tells the audience, he was reluctant to second-guess the pilot, who had thousands of hours of experience in the jet, and passively accepted the pilot's decision.
At NASA, too, Colonel Mullane tells audiences, little voices went unheard; danger signals were missed and warnings ignored on the way to tragedies.
Worries that flames from within the solid rocket boosters might burn through safety seals known as O-rings were played down, and seven astronauts died in the Challenger disaster 20 years ago.
Similar criticisms of the space agency have been laid out in a shelf of reports, including the Rogers Commission after the Challenger disaster and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which said that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had a "broken safety culture."
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