More Space on a Sad Anniversary

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, yesterday was the Apollo 1 fire anniversary, and in four days will be the 8th anniversary of the Columbia disaster. Yes, it is a sad week at NASA. There have been lots of "lessons learned" but some of those lessons are even more relevant in the uncertain times in which the agency now finds itself. Here is are two good articles out about those types of lessons How Apollo was Saved and Space Disasters.

I was just going to post those, but Alicia's comment on the Space Policy video below needed a longer reply that I feel is possible in the comment section. To paraphrase the comment was about how hard it is to see people laid off from ISS/Shuttle when NASA is forced (by law) to waste money on projects that are just waiting to be killed. Couldn't agree more. But the layoffs have also been steep on these waiting to die projects among the contractors (my company alone has lost over 2/3rds of the people on my contract). The only people not in any danger are of course civil servants. So, if ISS cut people to save budget, Shuttle has cut people and comes nearer to retirement everyday, Constellation cut people due to reduced budgets, AND under Continuing Resolution the government cannot (again by law) start new contracts (e.g. projects) but still has the same budget as last year by CR, one has to ask where did the money go? The real tragedy is that HQ is sitting on a pile of money that neither new or old programs are spending and lots of people around us are losing their jobs while the government takes no action whatsoever.