I'm literally guest lecturing at a Harvard class tomorrow on systemic failures in decision making, using the Columbia and Challenger disasters as case studies, and changed my slides last night to include Artemis II because it could literally happen again.
This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program.
In 1980, Gregg Easterbrook published "Goodbye, Columbia" in The Washington Monthly [1], warning that NASA's "success-oriented planning" and political pressure were creating the conditions for catastrophe. He essentially predicted Columbia's heat shield failures in the article 1 year before the first flight.
Challenger in 1986, and the Rogers Commission identified hierarchy, communication failures, and management overriding engineering judgment.
Then Columbia happened in 2003. The CAIB found NASA had not implemented the 1986 recommendations [2].
Now Charles Camarda (who flew the first shuttle mission after Columbia and is literally a heat shield expert!) is saying it's happening again.
[1] https://www.iasa-intl.com/folders/shuttle/GoodbyeColumbia.ht...
[2] Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Chapter 8: https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html
This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program.
In 1980, Gregg Easterbrook published "Goodbye, Columbia" in The Washington Monthly [1], warning that NASA's "success-oriented planning" and political pressure were creating the conditions for catastrophe. He essentially predicted Columbia's heat shield failures in the article 1 year before the first flight.
Challenger in 1986, and the Rogers Commission identified hierarchy, communication failures, and management overriding engineering judgment.
Then Columbia happened in 2003. The CAIB found NASA had not implemented the 1986 recommendations [2].
Now Charles Camarda (who flew the first shuttle mission after Columbia and is literally a heat shield expert!) is saying it's happening again.
[1] https://www.iasa-intl.com/folders/shuttle/GoodbyeColumbia.ht...
[2] Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Chapter 8: https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html