Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: John Glenn in Shuttle?
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:44:40 GMT

In article <32b8f729.134176819@nntp.ix.netcom.com> om@ix.netcom.com ( om) writes:
>>Glenn has not been an astronaut for nearly thirty years, he's not going 
>>to want to spend a couple of years in training first, and his knowledge
>>of the shuttle is zero by astronaut standards.  If he flew on the shuttle,
>>it would be as a passenger.  That makes him an outsider.
>
>....Then again, were Glenn a) a far better political speaker than his
>career-damaging speech at the '76 DNC demonstrated, and b) was
>actually the VEEP and "in charge" of the program, then I really,
>honestly, _SERIOUSLY_ doubt that the crew would treat him as NWOB...

Would they treat him that way?  No.  Would they think it?  Yes.

*However* important he was to the space program, and *however* significant
his historical association with it, aboard the shuttle he'd be a passenger,
and the astronauts do not like passengers.  They may tolerate them, and
even be very polite and gracious about it when this seems indicated, but 
they don't like it.

Whatever his importance, he is *not* part of the team.  He hasn't done the
training.  He can't be depended on in an emergency, or even in the course
of normal operations, because the team hasn't worked with him long enough
for efficient teamwork with him to be automatic.  All the time the crew
spends in simulators etc. is useful to teach them how to do the jobs, but
more important is its role in building a *team*, one that can deal quickly
and efficiently with the unexpected because they know who does what and
don't need to stop and get organized first.  You don't add a stranger to
such a team at the last minute; it can't be done, no matter how good he is.

As a last-minute add-on to such a team, Glenn would be about as useful,
in orbit, as a wax dummy, and he'd be much more of a nuisance.  His
spaceflight experience is too far in the past to be relevant -- even if
he hasn't forgotten most of it, almost all of the details have changed
anyway.  And without that year of pre-flight training together with the
team, it's quicker for them to do something themselves than to explain to
him what they want him to do.  The crew of 51D were probably relieved when
Jake Garn got sufficiently spacesick that they could just tape him to the
wall to get him out of the way, and ignore him -- it made their job
substantially easier. 

>If that sort of ostracism truly did exist in today's space program, and
>proof got out, then all -hell- would break loose and we'd be back to
>the old "no bucks, no Buck Rogers" debates on Capitol Hill.

While it is not -- for obvious reasons -- something NASA publicizes much,
you don't have to do much digging to come across it.  For starters, I
would suggest reading Henry S.F. Cooper's "Before Lift-Off:  The Making of
a Space Shuttle Crew" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).  It's by far
the best look at what goes into getting a crew ready for flight, partly
because Cooper got access never before (and probably never since) granted 
to a journalist.

>>What matter is not whether you have some vague historical association with
>>the space program, but whether you are a current astronaut...
>
>....Henry, John Glenn's historical association is anything -but- vague.

I like Michael Collins's assessment:  "One thing for sure, though, he's
the best PR man in the bunch."  I've always thought his role, even in his
time, was overrated.  And anyone who left the space program in 1963 has no
more than a vague and historical association with *today's* program. 

>This is like saying Patton's command of the 3rd through France into
>Berlin was just a footnote in the history of WWII.

And if he showed up today and wanted to go along with, say, the first
advance team into Bosnia, he'd be treated as a damn nuisance and told
to stay back at headquarters where he belonged.  To today's soldiers,
faced with doing difficult jobs under fire, he *is* just a footnote.
-- 
"We don't care.  We don't have to.  You'll buy     |       Henry Spencer
whatever we ship, so why bother?  We're Microsoft."|   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Subject: astronaut history (was Re: What happened to Neil Armstrong?)
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Jan 29 1997
Newsgroups: sci.space.history

In article <5cm64e$1jl$1@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>,
Dwayne Allen Day <wayneday@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>Of all of these, the one I would most like to see a biography on is Young.
>I think there is an interesting story waiting to be told there about how a
>top-notch astronaut ended up pushing a desk in Houston...  It
>would be interesting to know if his open dissent post-Challenger is
>responsible for his obscurity...

The story I hear -- from sources who were local, although probably not
close enough to get it firsthand -- is that this is sort of true.  Young
did get (unofficially but firmly) grounded because of what he said after
Challenger.  However, it wasn't quite a case of management shooting the 
messenger.

The real problem, as I heard it, was that one of the things Young was
complaining most loudly about -- lack of astronaut involvement in
decisions -- was Young's own fault, and it grated on people to see him
pointing fingers at others for that. 

Young was boss astronaut, in charge of flight assignments, and that meant
that #1 priority for all not-yet-assigned astronauts was impressing him.
Now, astronauts are busy people, and don't have time to do everything that
folks would like them to do... so they watch the boss astronaut very
closely for indications of what *his* priorities are.  Things he approves
of, go to the top of the list.  Things he doesn't care about, go to the
bottom.

Young's predecessor -- whose name I forget -- thought astronaut involvement
was important, so astronauts sat on all the committees and were involved in
all the decisions.  Young didn't think it was important, so the astronauts
dropped off the committees and were always too busy to attend the meetings.
And then he has the gall to complain, to the press, about lack of astronaut
involvement?

That wasn't the whole reason he got relegated to a desk, mind you.  The
public airing of his various concerns was annoying enough already, at a
time when NASA was very much in damage-control mode, and this was the last
straw.  All the more so because there was already a strong feeling that
pre-Challenger management should be replaced where possible. 


>Aldrin didn't have this problem [alcohol] before the landing.  But there were
>certainly other personality traits about him that make it surprising that
>he was selected.  He was very bright, however, and he virtually wrote the
>book on rendezvous, so his quirks may have been outweighed by his
>knowledge.

Actually, Aldrin's academic, non-test-pilot background made him odd man
out in the astronaut corps, and his knowledge didn't count for much.  He
was originally in a dead-end backup-crew slot -- backup for Gemini 10,
which was not a lead-in to a prime-crew slot because there was no Gemini
13 -- at a time when Gemini flight experience looked to be crucial to an
Apollo assignment.  Everybody slipped forward one slot when Bassett & See
(original prime crew for Gemini 9) were killed in a plane crash, and so
Aldrin quite unexpectedly ended up flying on Gemini 12.

It was a very lucky assignment, too.  It meant he got to show off his
background in rendezvous:  Gemini 12 had a radar problem that made the
normal computer-controlled method unusable, requiring the astronauts to
fall back on the partly-manual methods that Aldrin had been involved in
developing, and they did it very nicely with very low fuel consumption. 
It also meant that he benefitted from the changes made to EVA concepts
after the EVA problems on Geminis 9 and 11, and made a very successful
major EVA at a time when NASA's record in that area was not good.  All of
which raised his image enough to eventually put him on the backup crew for
Apollo 8, from which the Apollo 11 assignment followed. 

In short, it wasn't a question of knowledge so much as luck that put him
on the first landing.  Before that plane crash, a betting man would have
given him very poor odds of ever walking on the Moon.  He just didn't
fit in among the test pilots, and it showed.

(The reference for this is Aldrin's own book "Men From Earth", which is
a pretty good insider's look at Apollo's history.)
-- 
"We don't care.  We don't have to.  You'll buy     |       Henry Spencer
whatever we ship, so why bother?  We're Microsoft."|   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: Surviving Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 00:25:50 GMT

In article <5s50jp$9dr$1@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>,
Dan DeMars  <Dan.DeMars@valley.net> wrote:
> ...I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on any of the related
>books.  My personal favorite is Mike Collins' "Carrying the Fire",
>followed closely by Mike Cassutt's "Deke" ...

Walt Cunningham's "The All-American Boys" and Buzz Aldrin's "Men From
Earth" are both interesting looks at the nitty-gritty of being an
astronaut in those days, as seen by guys who did *not* come from the
classical test-pilot background and consequently got a better view of
the setup's flaws.

I finally got around to reading Cunningham's book recently, and found it
very interesting.  It confirms something I'd thought for a long time:
NASA screwed up big on its basic choice of crew-selection philosophy, by
opting for a scheme in which energy and competence were consistently
drowned out by office politics and blind luck.
--
Committees do harm merely by existing.             |       Henry Spencer
                           -- Freeman Dyson        |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: Book Suggestion
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 02:41:15 GMT

In article <3415ca9a.2766440@news.itd.umich.edu>,
Jeff M. Witt <jwitt@online.emich.edu> wrote:
>>Any suggestions on good books to begin my reading?
>
>Well, for a good book to start out on might be "Moon Shot" by Alan
>Shepard, Deke Slayton, Jay Barbree and Howard Benedict (Yes, that many
>authors)  It covers the beginings of the US Manned Space Program to
>the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.  It might be good for you because it
>basically goes into the highlights of a majority of the missions...

Unfortunately, this book is probably a bad place to start, because it
plays fast and loose with the history in too many places.  It is quite
clear that Barbree and Benedict did almost all of the writing and nobody
involved with it was at all interested in checking the facts.  Worse, some
of the hackwork appears to be deliberate -- for example, the "photo" of
Shepard's golf shot is a clumsy cut-paste-and-retouch job.

I'd recommend Michael Collins's two books, "Carrying The Fire" and
"Liftoff" as good introductory reading covering most of the US space
program.  "Liftoff" is the later book and is probably a better general
introduction; "Carrying The Fire" is Collins's memoirs of the early years.
Collins seems to be the only one of the astronauts who's a good enough
writer to actually write his own books, which helps.  (Although most of
the "by astronaut and writer" books are at least better than "Moon Shot".
"Deke!" by Slayton&Cassutt is good; "Men From Earth" by Aldrin&McConnell
is okay.  The latter is another reasonable insider's-view history of the
early years.)
--
The operating systems of the 1950s will be out  |     Henry Spencer
next year from Microsoft.  -- Mark Weiser       | henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: NASA crew selection Policies(was: Cunningham and Eisele: why?)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 16:53:26 GMT

In article <3470A65F.CEDDDA9E@mindspring.com>,
Ward C. Douglas <wcdouglas@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> But my guess is that the astronauts would rebel at this.  Everyone
>> would like to visit Mir, for instance.  And who would like to be
>> confined to the trucking missions?  So the result is that crews are
>> broken up and this way everyone gets to do a lot of different and
>> interesting things.
>
>I believe this was part of  NASA's reasoning against the above proposal...

"Reasoning" is putting it too strongly.  The fact is, it would make sense
to have specialists.  It just wouldn't be as interesting for the crews.
But they are not supposed to be driving such decision processes...

(I'd also note that the astronauts already have just such a specialization:
pilots vs. mission specialists.  If I recall correctly, there wasn't a
single flight including Story Musgrave in which he didn't have more flying
experience than the rest of the crew put together, including both pilots...
but he was nevertheless forever barred from the front seats.)

>from a training point of view they're right.  You do get a very large group of
>broadly trained & experienced astronauts, who can be prepped for "any" mission.

But only at a very high cost in lengthy pre-mission training for each and
every mission.  This is an organization built to fly occasional custom-built
missions, not frequent routine ones.
--
If NT is the answer, you didn't                 |     Henry Spencer
understand the question.  -- Peter Blake        | henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: NASA crew selection Policies(was: Cunningham and Eisele: why?)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 18:00:13 GMT

In article <347370EC.A0E18731@tassie.net.au>,
Justin Wigg  <jjwigg@tassie.net.au> wrote:
>> ....If I recall correctly, there wasn't a
>> single flight including Story Musgrave in which he didn't have more flying
>> experience than the rest of the crew put together, including both pilots...
>> but he was nevertheless forever barred from the front seats.)
>
>Why was that?

Wrong background.  He was a scientist-astronaut (one of the second group
accepted in 1967), not a pilot.  He learned to fly after he became an
astronaut, and proceeded to rack up a simply incredible number of flight
hours, far more than any of the test pilots... but once a non-pilot,
always a non-pilot.
--
If NT is the answer, you didn't                 |     Henry Spencer
understand the question.  -- Peter Blake        | henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: NASA crew selection Policies(was: Cunningham and Eisele: why?)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 18:16:11 GMT

In article <347386E2.E5447003@mindspring.com>,
Ward C. Douglas <wcdouglas@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> "Reasoning" is putting it too strongly.  The fact is, it would make sense
>> to have specialists.  It just wouldn't be as interesting for the crews.
>> But they are not supposed to be driving such decision processes...
>
>Aren't they, NASA isn't a military service.  isn't team feedback and decision
>making a vital part of the organization.

That's true even in a well-run military, actually.  (Mind you, there are
lots of poorly-run militaries.)  It doesn't change the fact that NASA exists
to get certain jobs done, not to provide entertainment for the astronauts.
They get paid to get results, and if specializing is the most effective
way to do so, then specializing is appropriate.

>> ...If I recall correctly, there wasn't a
>> single flight including Story Musgrave in which he didn't have more flying
>> experience than the rest of the crew put together, including both pilots...
>
>Question; do you mean shuttle time or stick in T-38s (and other high
>performance aircraft).

I was thinking of aircraft time.  Given that he learned to fly after
becoming an astronaut (he was in the second group of scientist-astronauts,
who got sent to flight school as soon as they arrived), the amount of
stick time he's racked up is utterly amazing.

>...as much as I hate stoking stick jockeys egos... I'd
>rather have an aviator or an Air Force veteran with lots of  life or
>death decision making experience in the front seats...

I'd rather have Musgrave in the front seat than some fighter jockey with
a tenth as much flying experience.

>> But only at a very high cost in lengthy pre-mission training for each and
>> every mission.  This is an organization built to fly occasional custom-built
>> missions, not frequent routine ones.
>
>No argument;  but I don't view cost a "critical" variable in training.

The cost is not just dollars.  It also means fewer qualified people and
lower experience levels, because most people won't go through it very many
times before they want out.  It also means less flexibility, because you
have to commit to timing and mission content far in advance or risk
lousing up the training.  It also limits flight rate, because simulator
time for all that training becomes a limiting resource.  There are quite a
few effects, mostly unfavorable.
--
If NT is the answer, you didn't                 |     Henry Spencer
understand the question.  -- Peter Blake        | henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: Deke Slayton and Chris Kraft?
Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 02:14:29 GMT

In article <01bd74f8$9eb02fa0$c2e728c3@default>,
Aldrin <moony@easynet.co.uk> wrote:
>In the Apollo crew  making decisions  I believe it was down to Mr Slayton
>who the crews were to be. My question is, I believe reading once that Chris
>Kraft told Walt Cunningham something similar to 'You will fly in Space
>again over my dead body', which suggests that Mr Kraft had some kind of
>influence on who went into crews. Then I heard or read that Deke said
>something like, 'for once, a crew I had put together was rejected' - can't
>remember, was it Al Shepard on A13? And yet more, I hear Mr Shepard being
>in charge of the Astronaut office had some input into the crew lists too.

It was basically Slayton's job to draw up the crew assignments.

Slayton was quite capable of forming his own opinions of possible
candidates, but he got Shepard's opinions as well; I'd guess that the two
usually had fairly similar views (they had similar backgrounds and were
close friends).

While Kraft had no formal input, Slayton certainly paid attention to his
opinions (especially when strongly expressed), because Kraft's people
would have to work with whatever crews were selected.

Finally, Slayton's decision was subject to review by upper management, and
a few times he had to rethink crew assignments because upper management
made it clear that his first choice wasn't acceptable.  I believe this
happened a total of three times:  long-out-of-practice Shepard had to wait
for Apollo 14 instead of commanding 13; the Apollo 17 crew had to include
Harrison Schmitt; space rookie Slayton could not command a high-profile
mission like ASTP.
--
Being the last man on the Moon                  |     Henry Spencer
is a very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan         | henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Gemini Crew Rotations
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 20:41:50 GMT

In article <ant140800b49M+4%@gnelson.demon.co.uk>,
Graham Nelson  <graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> the crew-selection process's mysterious nature and unpredictable results
>> were more demoralizing to the astronaut corps than is commonly recognized.)
>
>I've argued this point with you before, Henry, but while I agree
>that the process was terribly unfair on the people involved, it
>one major virtue -- it made them hungry...

Sometimes.  And sometimes it made them disgusted, and they quit.  You
can't accurately assess its effects without considering its failures as
well as its successes.  My feeling is that its failures have not been
given adequate weight, and that its negative effects were more serious
than is usually thought.

In particular, I think it was an important cause of the substantial
attrition rate in the astronaut corps -- that a good many resignations
which were ostensibly for family reasons or whatever would not have
happened if astronaut careers had been less of a gamble.  People who are
happy in their jobs and think their future is under control will ride out
problems that make the unhappy and uncertain quit.

>It made, for instance,
>Al Bean pretty unhappy, but it also made him work extremely hard
>just in the hope of catching somebody's eye.

Walt Cunningham worked quite hard too.  Didn't do him much good, did it?

There's nothing wrong with making people work hard.  The problem is when
they don't *know* whether working hard will yield the desired results --
when the process is not just strenuous and demanding, but also capricious
and unfair.  Some try anyway, and some of them succeed (but others fail).
But a good many size up the situation -- the high costs and the uncertain
results -- and decide that it's not worth the gamble.

>Suppose Slayton had simply announced all the crews well in advance.
>How would he have disposed of those who then slackened off in
>training (e.g. Cooper)? ...

This is a silly strawman; it's not what I'm suggesting.  The point is not
whether you get a flight handed to you on a silver platter, but whether
you can *reliably* earn a flight by competence, effort, and persistence.
Predictability does not mean that they don't care about your performance;
in fact, it means quite the opposite -- that your performance *is* what
matters, that a good performer will get a flight even if Deke Slayton or
Al Shepard doesn't like him.  That's not the way it was...

>...And then, bear in mind that Slayton had
>to train more men than he needed.  Many became unavailable.
>Many made it clear that one Apollo flight and they would retire.

Graham, you've missed one of my points:  *why* did Slayton have to train
so many more men than he needed?  Twelve pilots flew the X-15 199 times.
Sure, you need to allow for some attrition -- several of the X-15 pilots
didn't stay with the program to the end, e.g. Neil Armstrong -- but when
the attrition rate is that high, you should consider the possibility that
there's a problem, maybe one which could be fixed... once you admit that
it exists.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Obscure crew assignment question - support crews
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 05:25:01 GMT

In article <ericsEzHuyA.7s7@netcom.com>,
Eric Smith <erics@netcom.remove.this.com> wrote:
>>(And note how seldom the backup crews actually served as backups -- in
>>practice, the main reason for having them was to get future prime crews
>>into training early.)
>
>It seems to me the backup crews stepped into the prime crew role in a high
>percentage of the cases where it was required...

You've misunderstood, although I plead guilty to ambiguous wording.  My
point is that there were really very few cases where it was required.
That's especially true if you discount accidents, illnesses, etc. which
happened so early that there would have been no great problem in just
choosing a fresh crew -- cases where the backup crew moved up as a matter
of convenience rather than necessity.

>Mission    Original Crew Member(s)  Backup Crew Member(s)  Actual Replacement
>-------    -----------------------  ---------------------  ------------------
>MA-7       Slayton                  Schirra                Carpenter

Remember, Carpenter had been Glenn's backup for MA-6, and MA-7 was very
nearly a repeat of MA-6.  I'd call that one a case where a backup "crew"
was genuinely used as a backup, even if the exact flight assignments did
not quite match the backup assignments.

>GT-3       Shepard/Stafford         Schirra/Young          Grissom/Young

Within a few weeks after the original GT-3 assignment -- Shepard/Stafford
backed up by *Grissom/Borman* -- Gemini schedules were rearranged, which
caused a change of GT-3 backup crew to Schirra/Young because Schirra was
earmarked for the first rendezvous and that was now GT-6.  And within
weeks of that, Shepard was grounded... and Schirra stayed backup commander
because he was being aimed at GT-6, and Stafford moved to backup partly
because *he* was being aimed at GT-6.  Note that we have here exactly what
I cited, with backup-crew assignment being primarily training for a
prime-crew job.  And this was all happening so early that who was on the
backup crew was of no significance when the prime crew had to change;
training for GT-3 hadn't really started.

>GT-9       See/Bassett              Stafford/Cernan        Stafford/Cernan

Here we have an honest-to-God late replacement, by the backup crew.

>GT-12      Stafford/Cernan          See/Williams           Lovell/Aldrin

This one's pretty early -- the See/Bassett crash was only a month or two
after the GT-12 crew was announced -- and the new GT-9 backup crew had a
stronger claim on GT-12 than the old GT-12 backup crew (half of which was
now dead anyway...).

>Apollo 1/7 Grissom/White/Chaffee    Schirra/Eisele/Cunningham    (same)

Here the backup crew does move up (and well before the flight, although
perhaps we shouldn't count that because it wasn't clear then that there
was going to be plenty of time).

>Apollo 8   Collins                  Lovell                 Lovell
>Apollo 13  Mattingly                Swigert                Swigert

Two replacements, each by the backup crewman, each late in training.

>Apollo 17  Engle                    Irwin?                 Schmitt

And this is just plain silly -- this was a change of prime crew to get a
specific person *onto* it, not to get a disqualified person off.  There
was no "need an Engle replacement" issue here.  Al Shepard himself could
have been backup LMP, and it would still have been Schmitt who would have
flown as 17's LMP.  And this happened *before* crew selection!

>So, four cases where the backups did not step into the prime crew role.

I count 3+2/3 cases, in the whole Mercury/Gemini/Apollo/Skylab/ASTP
program (31 flights), of late unavailability of the prime crew (the 2/3
being one crewman each on A8 and A13 :-)).  And in every one of those, a
backup crew(man) trained for that mission moved up.  So yes, they did
use the backup crews when a replacement was needed... but that was rare.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why does NASA recruit so many astronauts ?
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 21:09:17 GMT

In article <OZML4mXm#GA.125@cpmsnbbsa03>,
Brian Lawrence <Brian_W_Lawrence@msn.com> wrote:
>Because they need them.
>Presumably you think that the 60 selected in 1996/98 is
>too many? So what would be the "correct" number?

Deke Slayton thought he could fly fifty (50) shuttle flights a year with
about 15 pilots and 20-30 mission specialists.  The pilots would be paired
up in operational crews which would fly repeatedly, rather than being
shuffled every time.  The mission specialists would specialize in
particular subject areas, rather than being re-trained for each flight.
Flight-specific work would be handled by payload specialists, who (then as
now) would not be part of the astronaut corps, and who would come and go
as necessary -- for example, a major experiment payload would come with
two or three of its own payload specialists.

He thought the current situation was a case of building operational
practices around the bloated astronaut corps, rather than vice versa.
(And of course, by now this has become institutionalized to the point
where people can't imagine any other way of working, and you'd have to
change many things to switch to the sort of scheme he envisioned.)

>NASA select astronauts based on the perceived requirements
>at the time - factors considered include number of flights on
>the manifest, loss of existing astronauts, training requirements,
>cost, etc., etc.

Remember that loss of astronauts often comes because of heavy workloads
and limited flight opportunities, training requirements are high partly
because flights are infrequent and crew assignments are shuffled every
time, etc.  These things are *not* fixed constraints -- many of these
perceived requirements could themselves be eliminated or greatly reduced
if changes were made.

But that would mean needing fewer astronauts, and that in turn would
reduce the size of the surrounding bureaucracies.  Not so good, in an
environment where managers get rewarded for being inefficient (i.e., they
get rewarded based on the number of people they supervise).

>Also bear in mind that astronauts don't just fly the shuttle for
>2 weeks every 2-3 years - they have a full time job and 99.9%
>of it is on the ground.

Which is a dreadful waste of highly-trained manpower.  Of course, this
is nothing new; NASA merely inherited this stupid practice from the US
military, which likewise insists that being a pilot is a part-time job
on your way to becoming a bureaucrat.  (And they wonder why they lose so
many pilots to the airlines, where the aircraft and missions are a lot
less exciting but at least you get to spend your time *flying*...)  It
might have been defensible in the days when all the hardware was new
and astronaut input in its development was desirable, but today?
--
The good old days                   |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
weren't.                            |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why does NASA recruit so many astronauts ?
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 02:45:08 GMT

In article <7h4g4d$gt4@crl3.crl.com>,
George Herbert <gherbert@crl3.crl.com> wrote:
>>[Deke's 15 pilot, 30 mission specialist shuttle astronaut corps ideas]
>
>Other operational concerns include backup crews, vacations, and
>injuries and illnesses etc; 50 missions would really be 100 crew
>prep cycles (one prime one backup flight crew), or more than 1/month
>for Deke's nominal 15 person flight crew team.

No, you don't need a full backup crew for each flight.  The pilots train
to fly the shuttle, not to operate mission-specific hardware; if one pilot
is unavailable, you just pop in a substitute.  That 15 pilots *included*
some spares; the normal duty rotation would be six pairs, each flying
every six weeks or so.

Remember, Deke was talking about something a whole lot closer to a
military airlift squadron than to today's astronaut corps.  That includes
a whole different mindset.  In that sort of setup, you don't elaborately
custom-build every detail of each mission.

>I would say you
>want to have at least a month of crew training and integration
>time for something as complex as an arbitrary inclination, altitude,
>and payload Shuttle launch...

Again, why is it complex?  Standardize!  The pilots train to fly the
plane, not the cargo.  The mission specialists train more for classes of
missions than for individual missions; they only fly once or twice a year,
because they spend more time getting ready for each one, and they fly only
when their specialty is needed.  Anything that's big and specialized
enough to need major one-shot training is done by payload specialists, who
might spend five years preparing for a flight.

Note that Deke thought that the *crew* was two pilots, period.  Mission
specialists and payload specialists were passengers; many flights would
have only one MS, some flights would not have any.  Granted that it was
his prejudices talking to some extent, there is merit in this idea.
--
The good old days                   |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
weren't.                            |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: joyrides (was Re: Mars Mission Failures)
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 16:24:43 GMT

In article <ngdges8eokrl8kld51nl6m9hom3ijeel3k@4ax.com>,
OM  <om@RE_MOVE_THIS.ccsi.com> wrote:
>Glenn deserved that flight - and should have gotten it 25 years
>earlier, mind you...

And would have, if he'd simply hung on in the astronaut corps for a few
years, until his fame faded a bit and maybe the contents of the White
House changed.  I really can't see the "he deserved it" business; it's not
like there was no way he was ever going to fly again, no matter what was
quietly said at the time.  He simply didn't have the patience to stick
around and slowly work on getting his grounding rescinded.  He made his
own choice, it wasn't made for him:  he was more interested in being
Senator Glenn than in working hard for a chance to fly again.

In fact, if he'd hung on and worked hard and been patient, there was a
fair chance he'd have been the first man on the Moon.

My sympathy in this area is reserved for people like Story Musgrave, who
was twice the astronaut Glenn was, and was much more of an asset to
medical studies of aging astronauts, and was arbitrarily grounded for much
less reason, and *won't* fly again because he doesn't have friends in the
White House.
--
"Be careful not to step                 |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
in the Microsoft."  -- John Denker      |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars Mission Failures
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 14:05:34 GMT

In article <20000404122413.01033.00001148@ng-fm1.aol.com>,
JamesStep <jamesstep@aol.comNO-SPAM> wrote:
>> My sympathy in this area is reserved for
>> people like Story Musgrave, who...
>> was arbitrarily grounded...
>
>Why was he grounded?

Apparently because he was simply getting "too old", and had already flown
repeatedly.  (He was rather younger than Senator Glenn, still in excellent
shape, and a major asset to any mission he flew on.)
--
"Be careful not to step                 |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
in the Microsoft."  -- John Denker      |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Will Morgan EVER fly?????
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 21:03:48 GMT

In article <3958318e.5387863@news.netspace.net.au>,
Guy Parry <pargoo@netspace.net.au> wrote:
>     Just wondering if Barbara Morgan will EVER get her flight.

Probably, since she was admitted to regular astronaut training a year or
two ago.  (That is, she's going to fly as a professional astronaut, not
as the replacement Teacher In Space.)

I predict she will fly only once, though.  Frankly, it looks to me like
she was admitted into the astronaut corps as a way of shutting her up, so
that Citizens In Space could be quietly forgotten, she being the last
significant loose end from it.
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up.       |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
It should be shut down.  -- Phil Agre   |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Will Morgan EVER fly?????
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 21:10:09 GMT

In article <20000702120457.17013.00000520@ng-cs1.aol.com>,
Andy <aseed@aol.comno.spamx> wrote:
><<      Pardon me, but I always thought that being someone's 'backup' meant
>that if they couldn't fly or failed in their mission YOU got a chance to do
>it...maybe NASA uses a different dictionary than *I* do. >>
>
>Yeah, the problem with that is is that the "program" you're backing up has to
>be extant. As it was, it was cancelled, so that flight opportunity goes away.

Ah, but it *wasn't* cancelled.  It was merely put on indefinite hold, for
vaguely-explained reasons.  Technically it *still* hasn't been cancelled,
but with Morgan no longer having reason to complain, it'll be a cold day
in hell before you hear about it again.

This is the way NASA deals with things that it doesn't want to proceed
with, but which would be embarrassing to openly reject:  it stalls until
everybody loses interest.  That's what happened to several initiatives to
privately finance construction of another orbiter, for example.
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up.       |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
It should be shut down.  -- Phil Agre   |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA Names Astronaut Candidate Class Of 2000
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 05:33:14 GMT

In article <398200d3.28533316@news.erols.com>,
Chris Manteuffel <foxbat27@aol.com> wrote:
>With the oceanographer who also joined up, I wonder if NASA is
>thinking about a mission somehow involving looking at the ocean? Or
>does picking an ASCAN class not connect to missions they are planning
>in the future?

There is essentially no connection.  It does happen that somebody will get
assigned to a particular flight because it's right up his alley
technically, but that's rare.  The astronauts are supposed to be pretty
much interchangeable.  Remember that they are mostly functioning as lab
technicians, *not* as scientists, so thorough training on the hardware and
procedures for the particular flight is usually more important than having
a relevant background.

At least, that's the official position.  The idea that astronauts might
specialize is anathema.  Why, that might led to Joe flying six times while
Fred stays on the ground, because Joe's specialty is more in demand at the
moment.  It might even lead to the discovery that the astronaut corps is
over-sized and has been for a long time.  Can't have that. :-)
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up.       |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
It should be shut down.  -- Phil Agre   |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

From: jscotti@LPL.Arizona.EDU (Jim Scotti)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,sci.space.history
Subject: Re: Deke's demotions - update
Date: 6 Aug 2000 23:56:46 GMT

Kelly Wright (kwrighr@rockisland.com) wrote:
: On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 17:18:01 +0100, "Charles Dagelinckx"
: <c.dagelinckx@idb.nl> wrote:
: .
: >Cunningham and Eisele were too citims of the behaviour of Shirra during A7,
: >Eisele was in divorce and had already a girlfriend, Deke was n't glad with
: >it and reprimanded Eisele.
: >

: But wasn't Young divorced by the time he flew A-16 ?
: That does not seem like the reason.

Prior to Eisele's divorce, it was thought to be a stigma, but once Eisele
left his wife without obvious repercusions, the floodgates were opened
and a lot of astronaut marriages that were hanging by threads fell apart.
Divorces were not considered a significant black mark after that.  Young
was divorced (or at least separated) from his wife Barbara at the time of
the Apollo 16 mission.

Jim.

--
Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory         jscotti@pirl.lpl.arizona.edu
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Schmitt hitting the fan  was Re: 7th space flight
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:47:14 GMT

In article <jBj76.2357$hm.16139@grover.nit.gwu.edu>,
Dwayne Allen Day  <wayneday@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>The two things are not automatically connected.  Deciding assignments on
>merit does not mean that more than one astronaut would have a decade-long
>active career.

Actually it would.  If an existing astronaut is still healthy, qualified,
and interested, it is cheaper and better to keep on flying him than to
train a replacement.  Yes, some would drop out due to health, family,
organizational wanderlust, or sheer exhaustion, but some wouldn't; the
lack of long astronaut careers is a symptom of something badly wrong.
Twelve guys flew the X-15 199 times.

>In fact, in the military, nobody stays in any one job or location for more
>than three years.  Is there a specific reason why NASA should be
>significantly different?

Yes:  because the US military's musical-chairs personnel assignment system
is the laughingstock of the military world, never mind the civilian world.
It's an incredibly stupid way to run an organization.  Nobody ever gets
really good at anything, and nobody stays in a job long enough to see a
major project through from start to finish, i.e. to be held responsible
for his mistakes.

NASA actually has copied this to some extent, in the most appallingly
stupid way.  Note, for example, the steady rotation of people assigned to
be NASA's top man in Russia... despite the fact that long-term personal
relationships are very important to doing business over there!

>...As some have noted, the general base of the
>program now is that any astronaut can be assigned to just about any
>mission.  But that's not really the most efficient way to run the
>program.  A more logical way would be to train a few crews to fly specific
>types of missions.  You might have people who specialize only in
>rendezvous missions, for instance.

Also, just keeping crews *together* would be a considerable win.  A major
part of the crew-training effort is spent getting a crew to the point
where they cooperate smoothly and automatically in a crisis.  Constantly
shuffling crews throws away a large fraction of that investment after
using it once.
--
When failure is not an option, success  |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
can get expensive.   -- Peter Stibrany  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Schmitt hitting the fan  was Re: 7th space flight
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:04:31 GMT

In article <3A5FDAAE.B9F3093D@mindspring.com>,
Ward C. Douglas <wcdouglas@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Yes:  because the US military's musical-chairs personnel assignment system
>> is the laughingstock of the military world, never mind the civilian world.
>> It's an incredibly stupid way to run an organization...
>
>Which is of course is why we lost World War II and the Cold War.

The US won both of those more by sheer industrial might than by any great
cleverness.

>Excuse me, Henry, but references please.

Out of several references saying much the same thing, I'll quote from
"Military Incompetence:  why the American military doesn't win", by
Richard Gabriel:

  Historically, there is one thing worse than a large officer corps for
  engendering incompetence, and that is an officer corps in a state of
  perpetual motion.  Stability of assignments is important to combat
  effectiveness.  The period of assignment for officers has ranged,
  historically, from the extremes of the Roman Army (twenty years) to
  the modern Canadian and British Armies (five years).  The greater the
  stability of officers in command and staff positions, the greater the
  likelihood that they will develop a close knoweldge of their men and
  their units' abilities.  ...when an officer has only eighteen months
  with his unit, a common occurrence in the American military, every
  decision and mistake become crucial to his promotion and his career.
  These conditions are intensified by an evaluation system which requires
  officers to be almost perfect, on paper at least...

  Officer-corps stability is also important to the development of unit
  cohesion, without which combat effectiveness and military competence
  simply cannot exist...

  ...even the major planning mechanism at the higest level of the Army
  is in a state of continual turbulence, a fact which has led Paul Savage
  to conclude... that it is simply unfit and unstructured either to plan
  or to command major military operations...

Gabriel and Savage were both US Army officers, by the way.

>European officers are too narrowly focused, and they can't grasp how systems
>what.  May be OK in peace time, but it gets people killed in wars.

I recall one author commenting that the rapid victory in the Gulf War was
very unusual, the very first time such a thing had ever happened:  the
standard pattern is that the US starts a war with a series of humiliating
defeats, until it gradually wises up and sheds the worst of its peacetime
bad habits (or not, as in Vietnam).  And in that particular war, the key
position in the ground offensive was given (by a US general) not to a US
unit, but to a British one.
--
When failure is not an option, success  |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
can get expensive.   -- Peter Stibrany  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

From: Mary Shafer <shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov>
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Schmitt hitting the fan  was Re: 7th space flight
Date: 16 Jan 2001 12:08:47 -0800

elde@hurricane.net (Derek Lyons) writes:

> Keeping crews together like that over extended periods also has
> downsides.  They become insular, it can kill chances for promotions
> (or at least slows them down), it slows the diffusion of lesson's
> learned, it makes it harder to integrate new people, it makes it
> harder for the team members to integrate with a new team when the old
> team (inevitably) breaks up....

But you don't acknowledge that it creates corporate memory--the "we
tried that and this happened" sort of memory.  I have watched the
military do things like buy the same very expensive software package
three times, each purchase three years apart, because no one was
around to remember that they already owned it and it looked so right
that each new officer responsible decided they had to have it.

Dryden is losing its corporate memory, as all the people who worked on
the X-15 and lifting bodies are retiring.  Because of it, we have
found ourselves re-inventing the wheel now and then.  We may even have
reduced our safety margin, although we haven't really had anything
happen to make us sure of that; still, there's concern about it....

In addition, moving every three years is one of the reasons why some
spouses don't encourage, and even active discourage, active-duty
members staying in the military.  A while back, tours were lengthened
by a year because of budget problems (not enough money to pay the
movers) and, to everyone's surprise, dependents loved it and retention
rates remained stable, rather than dropping, as had been predicted.

> Rotation in and out is a good idea, but keeping the same team
> together overlong is bad, as is the current system.

I don't think this is true, as Dryden had kept much the same team
together for over twenty years quite successfully.  There was some
turnover, of course, and people moved to different positions, but we
kept their knowledge and experience here and were able to call on it.
Now we find ourselves scrambling through old reports, trying to figure
out how we really did something, and why, so we can avoid problems
that we had previously encountered and solved.

--
Mary Shafer  Senior Handling Qualities Research Engineer
shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
Of course I don't speak for NASA