the dawn of a new day holding the
promise of new discoveries new
challenges new accomplishments a new
beginning America's space program is
moving to its new beginning
it's a whole new world out there we
belong in space I think the shuttle is
the epitome of flight the people that's
what makes it really all come together
people are really pulling together all
of us have the kind of a pride and the
feeling forget our job done that we're
really putting that above a lot of our
personal needs and personal activities
these are the people of the marshall
space flight center shuttle projects an
integral part of that new beginning
their job the redesign and certification
of the shuttles propulsion elements the
external tank the structural backbone of
the space transportation system the main
engines the most technologically
advanced liquid fueled engines ever
built and the solid rocket booster with
the largest solid propellant motor ever
designed for manned flight
hundreds of dedicated men and women
across the country government and
industry working side-by-side to a
common goal
rebuilding the country space program
assembling the finest technical
scientific and management resources to
study and analyze every aspect of the
shuttle program
these exhaustive review efforts from
outside and within the agency culminated
with the issuance of a set of actions
from the NASA associate administrator
for Space Flight Bob Marshall manager of
the shuttle project office at the
Marshall Space Flight Center explains he
established the requirements that he
felt were necessary for us to have a
safe return to flight these requirements
are identified in a letter that she is
dated March 24 that preceded the
Commission report of june six 1986
however it included the points that were
recovered within the Commission report
the first of these is probably more
important was a reassessment of the
entire program management structure and
its operation it provided the
requirement and we have since then
establish that we would have a program
line of communications which we referred
to as level 3 2 1 and we also have an
institutional which is the center
directors and the organizations within
each of the centers with report today
truly the second of his of course was
the redesign of the joint and the SRM
redesign is progressing very well the
third of these was a design requirements
verification there are some modification
being made both to the requirements as
well as to the hardware and as to the
verification process the fourth of these
is a review of the critical items list
and a review of the theme of sale or
theme of failure modes effects analysis
there have been at least three rather
significant items at
uncovered in this reassessment which
will help us to make the vehicle more
safe but more importantly we have
identified a number of the failure modes
that can be eliminated through design
and we are doing that in the critical
item one type category we also are
addressing a complete review which is
item 5 of the operation and maintenance
documents these documents are the KSC
documents which provide the instructions
for the people there to check out the
hardware as it arrives from our design
center additionally we are looking again
at the launch abort and launch flight
launch rules there are a number of those
which are not going to be changed but as
a result of FEMA sill will be some added
potentially that will address final
checks to be sure that the category one
or critical one failures are in fact
well checked out prior to launch the
seventh one of these is the first light
years operations we have addressed those
areas with any operational part of the
program that allow us to return to
flight and complete our flight
assignments like we came out of the last
series of Lights and have not lost any
of the enthusiasm for the people there
more importantly any of the knowledge
that's necessary for flight the number
eight item from dick truely's letter is
a development of a substantive safe
flight rate we have reassessed that
recently and we are now attempting to
make sure that we have a safe flight
rate that is somewhere in the
neighborhood of 14 to 16 the last item a
dick Trudy's letter was referred to as
the bottom line
the bottom line to all of us is that we
do have in fact an organizational
structure staffed with the kinds of
people in the proper positions that
allow us to return to flight safely and
maintain the kind of decision trail that
is necessary to assure that we don't
have another type accident of the 51 m
overall the marshall center in my
opinion as well as our contractor
friends are at this point improved
substantially and not on the
communications but through outlook and
their participation in the program and i
believe as I look down toward 1988 there
will be a readiness for launch we will
have covered all of the quote basis
unquote and we will be in a position at
a posture to have a fight that is safe
and again put this nation back into
space
with clearly defined guidelines and
objectives each project is involved in
the business of returning to safe flight
operations Porter Bridwell manager of
the external tank project shortly after
51 L we aggressively stepped into the
reassessment activities what we wanted
to assure our self of in reassessing the
toll hardware on the tank was to assure
herself number one we had identified all
the single point where years an external
tank and secondly after doing that is to
assure ourselves from a test
verification design standpoint that
those were acceptable risk for the next
slide of the external tankers has
protected Thomas worth vice-president
external tank project for Martin
Marietta while the return to flight
activities are going on we still are in
production here at Martin Marietta miss
you we are also looking at how we build
a tank to certify that that process is
correct taking the design requirements
how they're implemented down through the
bill procedures and then actually how
the tank is built I'm happy to say that
in review of this process we have found
that the process is right and the tanks
are building are built to the
engineering our scale is a 100
their attitude and their performance
particularly in production there is
somewhere between 95 two hundred percent
because we are building better parts out
here now even even better than before
NASA's overall commitment to mission
success is the the overriding factor
here and i want to say the shuttle fly
again and i want to see it fly safely
Space Shuttle main engine project
manager Joe Lombardo we were feeling
quite confident with the ssme as it flew
in the prior 25 flights but we saw the
opportunity given this downtime to go
ahead and through design analysis
develop some product improvements and
then subject them to grant test exposure
many many good ideas were developed by
the combined government and prime
contractor team that is Rocketdyne
division of rockwell international we we
were able to get these changes into
hardware get him to the test stand and
we started a very aggressive ground test
program ray to lender the Marshall Space
Flight Center resident office manager at
rocketdyne a really significant thing in
this program right now is in the last
six months that we have tremendously
accelerated the test program and this is
where it really all comes together with
the ssme we can truly simulate what we
do in flight on the ground in each and
every test we can do it on multiple
samples and over and over again and
through that process we really find out
what our margins are where our weak
links are where our strong points are it
gives us the confidence to get back into
flight safely and efficiently
Bob pastor vice president ssme program
manager for Rocketdyne we have a lot of
hardware the build a lot of testing to
perform we're working hard hours and
we're all working together both
Rocketdyne and again and NASA team in
accomplishing what has to be done before
we fly again all the employees take a
personal pride and delivering Hardware
in an engine that has to perform
perfectly every time there's not only a
technical commitment to the ssme but
there's also emotional commitment the
shuttle it's one of the greatest things
that America has ever made
solid rocket booster project manager
Gerald Smith we're in the process of
redesign of the the joints in a solid
rocket motor and other parts of the
motor that we found where we could
provide performance margin and so that's
a major activity that is required to be
completed as a part of our return to
flight we initially established a team
at Marshall to work very closely with
Morton Thiokol in the redesign of the
solid rocket motor this team drew on a
nucleus of people from our science in
his new directory who had past
experience or on the SRB program and
then the discipline areas to support a
redesign it's my assessment this merging
of the two teams and specially the team
in place if I call has none exactly what
it was intended to do it has a lot of
their close working relationship a
report of the established between the
government contractor team Royce
Mitchell manager of the solid rocket
motor project we recognize there would
be many analyses many tests many reviews
and in order to speed things up to
ordinary base of understanding we just
brought the people to the job it'll
speed things up it'll result in a better
product the test program from for the
solid rocket motor redesign starts in
the lab literally at the microscopic
level progresses on through component
level subsystem assembly levels and then
finally to the finished product which is
a full-scale motor
the full scale static motor firings of
course the culmination of all our test
program they are the verification that
all of our sub assembly and laboratory
tests have led us in the right direction
Carver Kennedy vice president of space
programs for Morton Thiokol this is one
of the most extensive development and
testing programs I personally have ever
been associated with in some 30 years in
this business we believe the program we
have laid out and the testing activities
which we have undertaken will in fact be
successful and give us great confidence
that will return to flight on the
schedule that nASA has established gene
Kegel senior vice president of programs
and operations for USB I booster
production company incorporated we've
also suspected 1l of going back and made
some changes that will enhance the
performance the hardware they did a more
reliable and safe a hardware that was
really a main goal it's become a lot of
this thing with a recertification
program they'll make to you overall
before must be better and more reliable
safe hardware I go on at the month I
mean I'm that confident what I've seen
in all the motors that I've been
involved
I love the formula I think it's everyone
else's obligation to do our best every
day on they have excellent people
working on program very highly motivated
and we all have a common goal less work
toward making this thing as safe and
reliable as possible
well it's just a tremendous period for
swear I ain't taking this opportunity to
stop and relook and where we've been and
now we're starting a look at where we're
going jr thompson director of the
marshall space flight center everybody
that I've seen throughout NASA is very
enthusiastic about the program we
understand its risk but we're ready to
press on
each passing day brings NASA closer to
renewed space flight operations due in
large part to the efforts of these
people it is a marvelous flying machine
and i think that the agency needs it
we're working hard to make that happen
their teamwork an inspiring example of
the human spirit this is a very unique
capability that the country has and
we're doing our best to maintain and
preserve if you pass it on and I think
that others ought to and will keep up
that heritage their dedication a
commitment to the hopes dreams and
expectations of an entire nation I'm
ready let's go right now t minus 10 nine
we have a go for main engine start and
we have main engine start four three two
one
you