Pulling no punches, Hill dressed down the American correspondent representing the BBC, following his question that intimated NASA may be \u2018covering up\u2019 the seriousness of the piece of foam that came away during STS-114\u2019s launch yesterday. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m a little bit confused \u2013 I\u2019m not an expert by any stretch on this \u2013 (but) last night it seemed the (Debris) was a significant issue, and today, Paul, it seems like NASA is trying to play this down,\u2019 said the journalist \u2013 who we don\u2019t wish to name to avoid naming and shaming.<\/p>\n \u2018Now, I don\u2019t understand why this is not seen as a big issue this morning. You said that the engineering community \u2013 that their judgement is that they haven\u2019t reached a decision on whether or not to seek more data on this. I don\u2019t understand why this is,\u2019 he continued. \u2018When these shuttles return to earth and you\u2019ve done an inspection, have they had the kinda damage to the same area this has apparently occurred near the nose \u2013 or the landing gear I should say. <\/p>\n \u2018And I want to ask if you\u2019ve made a decision to repair this damaged tile, or it way to premature to talk about repair?\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n Hill, already pulling a facial expression that pre-empted his continued frustration, opened with a salvo of reiteration on why he was unable to give further detail. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018You know I warned you that you\u2019re going to get frustrated if you ask me for more information, not because I\u2019m trying to be evasive, but I\u2019ve told you every damn thing I know!!\u2019 Said Hill. <\/font><\/p>\n (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n \u2018Answering the last part (of the question). We are not prepared to say if it needs a repair, we\u2019re not prepared to say it does need a repair, but what we are prepared to say is. The experts \u2013 like the smart people like Dan Bell \u2013 can look at the data and then tell us \u2013 based on flight experience, based on the level of damage we already know we\u2019ve landed with and what we know we can land with, that\u2019s the process. <\/p>\n \u2018Some of those folks early judgement was that the damage looked like it wasn\u2019t going to be a significant issue, and that in no way means they are going to say that it doesn\u2019t need to be repaired, or it does need to be repaired, or it does need additional data or doesn\u2019t need additional data. <\/p>\n \u2018It means the judgement of the folks that do this for a living and have quantified tile damage that we\u2019ve landed with in the past \u2013 their first look at this was that it wasn\u2019t going to be significant. Inside the community are the folks that do this for a living and they have the final decision on if we need more data, or whether or not we need a repair. <\/p>\n \u2018I personally have been involved in the \u2013 over the past two and a half years and my guess is we\u2019re not going to have a problem \u2013 but that\u2019s just my personal opinion cause in the absence of not seeing any data \u2013 and I\u2019d suggest that nobody latches on to that this is implying NASA is trying to play this down or anything!!\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n Glaring down on the journalist in question, Hill \u2013 rather than leaving it there \u2013 then elaborated on his frustration with journalists over-playing an issue that occurs with nearly every launch of the Space Shuttle.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2018Now given all that is it safe to say, there are going to be some issues with damage that are going to be small, but we have landed with them on numerous flights, over the last 21 years, and if that\u2019s all we\u2019ve got to talk about, it\u2019s going to seem awfully big until we have something else to talk about that clearly is an issue \u2013 chips in RCC coating is in that category. <\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m not saying that is where we are today \u2013 that they aren\u2019t important cause we\u2019ve got a laptop computer to talk about, but when you hear a story change from one day to the next it is not necessarily because NASA is trying to play something down \u2013 it could be because we\u2019ve talked about it long enough and we\u2019ve seen other data by comparing it to flight history \u2013 which leads us to think this isn\u2019t something we need to be that worried about.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n Now in full flow, Hill dropped in an element of sarcasm, as a deadly silence filled the press conference room as the execution of the BBC journalist upped a gear. <\/p>\n \u2018It doesn\u2019t mean we are going to forget about it, it doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to sweep it under the rug, we\u2019re not going to start running out of the building with our hair on fire!! \u2013 because we put it down to our flight experience \u2013 that\u2019s all I\u2019m trying to get across to you!!\u2019 His triad continued.<\/p>\n \u2018The engineering community has not yet come back to us and told us that they don\u2019t want more data on this and we\u2019ll see what they tell us. If they tell me by the end of today, tomorrow or before the crew come back home that they need more data, then by God we\u2019re going to get the OBSS down and give them more data! And that day is going to look like they were sitting there with there hands on the tile it\u2019s (the data) is going to look so good, but we\u2019ll see. <\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m not trying to play down anything. NASA is certainly not trying to play down anything. It is understandable to me that in our own community as well as in the public and in the press that when folks see any TPS damage \u2013 even if that is clearly within our capability to land with given our extensive flight experience, that it\u2019s going to get a lot of attention and people tend to over-react to that, because as I\u2019ve already said once and you are all aware of this, the last flight ended in catastrophe and we lost seven friends of ours because of TPS damage. So even when we\u2019re talking about tile damage that is clearly within capabilities that\u2019s going to get all of our attention and all of us are going to get concerned about it. <\/p>\n \u2018We don\u2019t make decisions on spaceflight based on that type of emotion, we make decisions on space flight based on the data and we\u2019re looking at the data. As I\u2019ve said now about half a dozen times now, by the end of the day or tomorrow I expect we\u2019ll have enough data for the engineering community will tell me if they think they need more data to exonerate any damage \u2013 whether it be a tile chip or anything we find in the imagery in the next day or so in flight operations. <\/p>\n \u2018How does this compare with previous damage? I can\u2019t tell yer. It\u2019s not like I won\u2019t tell you, but heck, I don\u2019t know! As I said when I started, I have not seen the engineering data and I\u2019ve not seen photodymetric analysis that quantifies exactly how big this is. For me to tell you how this compares to flight history \u2013 I would have to see all of that damage and somebody like Dan Bell, who will present it to me will also be the same guy who\u2019ll say \u2018Well Paul, this is how this compares to other things we\u2019ve landed with. Here\u2019s why I either am or am not concerned with landing with this damage.\u2019 <\/p>\n \u2018That\u2019s where we\u2019re at.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n Soon after, NASA manager Wayne Hale stepped in, almost to survey the remains of journalists left stunned by Hill\u2019s brilliant dressing down of a journalist that asks one question too many on the same subject. <\/font><\/p>\n NASA has \u2013 as yet \u2013 not given any answers on plans to set up a Paul Hill fan club.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lead flight director Paul Hill gave an emotional slap down to a BBC journalist who failed to heed warnings not to repeat a question on yesterday\u2019s debris concerns \u2013 a question he had already said he was not in a position to answer. NASA engineers are looking over photography and video of what included a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} ET Debris Image location \u2013 see arrow (C) NASA<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n
\u2018This is not unlike any problem you will find in space flight. This is an extremely clean vehicle, she is working like a champ, it\u2019s almost flawless! We had a problem with the laptop computer a little while ago, which we are going to spend a lot of time talking about, not because it\u2019s a serious issue, but it\u2019s all we got, everything else is just working too damn well!!
<\/font>
\u2018So we\u2019re going to spend a lot of time talking about this laptop computer. Now if we had fuel cells or we had something that looked like a short circuit in the main bus, then we would stop talking about laptop computers and we\u2019d talk a lot about fuel cells and electrical buses. <\/p>\n