 |
  File size : 5.6MB Format : MPEG |
 |
Q. NASA's latest Spirit mission succeeded, but JAXA's Nozomi failed. Why? I think that as an American I am absolutely delighted that Spirit made it to the surface so flawlessly. I should say I was not at all sure that was going to happen, because the last time we tried this, the 1999 Mars Polar Lander, everything seemed to be going well and yet it failed. Landing on Mars is a risky, difficult thing to do. The British Beagle, their first attempt at going into deep space, failed as far as we know, because there's been nothing sent back. Roughly two thirds of all the missions sent to Mars by the Soviets and Russians and the U.S., and more recently by others, have failed, either on the way or at Mars. So if a country wants to be a spacefaring nation and explore Mars, something that hard, they have to be prepared to accept the fact that failures are more common than successes. And it's not an indication of personal failure of the individuals or of the institutions. Otherwise, the country involved will not be able to participate in space exploration. If they are so risk averse as a population, they won't be able to do this. So I guess that's a Japanese decision. I hope they choose to keep the samurai spirit and feel that, yes, they want to participate and be part of the future. But there's no way to do that without suffering some pretty unpleasant setbacks. |
|
|||
 File size : 7.7MB Format : MPEG |
|
Q. In the Columbia shuttle accident, some people say that there were problems with NASA's structure, culture and history. What do you think in JAXA's accidents? I think there's a lot to be learned from the American program with both its failures and its successes. In the case of Columbia, the commission investigating the failure made a very public criticism, the kind that would be devastating in Japan but fortunately was only uncomfortable for the people involved in the United States. They said that a big cause was the attitude within NASA. The refusal to think broadly enough or to consider other possibilities was a significant cause of the failure, and will probably be the same in the future unless it's changed. When we did the investigation at JPL for the failure of the Mars landers we came to the same conclusion. Cultures are hard to change in any country, in any situation, especially if the organizations have had success and have gotten pretty set in their ways. That was certainly true of JPL. I was Director there earlier, so I know a lot about that. And it was certainly true of the Johnson Space Center in Houston with the manned program, and still is. In the case of JPL, changes in organizational structure, in personnel, procedures and in priorities were made. Judging from the success of Spirit, and now Opportunity, they were successful. Certainly the fear of being eliminated from the cutting edge of NASA's space exploration was very high after the Mars failures in 1999. The anxiety was extreme while Spirit landed, because if Spirit had failed after all the attention and a lot of money, then there would have been other people and companies that work extensively in automated spacecraft who would go to NASA and say, "Look, we can do that job better than JPL." So competition is good, is my point. The recognition that you don't have a monopoly on an endeavor but you really have to do it successfully is essential. In the case of the U.S. manned space program, it still is more of a monopoly because there is no other viable institutional alternative, I think. That's part of the problem. And, as far as I know, the necessary restructuring hasn't yet taken place. If it doesn't, there will be more failures and relatively little success to show for it. However, the new U.S. focus on renewed human exploration beyond Earth's orbit provides a marvelous opportunity for renewal and restructuring of the entire U.S. human flight endeavor.
|
