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He says there is a “cultural rot” leading to shoddy safety standards.
Stricter security measures
Following the near-disaster that occurred last week when the International Space Station (ISS) momentarily got out of hand, a former NASA employee has lashed out at the agency for not taking the safety of his astronauts more seriously.
James Oberg, former engineer at NASA’s Mission Control Center, wrote an editorial in IEEE spectrum criticizing what he describes as an “eroded” safety culture. He also calls for an independent investigation from the agency.
“The security of the system is assumed rather than verified – and as a result managers are left to miss clues or make careless choices, which lead to disaster,” Oberg said in his article.
Slow cultural rot
Oberg claimed that the recent incident involving the Russian module Nauka is a strong indicator of a “mindset of complacency” at NASA that will ultimately lead to disaster.
“The NASA team has experienced the same slow cultural rot of assuming security over and over again over the past few decades, with hideous consequences,” he said.
He continued: “The team members in the year before the Challenger disaster of 1986 (and I was in the thick of mission control operations at the time) had noticed and started to voice their concerns. concerning growing neglect and even humorous reactions to “stupid mistakes” to no avail. “
Call for inquiry
The 22-year-old NASA veteran and space reporter also called for a full investigation into the agency’s safety standards.
“[Because] political pressures seem to be at the root of much of the problem, only an independent investigation with serious political clout can reverse any erosion of the security culture, ”he said, then calling on President Biden and NASA chief Bill Nelson to create an independent commission to investigate. .
It’s hard to disagree with Oberg’s persuasive article. At the very least, NASA and any other state-sanctioned aerospace agency should always lean more on the side of being “too safe.” After all, the recent incident with the ISS could have been a lot worse than it actually was. Who knows how bad the next incident could be.
READ MORE: Space station incident demands independent investigation [IEEE Spectrum]
More about the incident: Russia to investigate whether space station sustained damage in the incident
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