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CNN Live Today

Discussion with 'Time' Magazine's Jeffrey Kluger

Aired February 03, 2003 - 11:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now the laws of physics dictate plenty of plausible reasons that a shuttle might break apart re-entering the atmosphere. Let's talk about some of that right now with Jeffrey Kluger. He wrote this week's cover story for "Time" magazine, and he's also coauthor of the book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13." He joins us from New York.
Good to see you this morning. Thank you very much for coming and talking with us today.

JEFFREY KLUGER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: First of all, after going through the experience of writing that book, I have to ask you about your thoughts this weekend when you heard the news.

KLUGER: Well, I was fairly stunned when I heard it. I got a call from the editor of "Time" magazine, Jim Kelly, at 9:30 on Saturday morning, telling me what happened, and we should of -- sort of, all hands on deck.

Having spent so much time with so many of the folks who have flown these missions, I have come to appreciate that at least for the astronauts themselves, there's a certain appreciation that accidents of this kind, even catastrophic accidents, are inevitable, and it's something against which they steal themselves, but I don't think it makes the loss any less profound, or the challenge to NASA any less great.

HARRIS: If there's an odds maker out there who would take, I don't know if there is one, but could you imagine a situation where 2.5 million parts it takes to make up a shuttle, even if you have the most minuscule of margins of error here, could you talk about thousands of parts that could actually have a malfunction.

KLUGER: Absolutely, and that's when you begin fully to embrace the levels of tolerance, the tolerance for errors, that the NASA engineers work with. Those tolerances are fantastically small; 99.9 percent reliability still does leave that 2,500 parts to go wrong, which means you're dealing with three and four decimal places before you even begin to approach an acceptable level of safety.

HARRIS: You know, I know a lot of us may be somewhat hindsight, but not much attention was paid a few weeks ago when there was a change with NASA's aerospace safety advisory panel. I'm not sure if you've seen the headlines this morning. You may be aware of this. What do you make of the report on that coming out? I'm quoting here, Dr. Richard Blumberg, who was the panel's chairman, who said, at the time, "I've never been as worried for space shuttle safety as I am right now." And that didn't really get a lot of attention when he said that at the time.

KLUGER: It didn't get a lot...

HARRIS: Is that well founded, do you think?

KLUGER: Well, yes, I think his concerns for the risk of the space shuttle safety was -- were very well founded, and I am concerned and a little bit surprised it didn't get more attention within the NASA hierarchy.

I'm not as concerned as a lot of people suggest about the fact that five of the nine panel members were replaced shortly after that. NASA says that this was not an attempt to silence the messengers, and that the panel members' terms, their terms in office, were set to expire anyway, and I think we have to give the agency the benefit of the doubt.

After the Challenger disaster and after a lot of the reports came out about warnings not being heeded and messenger being silenced, I think NASA learned a profound lesson that stayed with them, and I would be very surprised if the NASA administration, even 17 years after Challenger, was still in the business of silencing whistle- blowers or people who were sending up alarms, and I just don't think they did that.

HARRIS: That's funny you should say that. I was just talking just moments ago here with Randy Avera here, who has had a lot of experience working with the, and he was remarking to me about just how open NASA seems to be these days, having press conferences, and talking about all this quite publicly and not trying to cover anything up, well at least not appearing to.

HARRIS: Yes, and I think they learned that lesson with Challenger. I think they learned it with Apollo 13. I think they learned it with Apollo 1. And I think NASA has become increasingly open about that type of thing. I think it's very telling that this morning they're coming out with very open, very candid reports about the alerts that were sounded shortly after liftoff, or two days after liftoff, about that large potential gap in the protective tiles on the left side of the spacecraft.

I think it's to NASA's credit that they came up with this information, potentially damning information, and have released it to the public almost as soon as they learned it.

HARRIS: What do you -- hazard a guess as to what's going to happen with NASA's their reputation after all of this? I mean, there is now word coming out, I think I heard something over the weekend, about NASA actually having gone on eBay to buy some of the parts for this, because they're trying now, because of the budget crunch to save as much money as they possibly can. Do you think that will play a role here at all, and if there was any sort of, I guess, compromises at all in the safety of this program?

KLUGER: Well, I think it will, and to an extent, I think it should. I think NASA's reputation, or the way NASA has conducted itself in quality control, is certainly fair game. But in fairness, I also think that we have to appreciate the constraints NASA is operating under. The White House has announced that there will be an increase in their budget this year, up from about $15.2 billion to about $15.9 billion, which is terrific, but NASA has been operating at sort of this fixed 13, 14, 15 billion annual budget for years, while the cost of parts and maintaining the shuttles has steadily increased.

I also think that this ongoing space station mission has essentially been a black hole for money, and essentially, I think NASA is operating as best it can with the mandate that's been given by Washington to maintain the shuttle fleet and build the space station. But I think both the agency itself, and Congress and the White House have to contemplate a new mission for NASA, one that's fiscally obtainable, and one that promises to yield some real science, and I don't think the space station is it.

HARRIS: That's an interesting point. I'm sorry we have to leave the conversation there. We'll have to pick it up some other time.

Jeffrey Kluger, thank you very much.

KLUGER: Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: And Jeffrey Kluger is the author of the "Time" magazine cover story, "What Went Wrong? Did NASA Do All It Could?"

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired February 3, 2003 - 11:22   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now the laws of physics dictate plenty of plausible reasons that a shuttle might break apart re-entering the atmosphere. Let's talk about some of that right now with Jeffrey Kluger. He wrote this week's cover story for "Time" magazine, and he's also coauthor of the book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13." He joins us from New York.
Good to see you this morning. Thank you very much for coming and talking with us today.

JEFFREY KLUGER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: First of all, after going through the experience of writing that book, I have to ask you about your thoughts this weekend when you heard the news.

KLUGER: Well, I was fairly stunned when I heard it. I got a call from the editor of "Time" magazine, Jim Kelly, at 9:30 on Saturday morning, telling me what happened, and we should of -- sort of, all hands on deck.

Having spent so much time with so many of the folks who have flown these missions, I have come to appreciate that at least for the astronauts themselves, there's a certain appreciation that accidents of this kind, even catastrophic accidents, are inevitable, and it's something against which they steal themselves, but I don't think it makes the loss any less profound, or the challenge to NASA any less great.

HARRIS: If there's an odds maker out there who would take, I don't know if there is one, but could you imagine a situation where 2.5 million parts it takes to make up a shuttle, even if you have the most minuscule of margins of error here, could you talk about thousands of parts that could actually have a malfunction.

KLUGER: Absolutely, and that's when you begin fully to embrace the levels of tolerance, the tolerance for errors, that the NASA engineers work with. Those tolerances are fantastically small; 99.9 percent reliability still does leave that 2,500 parts to go wrong, which means you're dealing with three and four decimal places before you even begin to approach an acceptable level of safety.

HARRIS: You know, I know a lot of us may be somewhat hindsight, but not much attention was paid a few weeks ago when there was a change with NASA's aerospace safety advisory panel. I'm not sure if you've seen the headlines this morning. You may be aware of this. What do you make of the report on that coming out? I'm quoting here, Dr. Richard Blumberg, who was the panel's chairman, who said, at the time, "I've never been as worried for space shuttle safety as I am right now." And that didn't really get a lot of attention when he said that at the time.

KLUGER: It didn't get a lot...

HARRIS: Is that well founded, do you think?

KLUGER: Well, yes, I think his concerns for the risk of the space shuttle safety was -- were very well founded, and I am concerned and a little bit surprised it didn't get more attention within the NASA hierarchy.

I'm not as concerned as a lot of people suggest about the fact that five of the nine panel members were replaced shortly after that. NASA says that this was not an attempt to silence the messengers, and that the panel members' terms, their terms in office, were set to expire anyway, and I think we have to give the agency the benefit of the doubt.

After the Challenger disaster and after a lot of the reports came out about warnings not being heeded and messenger being silenced, I think NASA learned a profound lesson that stayed with them, and I would be very surprised if the NASA administration, even 17 years after Challenger, was still in the business of silencing whistle- blowers or people who were sending up alarms, and I just don't think they did that.

HARRIS: That's funny you should say that. I was just talking just moments ago here with Randy Avera here, who has had a lot of experience working with the, and he was remarking to me about just how open NASA seems to be these days, having press conferences, and talking about all this quite publicly and not trying to cover anything up, well at least not appearing to.

HARRIS: Yes, and I think they learned that lesson with Challenger. I think they learned it with Apollo 13. I think they learned it with Apollo 1. And I think NASA has become increasingly open about that type of thing. I think it's very telling that this morning they're coming out with very open, very candid reports about the alerts that were sounded shortly after liftoff, or two days after liftoff, about that large potential gap in the protective tiles on the left side of the spacecraft.

I think it's to NASA's credit that they came up with this information, potentially damning information, and have released it to the public almost as soon as they learned it.

HARRIS: What do you -- hazard a guess as to what's going to happen with NASA's their reputation after all of this? I mean, there is now word coming out, I think I heard something over the weekend, about NASA actually having gone on eBay to buy some of the parts for this, because they're trying now, because of the budget crunch to save as much money as they possibly can. Do you think that will play a role here at all, and if there was any sort of, I guess, compromises at all in the safety of this program?

KLUGER: Well, I think it will, and to an extent, I think it should. I think NASA's reputation, or the way NASA has conducted itself in quality control, is certainly fair game. But in fairness, I also think that we have to appreciate the constraints NASA is operating under. The White House has announced that there will be an increase in their budget this year, up from about $15.2 billion to about $15.9 billion, which is terrific, but NASA has been operating at sort of this fixed 13, 14, 15 billion annual budget for years, while the cost of parts and maintaining the shuttles has steadily increased.

I also think that this ongoing space station mission has essentially been a black hole for money, and essentially, I think NASA is operating as best it can with the mandate that's been given by Washington to maintain the shuttle fleet and build the space station. But I think both the agency itself, and Congress and the White House have to contemplate a new mission for NASA, one that's fiscally obtainable, and one that promises to yield some real science, and I don't think the space station is it.

HARRIS: That's an interesting point. I'm sorry we have to leave the conversation there. We'll have to pick it up some other time.

Jeffrey Kluger, thank you very much.

KLUGER: Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: And Jeffrey Kluger is the author of the "Time" magazine cover story, "What Went Wrong? Did NASA Do All It Could?"

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com