CAIB Hearing Transcript 6 March 2003 (Part 2)
(UNKNOWN):
Sir, I’d like to have a follow-up question on your discussion about civil
service.
Since 1993,
according to reports that we’ve got–I know you participated in this and
I’d like you to comment on it, the concept of privatization in the space
shuttle program. One of the things that was stated in here is that since
1993 50 percent of the civil service work force has been reduced at NASA.
The specific
wording is, "The NASA space shuttle program civil service work force
has been reduced nearly 50 percent, resulting in significant loss of skills
and experience." It says, "The NASA skill base continues to
erode as more functions transition to the space flight operations contract."
Now, some of that affects you obviously here.
Could you
give us some more information on your views on that and maybe some insight
on your participation on this report?
HOWELL: I
did not have any participation in that report. I think it goes back to
my answer–you know, I can–I’m very comfortable with the balance of civil
servants versus contractors we have at this time. And that has been a
change from 10 years ago, you know, a move toward contractors, increasing
numbers doing functions that were done by civil servants in the days before.
I do have
a concern for the future of, you know, once more, what is the critical
mass necessary of civil servants in all of the different disciplines that
we participate with the programs to ensure that we have enough numbers
to grow civil servants up to the expertise they need and so that we can
have proper oversight on the civil service level.
And so at
this time I’m very comfortable with it. I am very concerned about going
any lower on our civil servants. And however, I think it needs more study.
I’m not saying we won’t, but this is something that we need to really
take a hard look at for the future.
GEHMAN: General
Howell, let me…
(UNKNOWN):
Thank you.
GEHMAN: We’ll
take turns here.
You mentioned
before in your description of your work force, engineers for example,
engineering department, which are largely matrixed in support of the major
projects that you have here. Could you describe for us how that works
in a practical matter?
What I mean
is, if there’s an engineering problem that must solved or if one of the
project people says, "I need more help here, I need more help there,"
who decides where the engineers work and how do you get reimbursed for
that?
HOWELL: I
guess it’s a family matter, is the best way to put it. But one of the
extraordinary blessings we have here is that we have both the shuttle
and station programs here located here, and we support them with our engineering
directorate and our other MOD and what have you.
And so, you
know, we have–every year they come out with guidelines on what type of
support they want. And we tell them what it’s going to take to do it,
and we work out a budget.
And so we
have a force of engineers. We have two types. We have–each program actually
has certain people who are assigned to them full time.
And for instance,
in the shuttle program, I have 700-plus full-time-equivalent civil servants
who work for the shuttle. Now, I don’t have the number for it. I’d have
to get it for you. Not all 700 of them are full time. There’s a certain
number of those people who are full time, and then the other number are
matrixed work from several people who will take up one full-time equivalent.
We have the
same with station. And we budget with them and work out an agreement on
what type of work and what it will take to do it. And I agree to the budget,
and then we go forward.
And the budgets
actually belong to the programs. And so, but we make an agreement.
When something
occurs because of the family–for instance, when we had the flow liner
cracks–we went to full-court press to figure out what had caused that.
We had the metallurgy of that, all the what-ifs. And so we set up a series
of tiger teams to help analyze and come to agreement on what it took to
fix that problem.
And I would
say very easily that it–I took about 150, at least, 150 engineers that
were not part of the shuttle program, who came to address that problem,
worked full-time for several weeks to take care of that. Now, some of
them came from our training people, some from station all along. And we
just–it’s sort of–it’s a legacy of Johnson Space Center is that, you
know, you come on and stay on when you get a problem. And everybody turns
to do it; everybody knows that that’s the way we do it.
How we work
that out in the budget, I’ll have to bring John Bill (ph), my financial
guy, in to tell you. I don’t know. But we get it done. And it is paid
for.
And there’s
such great cooperation between the programs that they’re willing to, you
know, do what it takes to help each other in that regard. I’ll have to
get you more specifics on, really, the details of how we do that.
GEHMAN: Good.
I, for one, would be interested to know how that works out, not so much
because I’m really interested in the accounting part of it, but I am interested
in the lines-of-authority piece of it.
In other
words, the cracks in the piping is a good example, and I certainly can
appreciate the energy by which JSC attacks something like that, because
it stopped the program for a period of months.
But I would
be–I’d like to know better whether or not that tiger team example, as
you described it, was working independently, whether if it was working
for you, or whether it was working for the project manager. And…
HOWELL: They
were working for the project manager.
GEHMAN: OK.
HOWELL: They
asked for help. We offered what we could do to help them. They agreed
to that, and those people worked for them.
You know,
Ron Dittemore was in charge of that operation. We just provide him with
a lot of expertise to help him that he didn’t normally have to help him
solve that problem.
And you know,
once more, though, I, you know, I feel a responsibility that those people
did the correct thing and came up with the correct analysis and testing.
And so, you know, I have something in this. However, they did belong to
Ron Dittemore in that regard.
GEHMAN: All
right. I hate to jump around subjects here, but you said that you and
other center directors, of course, are part of the CFR (ph) process, as
I understand…
HOWELL: Yes.
GEHMAN: …
the certificate of flight reviews.
HOWELL: Yes,
right.
GEHMAN: And
you actually sign on there.
HOWELL: That’s
correct.
GEHMAN: And
when you do that, of course, you are expressing your overall satisfaction
with your, in your sphere of knowledge, that we’re ready to go.
But except
for that generality, what interests are you actually representing? I mean,
are you representing the interests of the astronauts? Are you representing
the interests of the engineering department and the flight directors?
Or more, less? Have I overstated it?
HOWELL: Not
at all.
GEHMAN: Would
you characterize that?
HOWELL: That
is a very somber signing. It is a very–it’s very important. And in my
mind, I am representing every JSC person who’s been involved in that,
my confidence in them.
It’s also
as a member of the management council for Bill Readdy. I feel that I am
one of his–I am actually affirming everything that has gone on that I
don’t really have control over either.
So, I think
I’m signing for, for the entire Office of Space Flight, as a member of
that board, my approval.
Let me say,
though, but before I go to that FRR, every one of my directorates who
are involved in the shuttle preparation–MOD, you know, the operations
director, the SR and QA (ph), our flight crew operations directorate–all
those–engineering–they all have their own separate FRRs, where they
go over every detail, every piece of paper that’s been processed and every
action that’s been taken so that they are satisfied in their own minds
that this thing is ready to go.
And then
they come brief me. I don’t have a formal FRR, per se, but we have a meeting
and I am given a thorough briefing by all of those heads so I can be confident
when I go to that FRR that I can make that vote.
They also
raise, you know, issues that have come before, how they have been mitigated,
and any issue that might be briefed at the FRR. So I am fully aware of
what issues might be raised, and I am ready to go be a participant in
there.
GEHMAN: Thank
you.
General Turcotte,
do you…?
TURCOTTE:
Sir, following along the lines described about the matrix organization
that is NASA, and alluding a little bit to Major General Barry’s comments
earlier about the privatization process and then the recent organizational
changes–and as in any matrix organization, lines of authority and lines
of responsibility and, more importantly, lines of resource flow in different
directions often.
Could you
discuss–do you think–are you in a better position now than you were
a couple of years ago as a result of the changes, in order to leverage
that matrix organization, to get the things done that you need to do as
both, one, as a director and, two, as a signer on the CFR (ph)?
HOWELL: That’s
a good question. I don’t know if I can answer it because I’m a newbie.
All I know is what I know since I’ve been there.
Being a former
commander in the Marine Corps, I’d like to be in charge of the whole thing.
I am very comfortable with the way this is organized.
Now, I think
it was very timely, you know, if I can put on a NASA hat, a Sean O’Keefe
hat, and look at, you know, why they decided to change that authority
directly up to the office, when you look at what we’re going to do in
the future, looking at the SLI program that’s going to come up, the Arvil
(ph) space plant, all those things are going to have to be intertwined
and decisions are going to have to be made with all those things affecting
each other.
I think it’s
to NASA’s advantage to have the heads of those programs up in Washington
where all that can be worked together. And so I think it was a wise move,
frankly, if I’m sitting in Sean O’Keefe’s chair.
And I’m very
comfortable, because of the relationship I have with Code M, with Bill
Readdy and Mike Kostelnik, that any issues I might have on budget or what
have you, I get a fair hearing, and we get it resolved. So I really, I
am very comfortable with our organization, the way it is now.
The privatization,
you know, the S-5 (ph) contract, I guess, was a, sort of, a move in that
direction. You know, I inherited–the organization I have now is what
I inherited almost a year ago. And so, nothing has changed in that regard.
And I’m very comfortable with the organization we have now.
GEHMAN: General
Barry?
BARRY: Sir,
a lot of changes have occurred here in the last two or three years. You’ve
cited one, about the center director responsibilities being shifted. The
other one is the movement of the contractor support from Huntington Beach
to JSC.
Could you
comment on a little bit about that and your concerns, if any, about that
move, particularly in regards to expertise, qualifications of the folks?
And has that strengthened you? Advantages and disadvantages, maybe?
HOWELL: I
think the move was really a very wise move by Boeing to move to get more
central and get closer to their customer with the people who need to serve
them.
There is
a concern though that, you know, he left a lot of expertise back in California;
a lot of people didn’t want to move. Mike Mott (ph) and I have a lot of
discussions about that. He’s assured me that he is bringing in the right
kind of expertise to–that we can be confident in his products and what
he’s going to do.
So, I think
he’s got–I think what he did was the right thing to do. There is friction
and a hiccup. Anytime you do something like that, things are, at first,
they’re not quite as good as they were before. But I think he has a very
excellent plan to get back on the step and be just as strong as he was
and actually better, because he’s going to have a more centralized organization
that can respond a lot quicker to the needs of the program.
BARRY: Just
as a follow-up, did you have any involvement at all, that you can comment
and give us some help on trying to understand–I know we’ll talk a little
bit about this with Mr. Dittemore–but when the OMM (ph) effectively was
moved from Palmdale to KSC, were you involved in that decision, advice-wise,
providing some counsel and your input?
HOWELL: No,
I really wasn’t. That was, that decision was made before I became the
center director. So I had no involvement in it.
BARRY: OK.
Thank you.
GEHMAN: Dr.
Widnall?
WIDNALL:
OK.
Could you
describe your role in issues like the resolution of in-flight anomalies,
the design or material waivers that need to be granted, what I would refer
to as escapements, which basically means approving hardware that, for
one reason or another, just does not meet spec, or in a situation where
something happened on a flight that maybe shouldn’t have happened or is
not understood?
Could you
describe your role in that, and then also indicate whether there is a
formal process for resolution of those anomalies–in the general sense,
anomaly…
HOWELL: Sure,
right.
WIDNALL:
… and whether you participated in that?
HOWELL: Well,
we have a mission management team which is tasked with on a daily basis
having oversight over the mission and taking care of anomalies and mitigating
any kind of problems they might have while they are on a mission or in
space.
I am not
involved in that directly. However, I have several of my directory boards,
from engineering, from MOD, and other of my directorates are on that team.
And so, I have a sense of responsibility to make sure we have the right
people on that team.
But those
are really experts at what they do. It’s a very robust organization. At
the MMT, you’ll have a table, and I’m not sure how many–let’s say a dozen
people at the table, but I assure you, behind each one of those people
are at least a dozen other engineers dedicated to help them resolve whatever
issues they have.
This is really
serious business, and we commit a very robust engineering and operations
team anytime we have a mission ongoing. And so, at–but it’s at an expert,
technical level of our best technicians who do that. And so I am not a
part of that. I certainly, I don’t have the qualities to be a part of
that. But I feel responsible to make sure we have the right people.
WIDNALL:
Well, I’m not just talking about what happens in flight. I’m also talking
about as the vehicle is certified for being ready in flight and some of
the, you know, the issues of hardware that doesn’t quite, for one reason
or another, meet some original specification, and there’s a waiver granted
of some sort.
HOWELL: Well,
we are–because of our involvement with the program and participation
in almost every aspect of its activities, I have people who are involved
in all of those issues, I get regular briefings about them. Anytime there
are any issues like that, I’m aware of them.
And Ron Dittemore
and I tag up every week, and we’ll discuss these things together. And
if I have any concerns, I’ll let him know those things.
And so, we
work–I am continuously apprised of any anomalies or issues that might
be going on in preparation for a mission or anything like that.
WIDNALL:
But you’re not part of a formal sign-up process?
HOWELL: No,
I’m not. I’m not on that decision matrix.
