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CounterPunch
February
1, 2003
Hubris and Shady
Contractors
NASA's O'Keefe
Should Resign
by JOHN STANTON
Within 24 hours of STS Columbia's demise, the
US government established an investigative commission headed
by a former US Navy employee, ex-Admiral Harold Gehman, Jr.,
and seven other grand brains culled from the US Air Force and
US Navy. They will be supported by the for-profit United Space
Alliance (USA), shorthand for a Lockheed Martin and Boeing partnership,
in their investigation. In short, another military-industrial
panel to investigate what was billed as a civilian "scientific
and research mission." No Richard Feynman's--the deceased
Nobel Prize winning physicist who discovered the cause of the
1986 Challenger disaster--need apply here. Conversely, over 365
days passed by before an investigative commission to examine
the September 11, 2001 attacks would be convened in January of
2003.
Conspiracy? No. It's simple, really.
On 911, US civilians and commercial interests bore the brunt
of death and destruction. Their interests are secondary to the
current Regime. On the other hand, on February 2, 2003, the good
old boys and girls of the US military-industrial complex and
their paymasters in the Pentagon and NASA were running the show.
Seven of their own went down. It's abundantly clear that the
Regime and its military-industrial interests supercede those
of the American populace. So, it's going to be yet another cover-your-ass
(CYA) investigative operation headed by ex-military types who
seem to be finding seats on investigative commissions of all
types. Gehman's first order of business will be to control the
flow of information to the public. In short, stymie the press
corps or what remains of it.
The mighty military-industrial complex
lobby has pressured Congress to force many federal organizations
like NASA to privatize-outsource its functions. In NASA's case,
close to 90 percent of NASA's funding gets turned over to contractors
like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and the USA which, on January 31,
2003, received a contract extension worth close to $3 billion.
Those billion dollar contractors run the day-to-day operations
of NASA's Shuttle program yet they receive little scrutiny other
than a feel-good NASA Inspector General audit that they quickly
ignore. And when tragedies like those of February 2, 2003 happen,
it's the federal agency and the taxpayers that have to foot the
bill for the shoddy performance of private industry. Fines and
prosecutions mean little to Lockheed Martin and Boeing as they
view the occasional government spanking as a business cost. And,
besides, organizations like NASA and the Pentagon have no where
else to turn for their unique products. It's a murky business
indeed.
Shady Contractors
According to propaganda on USA's website
"... USA has continued to maintain safety and reliability
as top priorities while successfully reducing the overall costs
of operating the Space Shuttle fleet. Mission objectives - including
preparation for flight, on-time launches and safe landings -
are consistently met under USA's management." Yet, as has
been widely reported, the General Accounting Office, mid-level
NASA engineers and Congressional Oversight panels had chided
NASA and Lockheed Martin and Boeing for cutting corners on safety
by gutting quality assurance programs, ignoring structural issues
associated with aging STS's, and--in a broadside aimed at NASA--incompetent
contract oversight by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and his
prime contractors.
NASA's contractors have been cited for
safety violations and have visited courtrooms more than they
want the American public to know. Testifying before the US Congress
on March 15, 2001, Roberta Gross, NASA's Inspector General, indicated
that "We found that ground workers were using potentially
hazardous materials without exercising proper control and safety
precautions. Improper use of these materials is hazardous to
ground workers and increases the risk of damage to Space Shuttle
payloads, including International Space Station hardware and
equipment. We recommended that NASA increase surveillance of
the Boeing safety office's compliance with inspection procedures
and direct Boeing to analyze its use of materials that do not
meet requirements for flammability and electrostatic discharge.
Management concurred with our recommendations and has implemented
a number of procedures to control the use of these noncompliant
materials. However, in an ongoing audit, we are finding similar
problems with potentially unsafe materials used by United Space
Alliance's shuttle processing operations."
Gross' testimony went on to point out
that Boeing subcontractors were criminally prosecuted for everything
from unauthorized aluminum battery alignment guides used by astronauts
to replace batteries on the International Space Station. One
company made unauthorized welds to repair their manufacturing
errors and attempted to hide the welds. In another instance,
investigators found that a subcontractor did not properly heat-treat
parts, causing them to be weaker than required. The company was
fined $1.6 million and the company's general manager was sentenced
to 55 months in prison. She also pointed out that a NASA and
DOD contractor had consistently illegally stored and burned hazardous
waste on its property. Federal criminal and civil cases are underway,
but the company has already paid a $500,000 fine to the California
Department of Toxic Substances Control. In another case currently
in court, a company shipped hazardous materials from a NASA Center
and forged shipping documents to show that the drivers were certified
to drive hazardous material cargoes, when, in fact, they were
not.
Finally, according to the US Department
of Justice, on November 9, 2000, Boeing and USA agreed to pay
the US government $825,000 and relinquish rights to $1.2 million
in unpaid invoices to settle allegations relating to false claims
submitted to the government between 1986 and 1992 under the NASA's
Space Shuttle and Space Station Freedom programs. NASA's Bohemian
Sean O'Keefe is another Bush I holdover
having served in that administration as Secretary of the Navy
and Defense Comptroller at Dick Cheney's Pentagon. He has ties
to Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy and in 1994 he
participated in a roundtable for that group and argued vociferously
for increasing funding for the B-2 bomber, currently priced at
$2.2 billion a piece. He was a paid consultant and advisory board
member for the manufacturer of the B-2, Northrop Grumman, and
also Raytheon. Prior to becoming NASA's administrator, O'Keefe
had no background in the sciences involved with space flight.
Rather, he was counting beans at the Office of Management and
Budget until Bush II nominated him--no doubt at Cheney's insistence--to
the head NASA position. O'Keefe's also a member of the manly
and very elite San Francisco Bohemian Club that meets now-and-then
in the summer months in the Sonoma County Redwoods to discuss,
among other things, matters of planetary and national governance.
Hank Kissinger, Bush I and Bush II and like-minded folks have
attended these bonding activities. According to Peter Phillips,
a sociology professor at Sonoma State University, lakeside chats
provide Bohemian attendee's with keen insights like these:
"The Bohemian Grove offers daily
lectures known as "lakeside chats." The Under-Secretary
of the Navy may give an off-the-record speech on military budget
issues, or the President of Mexico may address global free trade.
Whatever the topic, those present emerge with a sense of insider
awareness of high-level policy issues and political situations
which are often yet-to-be, or perhaps never-to-be, publicly articulated.
One such chat in 1994, given by a University
of California political science professor, warned of the dangers
of multi-culturalism, Afro-centrism, and the loss of family boundaries.
He declared that "elites based on merit and skill are important
to society. Any elite that fails to define itself will fail to
survive... We need boundaries and values set and clear. He went
on to conclude that we cannot allow the 'unqualified' masses
to carry out policy, and elites must set values that can be translated
into 'standards of authority."'
O'Keefe's stated before the House Science
Committee that his number one priority for NASA, was to have
it be the "leading agency in the federal government for
implementing the President's Management Agenda." That meant
outsourcing, cutting costs and reforming the management of NASA.
In testimony before the US Senate, O'Keefe went on to say that
"...technical excellence at any cost is not an acceptable
approach. Managing the program within cost and schedule must
be elevated in importance..." That from a proponent of the
B-2 bomber which has shattered records for cost overruns and
requires astronomically expensive retrofits.
In an endeavor where technical excellence
means the difference between life and death, it would seem that
any cost is a fair price to pay for the men and women who undertake
the most dangerous mission of all--the exploration of space.
Did Columbia's magnificent seven have
to perish for the President's Management Agenda?
John Stanton
is a Virginia-based writer specializing in national security
matters. He can be reached at cioran123@yahoo.com
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The Five Fingers of Focus:
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February
1 / 2, 2003
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