Hacker News Reader

Each of the program managers responsible for go/no-go are to take an oath of death. If there is a loss of crew and it can be attributed to the foreknown 3 different issues (heat shield spalling, heat shield fragment impacts, bolt erosion), then you die.

View on HN

I think if that were the rule, all the program managers would just quit and there would be no manned spaceflight anymore.

"If the heat shield breaks then I will die" is the exact situation for the astronauts, and yet we still have astronauts.

In fact it's worse for the astronauts, because in this hypothetical only the heat shield failing will condemn the POs to death, whereas any critical part failing kills the astronauts

Yes, it's a much sexier job than project manager, but clearly there are some people, in some circumstances, that would accept it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com