Mismanagement at highest level

FE Team | Published: December 17, 2017 18:25:01

BUREAUCRATIC muddle is everywhere, not just in Bangladesh, as evident in the following actual event, where the NASA lost over US$125 million. This happened way back in late 1990s. The NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Agency) lost a Climate Orbiter sent to planet Mars that cost over US$125 million. The reason was that engineers and technical experts failed to convert from the English to the metric measurement system while exchanging technical data with their French counterparts, who were also associated with the project.
The main reason was that the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the metric system of millimetres and metres while the US Lockheed Martin Astronautics, which designed and built the spacecraft, provided crucial acceleration data according to the English system of inches, feet and pounds. As a result, the JPL engineers mistook acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds for a metric measurement. It was indeed an irony, as in a sense the spacecraft was lost in conversion from English to metric units of measurement. This was said by the then Director of Space Policy Institute, George Washington University.
Subsequently, a few years after the sad event, NASA faced public concerns about their Cassini probe as it swung within a celestial hairbreadth of Earth, while having on board a cache of Plutonium. However, the capability of space navigation by the NASA personnel helped avert what could have been a major nuclear radiation hazard. This was succinctly summarized by a US space official who said, "It was ironic, that while we can cooperate in space with the Russians, Japanese and the French, but we have trouble cooperating with various officials across the United States. It is ironic, that partners in this space enterprise manage to cooperate effectively while speaking and working in different languages, but make a hash of it when interacting with various US institutions all speaking and writing a common English language.
Engr.S.A.Mansoor
sam@dhakacom.com