🚀 go-pugleaf

Steve Alexanderson (no-spam-please-Salexanderson@Cencoast.com) wrote:
: 
: I wonder how things might have turned out, if a PE had stood up to
: management, and threatened to take them to the board for practicing
: engineering without a license; when management overrode engineering's
: recommendation to delay launch of the Challenger. Management could have used
: a few PEs also.

Likely, NASA management includes more than just a few PEs.  Remember,
NASA is public sector employment, and that's where PEs flourish.  Same
is true of the 'Beltway Bandits' that surround DC and leach off the
government.

Regretably, where money, schedule, and position are concerned, PEs are
just a likely to 'adjust' their 'expert witness opinions' in the face of
pressure from above as anyone else, and a PE's stamp is a readily 
purchasable commodity.

The real 'Hell Raisers' and 'Loose Cannons' on large, government projects
are more likely to come, sad to say, from the scientific rather than 
Professional Engineering community.  Recall who actually first blew the 
whistle on the shuttle disaster.

More recently, a number of PEs were associated with the decision to 
launch the Hubble Telescope without its first undergoing a routine
vacuum columnation of the optics on Earth -- even though in-vacuum
optical alignment and testing has been a integral part of the 
required alignment process for orbital (defense) optics (like the
those of the KH-11) for nearly 30 years.  

Please don't mistake this as a criticism of those holding PE
licenses, as it is not intended as such.  However, realize that
the PE licensing procedure is intended primarily as a measure to
protect the public and public safety from exploitation by charlatans
and incompetents in areas of practical engineering -- it provides
assurance of a certain minimal level of comptentence in 
specialized areas.  PEs reflect a special area of the engineering
community, and not the entirely of engineering. 

Sadly, there are some who would pretend that the PE community
is the embodiment of mainstream engineering -- which of course it
isn't.  Fortunately, the vast majority of PEs realize this.

                                          Harry C.