Austrian Television Network Airs Documentary About NASA Outsourcing Quickly After Columbia Disaster
In an email exchange between Peter A. Frank and Dave Aiello, Peter Frank wrote:
I was wondering when you {Dave Aiello} might be posting something about Columbia? Just a few hours after the break-up during re-entry, the Austrian television network ORF was airing an amazing documentary that seemed so well prepared that one might have thought them to know that something was going to happen.
They mainly focused on the privatization of NASA's space program and its subsequent outsourcing to Boeing and Lockheed. I guess that many people must have noticed problems with the huge administrative effort that eventually killed the 7 crew members of Columbia.
I remember strongly arguing for a continuation of manned space flight after the Challenger disaster. I knew that riding an explosive bullet into space was risky, but I never thought about the ride home....
The ORF web site, mainly written in German, contains a lot of information about the Columbia disaster. If you can't read German, Google Language Tools do an excellent job of translating the articles.
Peter and his wife, Ramona Morel, live in the suburbs of Zurich, Switzerland. Peter graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was a student in the United States at around the time of the Challenger disaster.