NASA Scientist Fired - Promises Disclosure

reply to post by zorgon


Z, since we're on about 'disclosure'...just wanted you to know I forgive you for calling me an English teacher a few days ago ('nuther thread).

I know you have a wicked sense of humor.

Just because I can fly doesn't mean I don't know how to spell. BTW, I think I mentioned it ONCE months ago...I was new here. (OK, you got me...wanted to needle you a little, but not any more).

I think a lot will be coming out (back on topic) and I'm waiting to see what Springer's and Crakeur's thread develops...this thread seems to have gotten bogged down into personality disputes...

just posted:

The dark side of space disaster theories
www.thespacereview.com...
by James Oberg
The Space Review
Monday, January 21, 2008
Space disasters attract so much public attention and often involve such complex and subtle sequences of events that there’s an entire Internet literature of “crackpot causes” on par with JFK assassination myths. To the degree that innovative analysis is often critical to reconstructing—from partial and often garbled evidence—a shocking causal sequence leading from goodness to disaster, the initial investigation period demands that critical judgment be held somewhat in check so as not to discourage imagination.

However, once a logical reconstruction gels, is tested, and then is ultimately verified by being implemented and hence reducing future flight hazards, that official explanation achieves a substantial level of authenticity. But not to everyone’s satisfaction, apparently, as a search of still-thriving non-traditional explanations of the Apollo 1 fire, the Apollo 13 breakdown, the Challenger disintegration, and the Columbia catastrophe, whose fifth anniversary now approaches.

For example, in the case of Columbia, YouTube is full of videos from self-styled experts still convinced a freak bolt of ionospheric lightning crippled the spaceship. A famous photograph supposedly shows that bolt, even though space experts have long been satisfied that the bizarre image was merely the result of camera jiggle during a time-lapse exposure.

Apart from the comic relief value of such crackpot ideas, there’s a darker aspect of this kind of cultural pathology, just as there are serious analyses pointing to the socially toxic effects of the JFK assassination “alternate theories”. For spaceflight, being distracted by the wrong cause means being tempted by the wrong fix. That’s never amusing, and often can be expensive.

As an egregious “bad example” of wrong causes, a recent book (Dark Mission, by Richard Hoagland and Michael Bara) spent a lot of time muddying the waters over a series of NASA Mars mission failures in the 1990s. This isn’t just some remote corner of an intellectual ghetto on the Internet—the book came within one tick mark of making it onto the New York Times bestsellers list for paperback non-fiction (it reached #21 nationwide). So as an exercise in cultural self-defense and in proselytizing sound “space safety” history, here is a detailed look at the claims, the delusions, and the errors in that book’s treatment of these space accidents.

Originally posted by JimO

The dark side of space disaster theories
www.thespacereview.com...
by James Oberg
The Space Review
Monday, January 21, 2008

Jim,

It has come to my attention that you never worked directly for NASA and that you were merely the employee of a sub-contractor assigned to NASA. Like Ken Johnston.

It also seems that in your resume you mention that you were a 'rocket scientist":

When he was an active 'rocket scientist', Oberg had a 22-year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous, as a contractor employee.

www.jamesoberg.com...


Now with all due respect Jim when you say you were a 'rocket scientist' this implies that you designed rockets. Did you design rockets for NASA? And if so, which rockets did you design?

And how come we have to dig for the information that you were only a sub-contractor employee working for McDonnell-Douglas. Not employed by NASA itself.

And how about this letter you wrote on usenet:

Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
Subject: OTHER gov't UFO secrets
From: [email protected]
Date: 26 Apr 1997 14:15:43 GMT

Open letter to CSETI:

I applaud CSETI's efforts to strip away the "government secrets prosecution" barrier to the disclosure of people's stories about UFO experiences and I fully support the call for a government declaration that all legal constraints against disclosure be dissolved. I've always felt that claims of fear of such prosecution as an excuse by people not to "go public" was often merely a gimmick not to have to take responsibility for the authenticity of such stories, since as far as I've been able to tell -- and through OMNI's "Project Open Book" we searched far and wide for examples -- nobody has ever been arrested or charged -- much less convicted and sentenced -- for actually doing so.

But don't stop merely with legalizing disclosure of all -- if any -- government secrets about "real UFOs". I believe there is a far more valuable body of "secrets" that will help understand the decades of UFO phenomena that the world has experienced. This deals with government-related activities which directly or indirectly led to public perceptions that UFOs might be real when they weren't. Sometimes these actions were carefully orchestrated in advance, sometimes they were localized impromptu ad hoc damage- limitation tactics. But from my own experience, they seem to have played a tremendous and widely unappreciated role in inciting and enflaming public interests in UFOs while deflecting public attention from real highly-classified government activities.

I'm referring to situations where government representatives -- officials, military officers, any employees -- used "UFO" as a convenient camouflage for other official classified activities (such as retrieval of crashed aircraft or nuclear weapons or other objects), or used artificial "UFO stories" (in oral, written, photographic, film, etc.) form as "tracers" in studying the function of security safeguards and personnel psychological responses, or used "UFO" as an excuse (either intended or accidental) to cover-up improper, forbidden, or diplomatically delicate activities (such as aviation incidents involving dangerous accidental or deliberate close passes or intercepts of civilian airliners, or overseas excursions of agents on intelligence missions where deflection of local perceptions was useful, or to conceal from the country of origin the possession of foreign military hardware), or played pranks and jokes on intended or accidental targets, or any other activity that the government -- or any part of it -- wanted to keep hidden, knowing that having it thought of as "UFO-related" would consign it to the never-never- land of myth and nuttiness, thus keeping mainstream media attention to a minimum. And it's worked!!

Please include such "UFO secrets" in your list of disclosure demands, and ask that any government personnel involved in the use (or misuse and abuse) of such practices be immune from any government prosecution for the actions which led them to take such measures. Once such immunity is verifiably granted, I have my own list of people who have privately talked to me over the years and who were involved in government activities leading to a number of well-known "UFO cases", which can be released and which can help understand where and how much of today's UFO mythology originated.

This is a serious proposal deserving of serious consideration, and promises immensely fruitful results.

bleujefe.com...

Whats the story on this letter? It doesn't seem like you.

Was there a problem with McDonnell-Douglas? And if not how come you went to work for North American Rockwell shortly after you left McDonnell-Douglas? And why did you leave McDonnell-Douglas anyway?

These are the questions that enquiring minds would like an answer to.

I know I would. And our mutual friend Ron Madeley says 'hello'. At least thats what I think he said.

reply to post by johnlear


I never thought I would say it, John, but...

Thank you for your post.

Well, well, well.

'Tis a curious twist indeed.

"It has come to my attention that you never worked directly for NASA and that you were merely the employee of a sub-contractor assigned to NASA. Like Ken Johnston. "

"Come to your attention" -- yeah, John, like reading it on my own home page. I worked directly in Mission Control on a NASA-contractor team. The actual identity of the contractors (not SUB-contractors) often was a matter of administrative convenience, as NASA would re-award specific support contracts to different companies who would then hire the folks already at the jobs, and just 're-badge' them, sometimes with benefits transitioned, sometimes not. I started in a subsidiary of McDonnell-Douglas, and they lost the contract to something called the 'United Space Alliance', a jointly-owned Rockwell-somebody-else entity, so I got a new badge from them.

Not "like" Ken Johnston, the jobs I describe holding, I actually held, and the degrees I described earning, I actually earned, not bought from a mail order house. And my military experience, as described on my CV is (unlike Ken Johnston's) authentic.

I like the idea of disclosure, and wrote the letter while feeling generous in seeking common ground. I've talked with many military veterans who had been involved in rather prosaic activities which they knew had sparked 'UFO reports' from independent witnesses, and I wanted more stories like that to come out. Some had been hot-dogging against regs in flight, some had accidentlaly been involved in mid-air near-misses, others had performed pranks that would have gotten them fired if found out -- that's why they needed 'forgiveness' to come forward and speak.

One guy had been a team leader for 'Broken Arrow' exercises in the SW in the early 1970s. Although he never had to go get a real lost H-bomb, he organized exercises involving local law enforcement and security teams. His colonel insisted he maintain absolute secrecy about the 'atomic' nature of the operation because of the risk of public radiation panic that could cripple the agricultural businesses in the regions -- people wouldn't buy their products -- as had only recently happened at Palomares in Spain.

He came up with an ad hoc solution, and tried it out, and it worked perfectly -- so others may well have emulated it. At the initial meeting with local personnel, he stressed the need for total security about the exercise, where local folks would secure the perimeter and his team in special suits went into the target area. "You can't tell anybody," he would gravely intone," but we're going to pick up a crashed flying saucer."

And sure enough, that was the protective rumor that was everywhere in a dozen local counties within hours -- and radiation fears never, ever came up. His orders had been satisfied, and he was very pleased with his method.

I wish we knew more about people like him who did things like that elsewhere.

John: "Now with all due respect Jim when you say you were a 'rocket scientist' this implies that you designed rockets. Did you design rockets for NASA? And if so, which rockets did you design?"

I'm not responsible for what YOU think is implied by ordinary language, John. Since I've got the T-shirt ("Why, yes, I AM a rocket scientist", it says), and mostly since I worked in operational space flight (not in the mail room like Ken Johnston), I follow conventional usage and use the term humorously, in quotation marks.

In serious terms, I suppose the best validation is that this work required extensive training and rigorous certification that academically put it on par with an advanced graduate degree, in difficulty and challenge. There were gates to pass through, and hurdles to pass over, and the respect of co-workers to be earned -- that made the accomplishment one of immense pride and satisfaction. And it wasn't purely academic -- you had to think fast, straight, and calmly under both simulated and real space emergencies, and I did.

Plus the T-shirt was cool.

Actually, my first Mission Control certification was at the OMS/RCS console, call sign 'PROP' (for propulsion). Those are the 44 rocket thrusters that steer the Orbiter and the two bigger ones that change its orbit as needed. I flew STS-1 and STS-2 at this position (in 1981), then was promoted to lead the group designing 'formation flying' procedures.
But -- by golly! -- those were real rocket engines!!

Originally posted by johnlear
Now with all due respect Jim when you say you were a 'rocket scientist' this implies that you designed rockets. Did you design rockets for NASA? And if so, which rockets did you design?

Kinda' like "Conspiracy Master", huh?

I work on computers and printers....and the people around here refer to me as the "rocket scientist"....Of course, I haven't missed the humor and good-natured mockery involved.

With all due respect...thank you for your post.

Originally posted by JimO

Actually, my first Mission Control certification was at the OMS/RCS console, call sign 'PROP' (for propulsion). Those are the 44 rocket thrusters that steer the Orbiter and the two bigger ones that change its orbit as needed. I flew STS-1 and STS-2 at this position (in 1981), then was promoted to lead the group designing 'formation flying' procedures.
But -- by golly! -- those were real rocket engines!!

1979-1981: McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Corporation employee in NASA-JSC Mission Control Center, supporting the Space Shuttle's on-board propulsion systems (OMS/RCS, or Orbital Maneuvering System and Reaction Control System). Supported STS-1 launch on console in MCC as the "Prop Consumables" officer; supported STS-2 as "Prop Consumables" planning lead.

www.jamesoberg.com...

Well shoot. That blows me out of the saddle. I read that part in your resume and I thought you were the gas boy, or refueler or something like that.

By the way your resume says this about your military career:

Military Service:
Distinguished Military Graduate, AFROTC, 1966;
Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, 1970-2;
DoD Computer Institute, Washington, DC, 1972-5, instructor;
NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, 1975-8, on loan to NASA.

www.jamesoberg.com...

1975-7: USAF Captain, detailed to NASA-JSC Software Division, Houston, wrote requirements documents for shuttle's flight software & Spacelab computers.

www.jamesoberg.com...

So if I am reading this correctly you were still a Captain in the U.S. Air Force in 1978 (having been assigned there by the Air Force in 1975) still assigned to NASA; so when did you retire? When was your original commission? Did you ever work for Air Force Intelligence?

Thanks for your quick response.

John, this is all a silly diversion.

reply to post by JimO


I agree, but it shows how easy it is to make a silly diversion when we do not stick to the subject.

reply to post by JimO


Wow, CIA asset versus Air Force... Did this sort of thing happen a lot at NASA or were you just too busy trying to actually explore space etc.?

I have a friend who is also called a rocket scientist in almost identical situations. Astrophysicist, genetics expert- a real science superbrain.

Originally posted by JimO
John, this is all a silly diversion.

Why? are not your credentials in this issue as open to scrutiny as Ken Johnston's? I mean with all the claims made on both sides I for one am interested in who is telling the truth and who is 'ego inflating'

I like this picture...



I think I have seen that cockpit before....

Oh yes I recall now... its that public 'photo op' seat at Johnston Space center that everyone uses to add to resumes

Originally posted by ArMaP
I agree, but it shows how easy it is to make a silly diversion when we do not stick to the subject.

I about fell of my chair when you thanked John for the post Problem is there is no new info coming from this 'disclosure' so we are at a blank wall right now...

But I don't agree it is off subject or topic... I mean after all JimO does have a 'reputation' in certain circles for being a 'paid for debunker'... whether this is reality or fantasy, I have no way of knowing. Is it then not valid to seek out who his 'boss' might be? Considering the degree of digging into Ken's past (and others at EM) I think turn around is fair play



To me the appearance of Jim in this thread is not just a coincidence... but then what do I know

[edit on 22-1-2008 by zorgon]

Zorgon: "I think I have seen that cockpit before.... Oh yes I recall now... its that public 'photo op' seat at Johnston Space center that everyone uses to add to resumes "

You continue to have recall problems, and seem to get too many kicks out of making things up to bolster existing biases.

The view is in the Shuttle Engineering Simulator, or SES, the live cockpit driven by a roomful of computers, used to verify flight software and crew procedures. Since I 'wrote the books' on crew procedures for rendezvous and proximity operations, as well as a number of mission specific annexes for particularly unique shuttle flights, I spent a lot of time there -- and don't recall ever running into any tourists.

If what you say is true, there should be lots of photographs showing visitors gawking (or posing) in this seat. If you can't find any to post, just sprinkle some sugar on your message and eat away...

Hoagland and Bara have used Johnston's words, often ambiguous ones, to portray a false image of a guy in charge of the ultimate disposition of ALL Apollo photography. But the documentation they post never seems to actually support what they claim it supports.

I'm not making claims that need to be believed solely based on where I was or what I say I did. My claims about reality are independently verifiable. Don't you see any difference?

For example -- Johnston's "tour of duty" as an F-4 pilot in the US Marines. Ask yourself -- why do all the pictures Bara posts show him in cadet uniform, without wings? Ask yourself -- if he completed 'pre-flight' orientation in early 1967, and went to work as a LM cockpit 'switch monkey' for Grumman in the fall of 1968, where is the time to even finish flight school, much less a nominally 6-year flying tour?

More info on these facilities here:
history.nasa.gov...

As a rule, you can distinguish between real workers and visiting posers (r.g., congressmen or newsmen) by noting the headsets, needed to talk with the sim controllers, and also the real checklists posted on various locations and lying on all available surfaces in the flight deck.

Look at my picture again for those criteria.

[edit on 23-1-2008 by JimO]

Zorgon,

I repeat my earlier observation: Bara and Hoagland had agreed to an interview with Dave and Johnny. Is that still on?

And are they still willing to accept questions from the peanut gallery?

Pass the question along, if ye may...

edit to add:

I don't believe, for one second, that Hoagland/Bara believe in anything that they claim to believe. I submit to our esteemed readership that they are the epitome of what we dispise. They are hucksters.



If I am mistaken then let one of them come forth and correct me.

Hoagland? Bara? Beuler?


[edit on 23-1-2008 by Tuning Spork]

Originally posted by zorgon
Why? are not your credentials in this issue as open to scrutiny as Ken Johnston's?

Because JimO isn't the one making ridiculous claims for cash and this thread isn't about him. Aside from that; Jim's credentials are listed openly on his website - excerpts of which you and Lear keeping posting like it's some kind of revelation.

So Jim's résumé tries to show him in the best light - wow, I bet nobody else does that! In case you missed it a person's résumé is meant to make them look good and you haven't caught a single lie on it.

I mean with all the claims made on both sides I for one am interested in who is telling the truth and who is 'ego inflating'

Well at the moment it looks like JimO is telling the truth and this "former NASA scientist" is lying (not ego inflating). You and Lear have nothing to stand against Jim's in-depth knowledge so you resort to ad hominin attacks.

Originally posted by john lear
That blows me out of the saddle. I read that part in your resume and I thought you were the gas boy, or refueler or something like that.

That's nice John. The flyboy with the multi-millionaire daddy tries to dismiss his opponent as a "gas boy". You're not striding around in your uniform barking orders lowly "gas boys" here John, your just another guy blathering baseless conspiracies on the internet.

I realise that you are desperate as Jim has made you look like a fool but these sort of attacks expose your arrogance and bitterness.


[edit on 23/1/08 by FatherLukeDuke]

Originally posted by JimO

Since I 'wrote the books' on crew procedures for rendezvous and proximity operations, as well as a number of mission specific annexes for particularly unique shuttle flights, I spent a lot of time there -- and don't recall ever running into any tourists.

I don't know Jim. Looks like the one I was flying there in the NASA lobby waiting for you to show up for our 'meeting'. You never showed. I thought that was a bit rude. Oh, was it over the list of questions you wanted submitted beforehand? You were afraid I might ask something 'out of school'? Was that it? What was that? 20 years ago? What was the deal on that anyway?

Seems like you wrote a lot of books Jim. Actually tech manuals, handbooks, training manuals, 'collected, selected and annotated documents'.

How on earth did you find time to be a rocket scientist?

1990-1994: Located, collected, selected & annotated documents for "History of Orbital Rendezvous" reference book and training manual, 400 pages.
1986-1991: Mission Operations Division, Orbital Rendezvous Procedures team. Wrote flight crew procedures handbook (400 pages), identified by MCC Director as "a model for others to follow". Wrote MCC console handbook (300 pages) for entire rendezvous guidance and procedures MCC team.
1990-1994: Located, collected, selected & annotated documents for "History of Orbital Rendezvous" reference book and training manual, 400 pages.
1986-1991: Mission Operations Division, Orbital Rendezvous Procedures team. Wrote flight crew procedures handbook (400 pages), identified by MCC Director as "a model for others to follow". Wrote MCC console handbook (300 pages) for entire rendezvous guidance and procedures MCC team.

www.jamesoberg.com...

I still can't find the date you retired from the Air Force.

Other pending questions are the date you left McDonnell-Douglas and the date you were hired by North American Rockwell.

I would like to see if your "flying saucer and aliens" usenet post had anything to do with the change.

Thanks.