Top all-time · #2095
Wayne Hale
Personal blog · waynehale.wordpress.comhistorysystems
Wayne Hale's personal blog at waynehale.wordpress.com covers history and systems. Since 2012, 38 different Hacker News readers have linked it 46 times, most often “How We Nearly Lost the Discovery Shuttle”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-04-28, and you can follow it by feed.
space > exploration > leadership
Most-linked posts?
- How We Nearly Lost the Discovery Shuttle4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-04-18
- We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012)3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-04-18
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-02-26
- Putting Atlantis at Risk3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-11
- STS-93: We don’t need any more of those (2014)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-22
- What to do if the Space Shuttle payload bay doors won't shut properly3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-26
- The Shuttle's exploding stovepipes (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-02
What Hacker News says?
https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/after-ten-years-a... > I need to give you the issue from the NASA point of view so you can understand the pressures that they were under. In a developmental program, any developmental program, the program manager essentially has four areas to trade. The first one is money. Obviously, he can go get more money if he falls behind schedule. If he runs into technical difficultie…
Comment linking /2012/11/12/after-ten-years-a-few-words-from-admiral-gehman/
on “Please do not attempt to simplify this code”Submitted How We Nearly Lost the Discovery Shuttle as a story · 313 points
HN discussionIndeed, and the article leaves out other relevant issues, such as where else the question was discussed, and also when - the article rather glibly suggests a rescue mission could have been launched, but that would have been a very risky action in its own right, even if it had been started on the day of the launch; it remains uncertain whether Columbia's oxygen could have been stretched out long enough even then. The…
Comment linking /2012/08/14/after-ten-years-why-write-now/
on “Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)”Submitted STS-93: We don’t need any more of those (2014) as a story · 189 points
HN discussionIf you are interested in the Columbia events, check out Wayne Hale's blog[1]. He was a flight director/space shuttle program manager and offers a very detailed recollection of the events from inside mission control. [1] https://waynehale.wordpress.com/
Comment linking /
on “A rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia”Submitted Former NASA Flight Engineer blogs about Columbia Disaster as a story · 40 points
HN discussionWayne Hale is always my favorite source for these: https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/sts-93-we-dont-ne...
Comment linking /2014/10/26/sts-93-we-dont-need-any-more-of-those/
on “STS-93: We don’t need any more of those (2014)”Submitted What to do if the Space Shuttle payload bay doors won't shut properly as a story · 36 points
HN discussionI recently went through the HN posts I upvoted/saved this year and maybe someday will get around summarizing the ones that taught/inspired me the most...here are two technical ones that stuck out for me: SiteChat: a postmortem. Or, the rise and fall of a society. http://burakkanber.com/blog/sitechat-a-postmortem-or-the-ris... This to me was the epitome of a great HN post: the author decides he wants to learn how to…
Comment linking /2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/
on “The best things and stuff of 2012”Submitted We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) as a story · 10 points
HN discussionApparently these problems are very hard to avoid. See here for some stories in context of the Space Shuttle: https://waynehale.wordpress.com/ As a remedy, they use tools that are tracked by RFID and tool cabinets that monitor that all tools are back in place.
Comment linking /
on “Boeing finds debris left in new 737 MAXes, now in storage”Submitted Space Shuttle STS-93: We don't need any more of those as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI use Feedly / NetNewsFire for feeds, rather than newsletters, but in reality they're the same, just different consumption methods. Just interesting to see NNW was in HN recently. These are the most interesting things I keep in Feedly. acoup.blog - A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry - frequently linked to HN already. He's a great history writer, covering everything from Roman logistics, to analysis of current game…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Which mailing lists would you recommend to subscribe to?”Submitted How we nearly lost the shuttle Discovery (2012) as a story · 5 points
HN discussion> But no RS-25 has ever failed during flight There was near miss though: >By about T-3 seconds, all engines were up and operating at 100% of rated power level. Exactly when it happened is not clear, but on the right engine, the gold plated pin from LOX post 32 in row 13 came shooting out. [...] Now two scary things could have happened. First, the LOX post, which was pinned for a reason, could have failed allowing LO…
Comment linking /2014/10/26/sts-93-we-dont-need-any-more-of-those/
on “NASA completes engine test firing of moon rocket on 2nd try”Submitted Why Houston Did Not Get a Shuttle (2011) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThanks! You might find Wayne Hale's (Space Shuttle Program Manager or Deputy for 5 years, a Space Shuttle Flight Director for 40 missions) 10-year retrospective on the Columbia crash interesting: https://waynehale.wordpress.com/category/after-ten-years/ Also, I recall reading somewhere that the chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Admiral Harold Gehman, decided to conduct a test to see if the piece…
Comment linking /category/after-ten-years/
on “Seaborn bug responsible for finding of declining disruptiveness in science”Submitted Oops: Space Shuttle payload bay doors and what to do if they won’t shut properly as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttp://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost... (Linked on TFA, but here for the curious). Edit: and, that really is a good and powerful essay.
Comment linking /2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/
on “Former NASA Flight Engineer blogs about Columbia Disaster”Submitted Oops: What to do if the Space Shuttle payload bay doors don't close properly as a story · 4 points
HN discussion"Into the Memory Hole": https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/into-the-memory-h... (waynehale.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/into-the-memory-hole/)
Comment linking /2025/04/28/into-the-memory-hole/
on “'I guess NASA doesn't need or care about my work anymore'”Submitted How We Nearly Lost Discovery as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Terminal Count as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Shuttle's exploding stovepipes (2020) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Putting Atlantis at Risk as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How We Nearly Lost Discovery as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
