Re: Statistics and Firestone

["Richard Hulse" <RHulse@radionz.co.nz>]

An interesting point about the investigation into the Challenger
accident was the comments made by Dr. Richard Feynman (who served on the
committee investigating the matter).

In one of the books about him (I forget which one) he described the
processes used by NASA as being demonstrably deficient. He said that the
system was like a child who repeatedly runs out into the road. Each time
the child's mother says "don't do that it is dangerous". Even thought
the child can see the potential danger, every time it runs out on the
road (and nothing happens) it assumes that with each trip into the road,
the likelihood of getting hurt decreases.

Nice analogy, I thought.

Feynman said ( in a nutshell) that the failure was a result of the
system (built in) rather than a one-off event (special cause). If I
recall correctly some of the other committee members were not too happy
with his conclusions.

Richard Hulse
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