Mars Probe Failures

Re “Are Failed Mars Probes Price of Cost-Cutting?” Dec. 26: JPL’s problem is math, but not converting miles to kilometers. The interplanetary exploration industry was invented in the early ‘60s with men and women in their 20s: 20 plus (2000 minus 1960) equals 60 years old equals retirement. That, along with a hiring lull in the ‘70s, has left JPL and NASA short of experience. Bring those retirees back to NASA, not to review our failures, but to teach us how not to fail.

DAVID LEVITT

JPL Employee

Pasadena

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Aerospace engineers have a saying, “We can give you faster and cheaper, or better and faster, or cheaper and better, but you are a fool if you demand all three.” Management and government officials are either delusional or playing a game of chicken with the taxpayers’ money to expect “faster, better, cheaper.”

I was employed at TRW, where we had a reputation for being a “high-cost provider.” But our projects were cheap at any price because our space systems worked and, in more than one case, we saved the mission when other contractors’ equipment failed. There are astronauts today who otherwise would have been stranded at the moon without the skill of TRW’s engineers and the quality of TRW’s equipment.

GERALD C. SOZIO

Los Angeles