I met Bill Readdy back in 1990 when I was a Navy lieutenant on shore duty working as the editor of Approach, the Naval Safety Center's aviation safety magazine. I was working on a story about how NASA's culture had changed around matters of safety in the wake of the Challenger mishap.
Years later, it was "Reads" who first briefed the nation about another NASA tragedy, the Columbia mishap.
Now Endeavor's in the news because of damage to tiles on the bottom of the craft. At this writing NASA engineers have elected to "do no harm" and leave the tiles as is, and there's no reason to believe the shuttle is less than 100 percent ready to fly a safe profile back to earth.
But the coverage has NASA in the news and folks, like the staff at DT, are asking questions about the health of the shuttles and the space program at large.
I can think of no better guy to explain what's going on at NASA than Bill Readdy. And I can think of no better way to spend a Sunday than listening to the "Editor's Desk" interview with him here.
-- Ward
