REMARKS OF
              THE HONORABLE DANIEL S. GOLDIN

              NASA HEADQUARTERS SAFETY DAY
                Thursday, May 13, 1999




Thank you for the kind introduction.  

At NASA, we have a very special job to help our country to be 
better in the 21st century. We'll never do it unless every one 
of us takes care of ourselves.  

It brings a story to my mind.  When I was growing up, my 
father took me to a park.  
My father was a biologist who ended up sorting mail in the 
post office because he graduated college during the 
Depression, and then he went from place to place, and finally 
became a teacher.  He was very proud of that.  

One day he took me to a park, because he wanted me to 
understand how precious life was.  I was a little malicious 
kid, and I was killing everything in sight:  beetles, bugs, 
you name it.  So he took me out into a park and he had me hold 
an insect in my hand.  He talked to me about how precious and 
what a miracle life is.

That talk that my father had with me changed my way of 
thinking.  I don't indiscriminately kill insects anymore.  
More importantly, it taught me to have respect for life.  
That's what drives me.  And I know the management of this 
agency knows how intensely I feel about safety and how 
strongly I care about the lives of everyone at NASA and the 
lives they affect.  

I am personally responsible for the lives of every single 
person who is involved with NASA.  Most specifically, the 
employees of NASA, inclusive of our contractors and the people 
who may come in harmÕs way when our rockets and planes fly.  
To an extent, we are responsible for the entire people on this 
planet when it comes to understanding what is happening to our 
ozone layer, and what's happening to the purity of our air and 
the cleanliness of our water.

Life is very precious, and this is the one message I would 
like to impart.  As passionately and as deeply as I feel about 
this, in the end, we will not achieve
our goal of zero on-the-job accidents, unless each and every 
one of us understands how important this goal is. 

We have three basic objectives at NASA.  Safety is our first 
and most important objective.  Nothing should compromise that. 
 Nothing.  Not budgets, not job assignments, not schedules, 
not performance.  

Our second objective is to complete the International Space 
Station.   Our third:  to develop new rockets that will 
improve the safety initially by a factor of 10, and then 
ultimately a factor of 10,000.  Then we can do everything 
else.

The point is safety should drive everything we do.  And we are 
doing a very, very fine job.  

We've been working with the Dupont Company to learn about 
their safety initiatives.  They're the safest company in the 
world and they are proud of it.  It drives everything they do. 
 As a result, their financials are great.  But they don't go 
for good financials.  They protect their employees.  Their 
position is, if you're safe on the job, and unsafe off the 
job, you don't get it.  So they hold their employees 
accountable for being safe themselves, and for their families 
being safe.  One of their directors told me, after he went to 
a training session, he changed his driving habits, because he 
was safe at work and he found he was unsafe driving from work 
to home.  

Let me give you some examples of the incredible, wonderful 
things that you have done, and how you are making safety drive 
everything.  Let me first start with
the connection of Zarya and Unity, the first elements of  the 
International Space
Station. 

They were launched in November from Baikonur in Kazakstan, and 
in December from Cape Kennedy.  And with just a few dozen 
hours, just think about it, just a few dozen hours, we 
integrated, assembled, checked out, and tested those two 
units.   A few dozen hours to make the mechanical, electrical, 
thermal and informational system connections.  

It is an unbelievable achievement, because one piece of 
hardware was built in Russia, and the other piece was built in 
America, 10,000 miles away.  Those
two pieces of hardware were never pre-integrated.  That has 
never been done in the history of the space program, or for 
that matter, perhaps anywhere else.  Just think about it -- 
not one accident.  No one got hurt.  When our contractors 
build spacecraft on the ground, and integrate them on the 
ground, thousands of hours
are involved in making that happen.  Now, I am not saying our 
contractors aren't good.  I'm saying, they are outstanding for 
making the connection of Zarya and Unity possible.  Just think 
about what an achievement that is.

The second issue, the Space Shuttle is an unbelievable 
machine.  It takes off, goes to space, and comes back.  There 
are millions of things that could go wrong, but they
don't.  Now, clearly it is tough and it is dangerous.  Tommy 
Holloway, the new manager of the Space Station and former 
Space Shuttle manager, said it takes tender loving care, not 
statistics.  That means tender loving care from every one of 
the
people who work on it.  They know who those astronauts are, 
they are fellow coworkers.  They know who their families are. 
 They know their wives and children and
husbands.  And because of that  the Shuttle flies safely.  
That's a reason to be proud.

We also have an obligation to protect the high value resources 
that the American public invests in.  We were given a 
challenge, after the Mars Observer failed, to land a robot on 
Mars on July 4th, 1997, and have it move over the landscape.  
It had never been done before.  It came off with pinpoint 
precision, because our NASA team focused on safety and quality 
first, and put scheduling second.  The world rejoiced and we 
made it look easy.  Sometimes the American public takes for 
granted how difficult it is to do what we do.  They don't know 
the intensity with which you work.  They don't understand how 
focused you are on giving value to them and making it as safe 
as possible. 

Another example, the Hubble Space Telescope.  It is returning 
incredible images and data.  It is literally one of the most 
productive scientific instruments in the history of the human 
species.  It is taking pictures that go right to the edge of 
creation, and it is rewriting everything we know about 
astrophysics, physics, chemistry. 

For people to modify spacecraft on the ground, it takes years 
and thousands of hours, often by trial and error, and they 
often still have problems.  We decided just a few years ago 
that we were going to fly an infrared camera.  We carried a 
liquid that is close to absolute zero to cool down a focal 
point so we could look deeper into the Universe.

We didn't design the telescope for that, but we were able to 
retrofit this device in just a few dozen hours of on-orbit 
assembly.  Our astronauts, our team on the ground, and many of 
you who tested the system before those astronauts, made it 
look so easy that no one appreciated how difficult and 
dangerous it could be.  But again, we didn't
launch that servicing mission until everyone bought into the 
fact that it was safe.   Again, you folks did it.

Think of some of the routine things that happen in other 
workplaces, and here these folks were 300 miles above the 
surface of the Earth in a deadly vacuum with extreme
thermal conditions, wearing space suits where you can hardly 
move your fingers.  Yet they were prepared to successfully and 
safely perform these very delicate operations. 

Think about the fact that NASA flies T-38 training jets for 
astronaut training.  These planes are so old, they are older 
than most of the staff here -- but theyÕre not older than I 
am.  We service those planes to standards that are 
unbelievable.  They don't crash.  We don't have injuries.  And 
we have a better safety record than the places that they came 
from.  It's unbelievable, the commitment that this agency has 
toward safety.

Think of all the experimental planes we fly out over the 
Mojave Desert.  We fly F-16s, F-15s, and the SR-71.  With 
impudence, we add all sorts of equipment to the SR-71 and test 
things that will go to space.  At Mach 3.1, it is a very 
touchy plane.  We wanted to hot fire the aerospike engine on 
it, and our folks at Dryden said, it's not safe.  We're not 
going to fly it because it's not safe enough yet.  Safety was 
valued over getting the data.  I congratulated the Dryden team 
for their decision.  
  
The other planes we fly around the country also have 
unbelievable safety records.  And perhaps, and this is one of 
the things we will be talking about during this upcoming 
budget cycle, because our safety record is so good, we are 
flying some of the oldest planes in the U.S. inventory.  We 
have the oldest Gulfstream 1.  Maybe it is time to talk to the 
folks who control the budget and help them understand that 
there are certain limits.  I intend to pursue this with vigor.

By pursuing safety and quality as your number one objective 
you make the impossible look easy.   I want to tell you a 
little story.  I talked about how you have a core 
responsibility to protect each other at NASA, our contractors 
and the people that may be in the path of the things we fly.  
And in certain areas, we have the charter and responsibility 
from our President and Congress to protect the people of the 
world.

It was NASA, working in cooperation with leaders in the 
scientific community, that did the detective work to help 
understand that things like hairspray and shaving cream were 
putting out things called chlorofluorocarbons.  Through 
unbelievable detective work in atmospheric physics and 
atmospheric chemistry, and using planes,
balloons and spacecraft, we were able to help solve an 
unbelievable puzzle that no one in the world understood.  We 
learned that at certain times of the year,
over the polar regions, with certain temperatures and 
humidity, the atmospheric condition occurs that generates ice 
crystals of a very specific geometry upon which a catalytic 
reaction occurs between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone.  

Ozone is three oxygen atoms, O3, and these reactions give you 
O and O2.  ItÕs like Pacman.  It just eats it up.  And we were 
able to figure that out.  The NASA team made it look easy and 
people take the discovery for granted.  But as a result, we 
had the Montreal Protocol. 

Let me explain to you why it is so important.  Ozone is very 
special.  There is a very thin shell around the Earth.  If you 
look at pictures taken from the Shuttle you can see 
a very thin blue line above the Earth.  A very thin blue line. 
 That's our
atmosphere.  That's all there is.  It knows no boundaries of 
countries.  It knows no
politics.  That's all we have to breathe.  And on top of that, 
the stratosphere, is the ozone layer.  The ozone prevents 
large quantities of ultraviolet radiation from reaching the 
surface of the Earth.  Without an ozone layer your DNA could 
be damaged by the ultraviolet radiation and, ultimately, it 
could lead to cancer.

People talk about this being theoretical, but birds in South 
America and Australia are going blind.  It affects agriculture 
and crops.  Had we done nothing, life as we know it wouldn't 
be the same on this planet.  

It looked so easy that no one understood the compassion and 
caring of what you did.  You helped preserve life on this 
planet, because you were concerned about safety.  The mission 
came second.  

You get into a jet liner and what worries people . . . the 
meals are too hot, the meals are too cold . . . or the plane 
doesnÕt take off on time, and they lost my baggage.  People 
around the world fly from point A to point B without crashing. 
 And that's the most important factor.  Every civil plane 
involved in long haul transportation developed in America has 
gone through the NASA test facilities.  The safety techniques 
on those planes, for the most part, were developed by NASA.  
And when crashes occur, the safety community comes to us to 
help unravel the pieces with
the analytical skills we have.  And even though the safety 
record is good, you are working on a commitment that the 
President and the Vice President of the United States made to 
the American people, to cut the crash rate by a factor of five 
within 10 years, and by a factor of ten within 20 years.  

Safety is important.  This is another place that we intersect 
with the American people and people around the world.  They 
are going to share in the technologies NASA develops.

So you see, you work at a very special place.  We don't do 
routine things.  Everything we do at NASA is different.  We 
never do the same thing.  And yet, we are able to do these 
incredible things with regard to safety.

You may ask, why is the Administrator so concerned?  Why is 
the Administrator so worried about safety?  

I'm worried about safety because if one person dies on the 
job, I'm personally responsible and accountable.  Remember 
what my father told me about my habit of killing bugs, and how 
precious life is.  Every life is precious.

Every one of those people who could die has sisters and 
brothers, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, nieces and 
nephews and friends and colleagues.  They are interconnected 
with a web of love.  We've got to be conscious of it.  It's 
got to be the
first thing on our minds.  

We should appreciate that the astronauts who get into the 
Shuttle, their families are
counting on us not to have a bad day on the job; not to be 
irritated about budgets; not to be upset about things; but to 
dedicate our total being to make sure that each Shuttle is the 
safest machine in the world; to make sure that each aircraft 
people fly in is the safest in the world; to make sure that 
people don't drop a cup of coffee on the floor and then walk 
away and have someone slip and break their neck.  

Everything has to be involved in safety.  And every single 
person has to be absolutely committed to safety and never, 
ever compromise

It makes no difference when we compare ourselves to other 
organizations and say we're safer.  It doesn't make a 
difference -- to a person who gets hurt on the job, or 
disabled, or worse, killed -- that statistically we are better 
than everyone else.  That's not good enough.

We've had a number of near misses that have given me cause for 
alarm.  And I personally talk to every astronaut and their 
families before they go into space, because I want them to 
know how high I value their lives.

We have set some new goals for safety.  Could I have the first 
slide?  Now, if you look at this slide, it plots the frequency 
rate of accidents as a function of time.  As you look at it, 
you see the worst sector is the manufacturing sector, followed 
by the private sector, followed by the federal agencies, on 
average.  

Now, there are some federal agencies that don't have high-risk 
facilities and theyÕre are better than us.  But on average, 
theyÕre below NASA.  Followed by the aerospace

sector, followed by NASA, but led by Dupont.  Dupont has a 
passion where they start every meeting by talking about 
safety.  If anyone gets hurt on the job, the chairman of the 
board of Dupont gets a phone call from the supervisor 
responsible, no matter where that chairman is, day or night, 
and that person tells how the accident occurred, why it 
occurred, and how they are going to find the root cause of 
that
accident.  Within a certain time frame, he or she has to call 
back and say how they  resolved it.  That's how serious they 
are at Dupont.  I don't think we go that far
here.  ThatÕs why DupontÕs on the job accident rate is almost 
zero.

Next slide.  There are three curves here.  Here is Dupont with 
on-the-job accidents.  The similar curve for NASA is the one 
above it.  If you include frequency rate of injuries, lost 
time work injuries and things Dupont and our official NASA 
specification don't include -- like people who have bodies of 
a 50-year-old and play baseball thinking they have bodies of 
an 18-year-old -- it is a lot more.  The difference is roughly 
0.3 to 0.52.  0.3 would be 46 injuries per year.  0.52 would 
be 90 injuries per year. That's a lot more. 

Now, take a look at where the goal is.  And this is where some 
of my intensity came in.  Within five years or six years, we 
want to be even with Dupont, and within six years I
want us at zero.  I mean zero.  I mean an intensity so no one 
goes home killed, no one dies here, no one gets hurt here, and 
no one has to have a terrible experience.  

This is what I would like each of you to think about.  This is 
more important than anything you do at work, because this is 
the essence of what you do.  Because if
you live this way at work, if you live this way at home, if 
you talk to your families about this, think about how much 
richer your life could be, and will be.
 
This is really important stuff.  You're going to see the build 
up of intensity on this subject, because the management of 
this agency doesn't just talk about caring:
they really deeply care.   This is the only organization in 
the world that operates on the surface of the Earth, in the 
troposphere, stratosphere, Earth orbit, and beyond.  Our work 
place is going to be safe, not just on the surface of the 
Earth in our offices, but our work place is going to be safe 
even if we walk on Mars. 

As we design future missions, we're going to design those 
missions with safety in mind.  We're going to set up an 
infrastructure that will be sustaining life in a very safe 
way.  

At the Continual Improvement Conference we learned about a 
study of 600 companies in America.  The study found that 
companies -- big and small and medium sized -- which had the 
best quality and safety records, also had the highest rise in 
stock prices.   My contention is that for everything we do in 
Shuttle upgrades, designing new launch vehicles, building 
spacecraft that will go and melt through two miles of ice on 
Europa and dip into an ocean on Europa, we will do it all much 
cheaper, much faster, with better performance if we put safety 
and quality first.

Dupont saves $66 million dollars a year because they have 
almost no accidents and no one dies at Dupont.  The bottom 
line, their financials are outstanding.  If they find an 
unsafe condition, they will shut a plant down rather than let 
it go.

I will close by saying this, I want the NASA team to build on 
the successes I mentioned and find where we need to improve.  
I ask each of you to think about your responsibilities when it 
comes to -- look around this room -- protecting the lives and 
ensuring the safety of everyone at NASA.  Thank you very much. 
 



















	CERTIFICATE
I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from the
electronic sound recording of the proceedings in the above-
entitled matter.

______________________________ ____________________________
Teresa S. Hinds                     Date