Preflight Interview: James Kelly, STS-114 Pilot - 2

James Kelly, STS-114 Pilot: I would say that now is the time, post-Columbia, pre-Return to Flight, for everyone to take a really close look at themselves and everything they’re doing. What we’re doing right now is absolutely critical to the future of the space flight program, because if we can’t get the Shuttles back up and operating safely then that has a direct impact on what we can use the Station for and everything down the line from there. So, I would say that, while the vast majority of people all the time have been doing a, a tremendous job, it’s always a good idea to go back and look at your, look at your personal habits on the job. Look at your procedures. Look at the professionalism by which you do everything. And, if you have any questions on anything that you’ve done in the past, and most areas that we go to and talk to, like you say, we’re some of the most visible members, so we get about and talk to a bunch of people, they’ll come up and they’ll say, "Hey, when you take a step back." We’re normally so busy because it’s flight after flight after flight after flight, and you’re just rolling, now there should be a little bit of time to step back and go, hey, we’ve been doing this years and it never made sense to me, I would say to everybody out there, if there’s something in your head that you’ve been saying for a long time -- I don’t really know why we do this this way -- go back and take a look at it, because we may be doing it wrong. It may be something that will bite us in the future. So take it as your own personal quest to go out there and find those things and fix them while we’ve got the time now, because once we start rolling again, there’ll be probably even more, more responsibilities put on everybody because of all the extra things we’re going to have to do on Shuttle flights. So, do that now. I would also say, do not worry about when we go back to flight. It talked about in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board about schedule pressure being a big deal -- well, it still is. I’m here to tell you that we haven’t fixed that yet; we need to, we’re working on it. So, as individuals out there, please don’t make any decisions based on schedule. If you see something that is wrong, it’s technically wrong, I’m on the next flight, I don’t care if I have to wait another year, let’s get it fixed; let’s turn it around, talk to the folks above you, and press those issues, and don’t be turned off. If the guy above you doesn't listen to it, then do what Sean O’Keefe’s been saying -- go to the level above him, go outside your organization. If it’s critically important and it impacts safety, take it as a personal crusade to make sure somebody listens to you. It may turn out some of those people are wrong; they may think they’re right and they may think we have to do this, and it turns out we’ve got ways to mitigate or a different solution. That’s fine. I’d rather have a few people crying “wolf” than miss the ones that actually cry “wolf” when it’s there. So what I would say to all the people out there is, is each one of us holds in our hands the opportunity to make us safer to go back to flight, and we have to take that as a public trust, to make sure that our voice is heard when it needs to be heard to fix those problems.

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