[ale] OT: Space Shuttle Columbia

[Kilroy, Chris]

->
->I have yet to see an explanation as to why not.
->


there are no handholds on the underside of the shuttle.


and moreover what are they going to fix it with?   it may be that by acutally putting some fixative, whether it be some polymer, duct tape, caulk, astronaut toothpaste - whatever - that may in fact make the situation worse you dont know how the chemistry of that compound will behave under the extreme conditions.  most materials are not going to respond well to that sort of heating anyway.  so the goop they put in the 'crack' lasts an extra 0.005 seconds.  the shuttle still breaks up.   

the reason they didnt abort was because nobody saw the debris on video until the shuttle was in orbit.  you have a tiny window of time to abort a mission, and since this sort of thing (stuff hitting the orbiter) has happened 6-7+ times during liftoff, it was not deemed 

because the space station and the orbiter were both in orbit does not mean they were at all close to each other.  i think you have to take them for their word when they say it wasnt an option.  and the docking apparatus wasnt there anyway.

there was NOTHING they could have done differently, other than forsee the future.  nothing is more challenging than putting vehichles into space and bringing them back.  it is no coincidence that after 20+ years nobody else has been able to duplicate this marvel of engineering.  its easy to be critical of decisions that werent made, and certainly they should do whatever they can to fix what was wrong, and plan for this contingency in the future.  But to expect a 100% success rate in an endeavor of this nature is absolutely ludicrous.  

The people at NASA understand the challenge that they are taking, and we need to accept the same risks that they do.  it isnt like the shuttle budget is a drop in the bucket of our overall budget.  So in reality all we have to do is manage our expectations.  i'm sure most of us would rather have 1 space shuttle than 2 more of the latest and greatest long range bombers. 

-Chris



->
->> This is a key statement.  They can't just perform a 
->spacewalk under the 
->> shuttle.  They couldn't check the titles, and as such 
->everything turned 
->> in to a [tragic] afterthought.


->- Jeff
->
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