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Updated Information On Columbia Shuttle Tragedy
Thanks to all the readers who have sent links related to today's shuttle disaster. An Associated Press story carried on Salon says that an independent board (with members from the Air Force, Navy, Transportation Department and other federal agencies) has been appointed to investigate the disaster. CNN is carrying official statement from President Bush. Rediff.com has an article on the life of Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla. borisonanovitch points to "more info on the science aboard Columbia and links to other NASA research." fabel reminds us "Most of the media is focusing on the slight damage that ocurred at takeoff (that NASA discounted at the time) but STS-107 was *delayed* for 6 months (original launch date 19 Jul 2003) Update: 02/01 23:51 GMT by T : [Note, should read "2002."] because of
cracks in the propellant feed lines to the 3 main engines. A defect that could have caused catastrophic failure. Did the fix work or not?"
May the rest in peace.
NASA probably has a good idea whaat happened, but it's pretty safe to assume that they won't speculate until they know for sure.
Wouldn't they have been vaporized in the atmosphere at that speed ?
You can bet your ass that NASA is not going to say anything until they know for sure what the hell happend. The last thing they want to do at this point is put out something and have it bite them in the ass at this point.
Anything they release from this point forward is going to be beyond reproach because they can afford for something to errode any credibility.
They are going to be very very careful and very clear. It is really the only way to move foreward.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
If I'm not mistaken, the 3 main engines are used on launch only. They're useless in space, since they run off of the main fuel tank, which is jettisoned after the boost phase. The only engines of relevance in orbit/reentry are the OMS and RCS engines.
Considering that there are so few shuttle launches each year and the launches tend to happen at regular intervals, the probability of any launch falling on the week of Challenger disaster is fairly high.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, Dr. Chawla was of Indian descent and grew up there, but she is a US citizen. She is an American astronaut, and no doubt proud of her Indian heritage.
That is 40% out of 20 years.
And less than 2% out of the total number of launches. And?
If these same seven individuals were coal miners that lost their lives in a coal mine collapse, and the space shuttle was unmanned, and blew up on the same day, which would get more news coverage and why?
When a ship goes down, people always scavenge for useful bits. That has been a noble tradition for thousands of years...
Well the short answer is that there is no way to know.
If its a design flaw like with Challenger then it could easily be a simlar kind of time scale which will likely have a ripple effect on ISS. Though if Soyuz and progress launches could be stepped up there is no reason to abbandon ISS. However construction efforts would cease as they have been the purview of shuttle and soyuz can't launch the mass. Perhaps some Heavy Delta or Arian launches could be substitued but I would imagine that would take a couple years at the least to set in motion.
On the other hand if its a unique failure related to say the foam break off at launch or to some uncharted space debris on re-entry then they might not even miss the next scheduled launch.
In either event shuttles plate was pretty full with only 4 orbiters. Losing columbia does not effect any of the scheuled ISS missions as it was incapable of making the ISS orbit with enough payload so long as the remaining 3 remained cleared for operations.
So ultimately the quetion is if this is a fundamental problem in shuttles design or if it was a unpredicatable and unavoidable risk which comes with spaceflight operations.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
In fact, this is one of the many reasons why I feel that it was extra stupid of Saddam Hussein to call this catastrophe "God's punishment on America".
Please be careful throwing things like this around - if you check the actual Reuters story here, you'll see it was "a government employee" and "a car-mechanic" who are quoted as sources. I'm sure you could find an idiot within this country, heck even one working for local or federal government, who would say equally stupid things regarding disasters who happened to other countries (or even our own country - see Scripting News for a link to someone trying to auction salvage off on Ebay).
Punishing a group due to the words or actions of an individual is the cause of most of the strife in the world.
This is going to be me, rambling. I'll be accused of being a liberal, tree-hugging, deficit-loving bitch, but it needs to be said.
Bush has, from day one, been all about, or so he says, cutting budgets. Everything but Defense, he says, is spending far too much. Education. Health and Human Services. AIDS research (his "broad" plan announced in the State of the Union address was a joke). NASA.
Time and time again, he has harped on cutting NASA's budget. He has forced the agency to abandon most all other programs, except extending the life of the shuttles.
Democrats and others have pleaded for Bush to reconsider. He hasn't.
One year ago, CNN discussed Bush's plans to dramatically reduce NASA's budget, INCLUDING safety spending, in favour of learning more about nuclear technology in space.
This PDF from the House Democrats makes Bush's cuts clear, in terms of NASA and science in general.
Worse yet, a year and a half ago, people were warning that these cuts were leading to an inevitable disaster in the shuttle program. A freaking year and a half ago.
And through all of this, the best Bush can say is "May God continue to bless America."
Oh, and Saddam is an evil, evil man.
Growl.
jrbd
With public support of NASA and space exploration in general on the deline for decades now I hope this isn't the end of the line for NASA as a useful organization.
Maybe the USAF will get back it's leading role in space as a platform for new weapons. I mean has anyone read Steven Baxter? The Air force has wanted back it's jurisdiction of space back since Eisenhower created NASA and took space away from the USAF. This is the chance they have been waiting for to discredit their viability in the future. Which %&&*@#&s are responsible for a study of nuking the moon, that's a great idea opposed to let's say COLONIZING MARS, which would actually be of any use to humanity. Whose responisble for making sure NASA doesn't suceed imposing so many safety regulations on the new shuttle programs that made them to expensive to fund. And I am talking redundant stuff which they were only doing in petty self interest. I guess the Europeans and the Japanese are now our hope for space expoloration, but I doubt they have the means without the US supporting their programs.
Hope I am wrong in both respects
I was only in 5th grade when the Challenger exploded. I remember thinking that someone would find out what happened and fix it so that it doesn't happen again. But of course, that's a pretty naive thing to think.
Later, when I was older, I read an account of the Challenger investigation in some compilations of interviews with Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate physicist. He was made a member of the investigative panel, even though he was strictly a civilian scientist. And in his words, when he was doing his investigation by going through documents and talking to people, it sounded that he felt like he was fighting a gigantic institutional bureaucracy that was being very slow, passive and reluctant to divulge information. On the committee were members of the military, former astronauts, etc, who likely had ties to NASA in some personal way, at least more so than some physicist from Caltech.
I don't know what sort of hard conclusions came out of the investigative committee in the end. Feynman was flamboyant and made a great show of the O-ring problem in front of TV cameras, an unrehearsed and disruptive performance, according to his accounts. But I think this flamboyance and disruptiveness was a good thing, because here was some guy who didn't give a crap about whether or not NASA was going to get its butt kicked for being negligent whatnot, and that's the sort of investigators that will be needed to bring the facts to light.
We will need people who are independently minded, and who are going to dig at the truth even if it might hurt a lot of people at NASA, assuming that the destruction of Columbia had a man-made origin. And even if NASA does become hurt and demolished in the process, that's for the better in the long run, because we will, hopefully, build anew and better, and send our tendrils even more deeply into space with or without the current incarnation of the thing we call NASA.
I grieve along with all the others affected by this disaster. It wasn't only the death of seven people, it was a little bit of death in all of us, of all of our wonder and awe and our eagerness to propel ourselves beyond our planet.
Without his intrepid investigations, we probably still wouldn't know what happened (though some NASA engineers might). His investigation was thorough enough to find myriad safe (software) and unsafe (mission cancellation policies) aspects of the shuttle program.
Who will be our Feynman now?
I'll give you a few reasons:
Now, I won't even begin to go into the fallacies in your bigoted statements about muslims. Suffice it to say they are even more incorrect. I hope that your message was just an insensative troll and that you don't actually feel that way.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
To be brutally pragmatic, 3,000 people getting killed in the WTC and the Pentagon getting attacked probably has greater relevance for the average American than even 3,000,000 people dieing to famine and intra-tribal warfare off in Africa. My neighbor had 3 former coworkers die on 9/11.
It's not numbness to injustice, although that may be true. It's sheer pragmatism- the enemy of idealism perhaps but not necessarily the enemy of wisdom.
(Plus there is the news-vs-business-as-usual aspect you mention. If you want publications focusing on justice issues, not just "new"s, try donating to various charities dealing with the injustice. I have. Believe me, you'll get more information on such topics than you have time to read._
--LP
P.S. While it is worth remembering that media will most-likely show you what will help their advertisers, it's pretty well documented that various media outlets lost serious money with their 9/11 coverage due to a lack of advertising in the immediate aftermath. I'm sure though that the moneymen viewed it as a necessary investment in 'credibility', ironically viewing it as a 'justice' issue akin to the ones you feel get inadequate coverage.
...is that citizens of the USA are bred from explorers.
You're right. Good thing Europeans are the high point of evolution, and that they wanted to explore the rest of the planet, and conquer the savages who inhabited it. Yes, without Europeans and their desire to explore, nothing would have ever happened. Humans would not have evolved from lesser primates, and reptiles would rule the earth.
</sarcasm>
I'm sorry, but your post is completely rediculous. If you have a point that can be made without glossing over the known history, it'd be nice to hear it.
Are you really trying to argue that everyone in the USA is an explorer at heart? If so I have to disagree. Early European inhabitants of the US were persecuted in their native homes, and they headed for the US as a place of refuge. Oh, and what about the native populations? They actually arrived from modern day Russia/China thousands of years before the Europeans... but they started on the west coast not the east. They were not exploring for the sake of discovery, but rather survival.
Each culture has it's explorers. The USA has it's own as well. But they're not "descendants" of prior explorers, they're just people who are curious and find the means to push into new frontiers.
I'm sorry, you post was so incoherent I fear I am unable to properly express my dissatisfaction with it...
Watching CNN, you'd think that Ramon' death was a greater loss than that of the other 6. Too much airtime is being dedicated to Ramon and the Israeli reaction to his loss. I don't care about Palestinian reaction either.
To me, Dr. Chawla's story is more interesting. An Indian born female who migrated to the US, obtained a PHD in engineering, and finally became an astronaut is an inspirational story. Especially when you consider that an Indian born male (to my knowledge) has never been in space.
And what about the other non-ethnic Americans who were lost? Nobody willing to come on TV and state how remarkable they were?
You're assuming that the sensors didn't react in time to report the heating. We'll see.
Hmmm--- the reports on NPR say that the sensors were detecting:
1) Hydrolic failure in the left wing
2) Left tire losing pressure
3) Structural heating in the left wing.
This is the same place where the foam hit, so that is where I would start. As William of Occam said "one should not needlessly multiply entities."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"I also read that out of the five shuttles, 2 have gone in the last twnety years. That is 40% out of 20 years. I don't really know what to think about this, but i must say, that this really hurst me, as well as a large number the the /. community."
That's a crappy way to use statistics.
I doubt that this will kill space exploration. If anything, it may boost interest in making sure that these things are made safe. Maybe I'm just an optimist, but there are a number of plans to making new generation reusable oribters drawn up that Nasa could, if funded well enough, build and use. I can see Nasa getting extra funding down the road.
Again, I may just be an optimist. I just don't think the US Gov't would want to let those people die for nothing.
Let me put it another way, I still trust Nasa far more than I trust the airline industry.
1) Laying the groundwork for American colonization and exploitation of space
Yeah, so what?
Western society has fucked up Africa and Asia through colonization
That was mostly Britain and Spain, but we'll let that one go, since we did reap some of the benefit.
Furthermore, who gives anyone the right to plant an American flag on the moon, as if the US has conquered something.
We can because we did. Then we signed a treaty saying we wouldn't claim any part of the moon as territory. But, we can certainly claim to have landed there, and we left the proof, and our identity, by leaving our flag there. We conquered a barrier by landing on the moon, and we have every right to claim it and lay the proof.
I didn't realize you could put dibs on parts of the universe. Do we really need nationalism in space too?
Nobody put "dibs" anywhere. And, remember that nationalism got us to space. Kennedy and Johnson were drumming up nationalism to support the space program back during the Apollo missions.
Not all national pride is bad, you know.
Military Exploits - Reagan didn't get Star Wars in the 80's, now his bastard sons (the Bush family) are going to take another stab at it. Space, the final frontier: now being used as missile bases to kill innocent civilians in countries that happen to be anti-US. Can't wait!
Prove that we're putting missile bases in space. Come on, prove it. We're all still waiting, you know.
Scientific Knowledge - Oh, and it's of no coincidence that this was listed last. Think about it, the US government is throwing millions of dollars at a program for common good of the world? Think again.
Science is *always* beneficial to mankind.
If you want space to be as shitty and capitalistic as the US-dominated world is now, then I guess you'll love NASA. Essentially 7 colonizers died today, one of which was an Israeli colonel -- I'm so distressed -- not.
You are so out of touch with reality that I'm not sure why I am bothering to respond. You're a sick piece of shit for even saying that last sentence.
Funny that when 7 people die on US land the whole world sends their condolences, but when US weapons kill thousands every day no one winks an eye.
Maybe you can point out exactly what you are talking about? Or, are you just dreaming up numbers by swallowing the made-up cumshot statistics of left-wing radicals?
7 people dead in a space shuttle don't really mean much when your president is planning to kill 300,000 people in only one fucking DAY in Iraq.
Again, how are you getting your numbers, and how are you know exactly what the president is planning? Can I assume he told you personally?
Get your heads out of your ass and realize the world does not revolve around you, stupid Americans.
My head is out of my ass, you lying bigot. Let's remind ourselves of some of the more "stupid" things Americans have done:
We'll start with bailing Europe out of two World Wars. Then, we can point out that we give over six million metric tons of food to foreign countries every year, under multiple programs.
Let's also think about how we have conducted recent war effors. When it has been tactically sound, we have dropped leaflets in places with assets to be bombed, so that civilians can leave. I was in the military, and I understand *exactly* how hard it is to avoid collateral damage. Even at the best accuracy, I could only expect the artillery I was calling fire from to be within 100 meters of the center of the target, and no more accurate.
We go out of our way for precision targeting... don't whine about collateral civilian damage to non-military targets until you've tried to perform the job of having to hit military targets that people like Saddam Hussein put right in the middle of neighborhoods and right next to schools. The simple fact is, we are far better than some other countries are.
Why aren't you bitching about what the Russians do in Chechnya?
BTW, I'm American.
Liar. Go fuck yourself. And, if you are an American, you're a fucking apologist for the 9/11 terrorists, and a pile of shit on the landscape of humanity. May you rot in hell with Hitler, Hussein, Lenin, and the 9/11 terrorists.
You deserve it.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
7 people die in a train/car/plane crash - that's "page 2" news. The fact that it was multi-billion dollar vehicle, one of only a dozen or so on the planet that can get humans into orbit, that's the news.
It is about the stuff. I really feel for the families of those that were lost, but they were not "heroes" - they knew the risks one takes to play with the big toys. I'd go on a shuttle tomorrow, if I had a chance. Lots of people would.
These rev 1 shuttles have been in service for a long time. Where's rev 2? There ought to be lots of them for cheaper by now, and an "oh well" if one is lost now and again.
It's not the people (20 some odd were lost in that commuter plane recently. forgotten already) It is the fact that it was lots of expensive stuff that was lost that makes it big news.
I think it's time that NASA takes a look at the Delta Clipper design again and eventually develop it into the primary method of carrying astronauts into space. Heavier loads will be launched by a new generation of rockets such as the heavier Delta IV variants with the large strap-on boosters.
That way, in the future astronauts will be ferried to ISS via Delta Clipper and space station supplies and ISS expansion components will be lofted up by unmanned heavy booster rockets.
>Take a look at these assholes in iraq
>celebrating this tragedy at Reuters
>What f'ing assholes.
I agree. What callous, insensitive, opportunistic people to take cheap advantage of a tragedy to stir up anger.
Oh, you weren't talking about Reuters? Then I have nothing to say.
~Chris
The Osirak reactor was bombed in the early eighties, not during the gulf war. The reactor was a research reactor, not a power reactor. Also, the fuel rods had not been delivered to the Iraqi reactor when it was bombed, so there was no significant radioactive contamination. By bombing the reactor, the Israelis prevented the fuel rods from being delivered.
Especially if it helps the author to express his or her grief about this. Your response to that "useless junk" cost you more time and energy than reading the original. Let it pass.
Moreso, would they consider stopping the mining all across the US, because of this? Would the media be saying things like 'this is the last dig for anything in the states for a while'. Would they also point out that one of the guys was from Isreal? And would some morons talk about terrorisim possibly being related???
Think how many people were killed in the research for Airplanes in general, Cars, building large projects (think Great Wall of China or The Pyramids). Did they ever consider abandoning or setting back the project by years, or wasting millions because of 7 deaths? Of course not! I mean, I feel for their families, and am upset about the whole thing- but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The whole space program shouldn't go to hell for this.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
The space shuttle is a national investment.
Loosing a $20,000 item is like loosing a man year... of life.
Billion dollar items represent the culmination of many peoples lifes.
1 billion dollars like like spending 50,000 people years. (if $20,000 is good estimate)
or about 1,000 people (if a person has 50 years productivity)
People can make people... but space shuttles help people make people better...
and as for hero's, anybody trusted with that many resourses could be called a hero on some level.
The bigger picture is God... so it's moot, everything is always about God (according to my philosophy, if you want to flame go to my journal page)
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
they were not "heroes" - they knew the risks
Soooo....Understanding the risks of your actions excludes your actions from being considered heroic? Wow, that's truly 'insightful.' And I thought most people would *define* heroism that way.
Yeah, lots of people say they would go, but these people have dedicated their lives to advancing the engineering and life sciences, and they did indeed know the risks that went with this.
*That's* the difference between the family of four that's killed on the way to church by a drunk and this disaster; these people knowlingly took the risk of dying for humanity. And don't give me crap about glory and money -- the Astronaut program pays a salary of approximately $40-$75k, the range of a decent sysadmin. And not everyone makes as much as Glenn on the tour circuit.
And yes, you could then argue that military deaths are equally as notable and noble, and at that point I would agree that the sensationalism of the vehicle and its history come into play. But for Christ's sake, these people were amongst the brightest and highest performing individuals on Earth--many would have articles and books written about them if they'd grown old and died of *natural* causes, let alone a horrific death at 200,000 feet. To say nothing of the loss humanity takes as we take one giant leap backward before crawling back to where we were yesterday.
As for cheap replacements, my dear god you must not be a design engineer. Why don't you go read about some fundamentals of aerospace and CMM level 5 coding practices, and THEN come back and talk with the big boys. This ain't no P2P software or Tivo hardware we're talking about.
Sorry to everyone else for the rant -- but jesus I'm so tired of ignorant people opining on topics of which they are clearly ignorant. 'Insightful' my ass.
There always are. This from people who would defend their Ford Taurus to the death, despite the fact that their Ford Taurus is about the most likely thing to kill them. Unless, perhaps, it's their own bathtub.
In the meantime there are people all over the world dying at the hands of other people, quite maliciously, by the score of scores.
The later is a tragedy. The Space Shuttle failure is an *accident.* In essence no different than a fatal car accident due to some trivial mechanical failure or other. It happens. No one threatened the cancelation of the Navy after the Thresher disaster which took the lives of 129 men, some civilians, despite the fact that these men had no more business being in the deep ocean than man has in space.
Why do we do such things as fly into space in the first place? Well, in the words of one of the great martyrs of going someplace no one has been before, "Because it's there."
When left to his own devices, rather than simply being asked idiotic questions by a mindless press agent, he could be quite a bit more eloquent though, and I'll depart with these words of Mr. Mallory:
"The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."
-George Leigh Mallory, 1922
May the crew of the Columbia rest in peace, and joy, and may others live to experience the same joy of stars reached for.
KFG
I think this is a good argument to continue building and expand the ISS into a station where the shuttle can be inspected in orbit and repaired if possible. We desperately need to expand our presence into LEO if we want to continue manned missions. A repair depot, however simple, could also retrieve and repair damaged satellites and provide a base for us to expand further.
We need that station. We need it to be permanently manned and capable of a lot more than simple experiments. If we are to continue the space program, instead of cutting back until there's little left but semi-smart probes, we need to move on, to never forget, and to make sure it never happens again. We need to explore and use the enormous resources of the solar system to ensure the survival of the human race; to bring our eggs beyond this one basket.
The alternative doesn't bear thinking about. Are we going to ignore the sacrifices that astronauts from world around have made in pursuit of these dreams? Are we going to turn our back on the solar system and throw away what so many people have sweated, worked, and died for? Are we going to throw away the potential given us, by God, Allah, Buddah, or whomever you wish to credit it to?
Are we going to turn our backs on the future of the human race?
We, as Geeks, need to dedicate ourselves to passing this message on - not just to other Geeks, but to everyone we can reach, especially the ordinary people whose opinions matter only en masse; we need to convince them with logic and reason and the passion that drives us; we need to ensure that there are enough people to pass this dream on, like a proliferate virus, until the governments of the world and the people who control the purse strings have no choice but to listen.
An avalanche starts with one small movement, and grows into something unstoppable.
Shadowbearer
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Hubble? Match orbits with the International Space Station?
What the hell are you smoking?!?!? Neither of those is even remotely feasible!!!!!!! Do you understand how Hubble functions, what orbit it is in, and how it is pointed? (It would have an extremely hard time remaining pointed at an object moving in low-Earth orbit, since target would be moving at a very high angular speed across the sky.) There are some ground-based telescopes which can be used to inspect the Shuttle, but the images aren't very high resolution.
There is no way whatsoever that Columbia could have docked with ISS. The orbits were vastly different.
I really hope that was a troll. You've got no idea what you are talking about.
The Challenger disaster O ring problem only came to light several months after the disaster. And it took Dick Feynman's demonstration with the ice water for the theory to be accepted as fact.
The O-ring problem was more insidious and reflected terribly on NASA. The engineers knew about the design defect from actual twisted and scorched O-rings recovered from previous flights. The failure of the O-rings to seat properly on booster ignition was exacerbated not created by cold temperature. The Challenger launch was about 20 below design spec limit of 53F.
NASA repeatedly disregarded the advice of the engineers who designed the system and issued itself waivers to fly well below the design temperature cutoff. The booster design could have been better, and now is, but it is false that the Challenger accident was what brought it to NASA's attention.
Here is a brief account of the history as I have come to believe it occurred. There are many more thorough accounts.
This is not to dismiss Feynmann's role -- his insistence brought O-rings to the fore -- but whistleblower MT engineer Robert Boisjoly was complaining loudly long before the accident.
Why bring this up now? Because we're still hearing the sound bite that Challenger "was due to faulty design" which is true but kind of like saying the drunk died because of his faulty seat belt that didn't save him on hitting his seventh tree.
Challenger was a matter of time. The complex failures of management often set the stage for disaster, and I'm sure Columbia will be far more complex that "act of God."
According to NPR,interfering with evidence at a crash site (even just airplanes) is a violation of federal law punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
I have nothing but the deepest respect for anyone who serves a cause that is bigger than themselves, at the cost of their lives.
We see this sort of stuff in movies so much we forget the courage that it really takes. Often I wish I could be half the man that our nations astronauts and service men are. Astraunots who perish in space deserve our undying respect and remembrance. May they rest in peace.
-Typhon
China killed of their exploration in 1420's... and this web site might be in Chinese if they had the will to continue. see an interesting book "1421:THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE NEW WORLD" By Gavin Menzies (William Morrow)
in the early 1400's china was in front of the rest of the world in exploring the seas... then they made a political decision to stop exploring... and some people argue they have not recovered from that decision yet. It was the short sighted Chinese rulers that burned all their ships and forbid further exploration.
I find your comments very interesting... I love to take the long view of history... its interesting to speculate on what will people remember about todays news. For example, a few hundred years from now they wont study WWI and WWII as separate events. They will just study the great war of the 20th century that began in 1914 and ended in 1945 with a breather in the middle.
And when did our little war with Iraq/Terrorism/Islam start? 9-11? or 1993 when they first bombed the World Trade Center? the first gulf war? The taking of hostages in Iran in 1979? or do you go back to the founding of Israel in 1947? Before that? (balfor declarations?) Go far enough into the future and it all looks like the same conflict.
For that matter, when is it going to end? I think people that are crowing about a short, tidy war will be very rudely surprised. This thing is going to take a long time... (Nostradamus says this war doesn't end until the mid 2020's and that the main Islamic guy was born in 1999.)
How will today be remembered? Great Question. Here is my attempt to answer it:
If our current wise, well read and imaginative leaders have the will to seize the future with both hands, then an international team of astronauts lead by the USA will plant a flag on mars in our life time.
If our bickering, deceitful and self serving beaurocracy decides that space is not important, Martians may not speak English.
Today is definitely a possible turning point for either of those paths. Its kind of up to us... if we the people and the US government kind of have to decide which path to take.
I wish I had more faith in our current leader. I was pissed off that George the First did not Carpe Diem his inauguration speech in 1988 and state clearly then that we should push to be on Mars by 2000. I know Clinton would not have gotten my vote in 1992 if George Bush 1 had been the kind of guy to do that kind of thing. But I dont really have much faith that a Democrat candidate will grasp this idea in 2004 either...
Of corse History is funny.... and in 100 years they may treat today like the Challenger and Applo 1 disasters. Interesting and important but not pivotal events in world history.
I remember celebrating Oct 31 of 2000 as a banner day... its the first day that man began a permanent habitation of space... From that day forward, there will always be at least one human being that is not on Planet earth. I really hope that it doesn't turn out to be just a footnote about mankind's first abortive attempt to permanently leave this planet...
The main engines (and therefore the feedlines to them) only operate during ascent, and shut off prior to making orbit. (They have to; the shuttle contains no main engine fuel internally, and relies on that big orange external tank to run the mains.) A problem with the feed lines might well cause trouble going up the hill, but not during re-entry.
Looks like this inciedent was resulting from damage to the left side gear door. The damage was presumably sustained during launch.
The real question is why they didn't repeat the trick from STS-1 and use observatory photographs to ascertain the extent of the damage before bringing her home?
And that shows you just how risky space flight is, there's a 2% chance that the trip you're about to take will result in your death.
I bet you wouldn't drive your car much if those were the odds, and if you only had a 98% chance of surviving an airplane trip, you wouldn't see nearly as many business trips.
Assuming you'd die every 1 in 50 trips with your car, if you were lucky, you might make it safely through your daily commute for 2-3 months before the odds caught up with you.
I'm wondering if life insurance companies would even write a policy on an Astronaut. I'm betting the answer is no.
Astronauts work their asses off for most of their lives to get one of the hardest and most competitive jobs ever in human history. How many people have gone in to space? 100? That's a pretty elite club, demanding not only technical skills, intelligence, but a tremendous amount of patience and discipline over the course of several years.
In short, they are heroes, they risk their lives on a glorious adventure, and do real science that benefits all of mankind.
The fact that many people would be willing to go to space doesn't diminish the courage of those who do, there's a hell of a lot more to it than just hopping into the rocket, this is something these people have worked towards for decades.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
You're the asshole
So obviously you are the exact same way... Hating another people.