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Shuttle Assessment Tool was Inferior

Posted by michael on from the you-can-do-a-lot-with-a-spreadsheet dept.

An anonymous reader writes " Shuttle report in Houston Chronicle: 'The computer program Boeing engineers used to predict that a debris-damaged Columbia could land safely wasn't much more than a simple chart of past foam damage, accident investigators said Tuesday.'"

2 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What choice did they have? by Smallpond · · Score: 1, Interesting


    Yeah. Just like the way they gave up on Apollo 13 after it exploded in space. Oh wait, they got it back safely.

    Don't for a second think that NASA engineers take their job lightly. The ones I've known are very committed. Look at the number of emails and memos that were passed around about the foam hitting the wing.

    Hindsight says they should have taken the warnings more seriously, but they get warnings on every flight. If they grounded the shuttle until it was as safe as a passenger plane, we just wouldn't be in space at all.

  2. Re:"Just a Spreadsheet" doesn't much matter by ray-auch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not to mention that even if they HAD said "it's dead" there would have been NO POSSIBLE WAY to save the crew

    Reports on released emails say that NASA engineers would seem to disagree. Maybe you're better at spaceflight than they are...