Shuttle Politics

TheLoneCabbage writes "Texas Rep. Joe Barton has been quoted today in an AP article saying that he is in favor of grounding the remaining fleet of shuttles. 'If we have to stop manned spaceflight for five or 10 years, then so be it.' The fine gentleman from Texas displays his outstanding grasp of statistics and engineering stating that 1 failure in every 62.5 flights is NOT acceptable. According to OpenSecrets.org this may have more to do with Joe's friends than how much attention he paid to his math teachers." There's also an interesting piece on testimony given by the first Shuttle program manager.

Comments

Re:Stupid White Men

[BrainInAJar]

No, Michael Moore is an idiot.

I'm not saying that because I'm a conservative (liberal, for anyone outside the US), because I'm not, I'm a marxist... I'm saying it because Michael Moore is an idiot. When faced with the question "How do you explain the glaring factual inadequacies of this book?" his reply was "yeah, I don't really worry about that kind of stuff"

He makes the entire left wing look like a bunch of nutters.

Re:Why rush?

[cayenne8]

It's not a matter of "telling people they can't." It's a matter of NOT pouring billions into an overpriced, underproducing, dangerous program.

Actually, we could EASILY afford to reconfigure the shuttles, design and build new ones, and solve most of our domestic (US) problems (education, etc) if we'd STOP giving so damned much money away in foreign aid!! We give ludicrous amounts to the UN, and most of the world....our tax dollars could go a long way here if we quit giving it away to the world....