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Space Shuttle to re-launch in May
Goeland86 writes "CNN reports that NASA is on it's way to prepare for a shuttle launch in may. Considering the damage caused by the Hurricanes this season, I think it's quite impressive that they're even thinking of a launch next year altogether."
Mod parent up....
I heard it straight from the horse's mouth. I attended two talks in the last week presented by Allan McDonald (although there were MANY engineers who initially called for the halting of Challenger, Allan was the head of these). The facts are:
Allan and his company at the time, ATK Thiokol, had actually given the "no go" for launch due to many concerns... cold weather affecting o-rings, high wind shear forcasted, and the SRB retrieval team was leaving their post due to high sea swells. What did the management do? They called a midnight meeting between the engineering heads and the Mission Management Team. They then would not accept "no" as an answer, and finally got a "go" after an anonymous vote among Thiokol engineers (note: anonymous meant any one individual could not be blamed). Anyone see a major problem here? The bigwigs wanted to launch at all costs. Similar problems occurred right before Columbia.
Face it people, NASA has become a "Prove that it fails or we will launch" rather than a "prove it will work or we won't launch" organization. Slight difference in wording, but huge gap in meaning.