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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."
They may hate the shuttle but due to the short sightedness of the last few administrations they have no other viable space lift vehicle available. And they have contractual obligations on the International Space Station. The poor Russians (bankrupt as they are) are pulling more than their share and might get fed up soon if NASA doesnt start pulling its weight. After all the Russian part of the ISS is built independently. They can just close the doors and jettison all the US modules.
**Life is too short to be serious**
It's not bad engineering....blame the politicians and bureaucrats behind the scenes saying, "DO IT!" when the engineers are screaming, "NO!". That's why we lost the first shuttle...
Okay peeps:
1) Replacing the shuttle. yes we should. No we haven't. But we've got that great big investment up there called the ISS. Shall we just abandon it? Didn
't think so.
2) 'Disasters' - We've had two. Fewer than the Apollo program. They suck. Really they do. And they have been attributed to the 'make it work anyway' group. Who, I might add, are usually under $$$ pressure from those who are screaming for better "return on investment for the taxpayer". This is still, contrary to popular belief, exploration, and *THINGS WILL HAPPEN* - it is not airflight.
3) 'We should develop -insert your favorite space technology here-', Some of those technologies do need testing in space now.
4) 'what about spaceship-one' - what was the payload capacity? 200kilo? Roughly?
yes, NASA has problems - but contrary to popular belief - we really need the shuttles flying, if only to develop the replacements!
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.