The Shuttle Mission No One Wants

Fourmica writes "USA Today (by way of TechNewsWorld) has a surprisingly insightful look at the planned 'rescue option' for Discovery's upcoming launch. The plan, which has been mentioned here before, is to have the crew hole up on the ISS until Atlantis can launch to bring them home. My question is, why shove everyone into the ISS? Why not just dock with it, and share the life support supplies between the two systems, instead of cramming everyone into the station?" See this earlier story on the same topic.

Comments

Re:Burt Rutan: 4 Days. NASA: 2 Years

[dvnelson72]

Your analysis is completely flawed. Burt Rutan doesn't have Congressional hearings every time there is a failure. He also hasn't lost lives, that I know of.

The difference isn't that NASA is a bunch of bungling eggheads. The difference is that the eggheads get their money from a bunch of bungling blowhards in the gov't.

what do you mean "no one wants"?

[Anonymous Coward]

considering nasa and the military have worked together to put satellites in orbit that enable remote cruise missile bombardment and american-style hyperwar, there are quite a few people globally who wouldn't mind seeing a few more nasa mission failures, thanks very much

republican warmongerers feel free to mod this down

Re:Easy solution

[Picass0]

At $10 a ticket, that pretty much covers it. But how do you get everyone to watch it?

1. Video Camera
2. Natelie Portman
3. Shuttle Robot Arm
4. Directed by the Dark Brothers
5. Profit

Re:Answer

[lostwanderer147]

Honestly, no, I don't think NASA knows what it's doing. Although it has some great achievements (man in space, first man on the moon, etc.), it also has a tremendous share of bloopers. Consider:

Early 90s, I think, there was a mission to Mars, and somebody misprogrammed something, and the mission missed Mars by quite a long shot;

Just a few years ago, there was another mission to Mars, where they again misprogrammed, and the mission crashed into Mars, destroying everything;

When the Hubble Telescope first went up, shortly after, they realized that they had forgotten to put in one of the lenses;

The Columbia tragedy: if they'd looked, they could have seen it coming;

Challenger and the Apollo mission(15?)that both malfunctioned, killing all inside.

And, just recently, the budget for NASA has been cut drastically. I hate to say it, and I wish it wasn't so, but NASA is in a death spiral, and unless something big happens soon, the US space program will soon be history. Sure, there may be some private enterprises that send missions, but there will be an end to government-sponsored and supported space exploration.

Re:RC Landing?

[mp3phish]

I don't really think people care too much if it lands in Texas. Maybe NY or California... Or Arkansas...

But who cares if it kills a thousand or several in Texas? Would be a relief.