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The Space Shuttle Returns
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Return to Flight site details the space shuttle's to return to active use. The Flash intensive site features details on the mission, the crew, and the shuttle itself. Additionally, the site features none other than Scott Bakula as Captain Archer on the bridge of the Enterprise (USS, not STS)."
Of course they need the support of the masses, they foot the bill!
More than anything else Nasa needs the public to be excited by space like they were in the 60's. If it takes Scott Bakula to do that, then so be it. Obviously I'd prefer the public to fall in love with the actual astronauts again, but that's not going to work when they're this deep into a rut. If they can build some excitement with b-list celebrities and--more importantly--high-profile missions, then they can use astronauts to publicize themselves.
I'm no expert on space travel, so I'm sure someone more informed than I can fix the numbers, but a little research has told me that there have been between 2 and 9 shuttle missions a year between 1981 and now, with a 2 year hiatus after Challenger. Assume, the average is 4 per year, for 22 years, that means that there have been 88 shuttle flights. I'm fairly young, so I don't remember most of the space program, but I can only think of two Shuttle disasters, Challenger and Columbia. That gives the shuttle a success rate of 97.7%. That doesn't sound all that dangerous to me...
Of course, each failure is by definition fatal and expensive, but I wouldn't call the space program a failure or overly dangerous.
The Saturn I, IB, and V boosters all had a 100 percent success rate during launch. There have really only been 4 major disasters in the nearly 50 year history of spaceflight, and only three of them fatal (Apollo 1, and the two shuttles. Apollo 13 being the 4th, and nonfatal disaster)
They can mitigate the risks involved but never even come close to eliminating them all.
That statment applies to LIFE. The same can be said of cars, airplanes, boats... horses... Life is risky. Period. the question is, do the benifits outweigh the risks. I'd say yes, but I'm sure there are those that disagree.