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Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting that the Space Shuttle Discovery has lifted off, marking the United States' returned to manned space flight for the first time since the Columbia disaster in February 2003"
Liftoff!
What to shuttle launches and nascar have in common?
People only watch for the crashes!
I'm guessing they'll be doing maintenance and repairs to the space station? How many missions before they get back to doing scientific research?
Sorry to rain on the parade, but why exactly am I supposed to be excited about this?
I remember being excited back in 1981 when Columbia first launched. Oh man. I was an eight-year-old boy, and I sat in awe in front of my TV set as Columbia rose into the sky.
But it's 2005. I'm thirty-three years old. I see grey hair when I look in the mirror. I have a son of my own. Sorry, but I just don't give a toss about Columbia taking off, again, and orbiting the Earth, again.
The whole Universe is out there, and rolling a vehicle built in the 1970s out of the garage and driving it around the block a few times is supposed to be exciting? I'm supposed to call it exploration?
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the shuttle is a deathtrap.
The sensor is the part of the VALVE that failed. Making the valve fail.
Read your post again to yourself. NASA would only launch if the sensor works, or it failed reproducably. Neither of those conditions occurred, yet they launched. There are indeed redundant sensors in the Shuttle - for a reason. NASA doesn't add any "extra" weight or complexity, when they design properly. That redundant sensor is necessary, as you yourself stated. Without reproducability, how does NASA know it won't fail in space? How do they know the other redundant backup sensors won't fail? They don't. But maximizing the media schedule window they created for this launch is PRIORITY #1. So they're willing to risk the launch, the mission, the astronauts, NASA itself, on being ready for their closeup - even if they're not ready.
And their media priority is working: they've even got NASA boosters like you defending their cavalier regard to safety failures, even while you point out exactly why they shouldn't.
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Boring! You should've seen some of the launches back in the good ol' days. They really put on an amazing show, with massive explosions and everything. This thing just had a boring, unchanging tail of fire trailing behind it. Nothing interesting happened at all. No plot; no character development; nothing.
The RIAA is always complaining about piracy hurting sales, but if this is the best blockbuster they can come up with using that billion dollar budget, then I have no sympathy for their plight. Now I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the cinema.
Not acceptable. I'm not willing to settle for the same "exploration" we had 25 years ago. It's not sufficient.
Yeah, it's exciting for little kids, that's great and all. What about my generation, whose dreams of colonizing space are now dead?
Sorry, NASA totally fails to inspire me anymore.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'm dropping our semantic argument about whether a valve dependent on a failing sensor can also be said to be failing.
The sensor failed, without explanation. The failure to repeat the failure makes launching even more risky, as any engineer (especially QA engineers) will tell you. The reason for the multiple redundancy is that its necessary to reduce the risk of exploding astronauts to zero. And there's no reason to believe that the other sensors won't also fail in exactly the same way, at the worst possible time. That flaky sensor now represents a part that can be assumed to fail, though it might not: it's barely worth its weight in liftoff, only because of the effort and complexity to remove it, which introduces other risks. That value is mostly in achieving the mediagenic liftoff today, rather than after determining the cause of the fault, and ensuring it doesn't happen on any (or all) of the redundant sensors.
Space travel is inherently dangerous. It's more dangerous when NASA adminstrators prioritize how they look on TV when they launch over how Shuttles explode. Which also looks really bad on TV. I'm a "NASA booster" myself, but I start with boosting a NASA that serves my interest in America exploring, colonizing and industrializing space to best effect. Which a risk-averse strategy that achieves risky goals like space travel has overwhelmingly succeeded in delivering.
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Your comments on comparative intelligence and rocketry are a joke. The multimillion-dollar financial systems that I have designed and launched are major risks. Taken by extremely risk-averse groups, like giant insurance corporations. So we do whatever we can to minimize every risk. NASA is taking extra risks than necessary, to meet a TV deadline. It sounds like they're about as wise in risk assessment as you are. I bet you'd both have a tough time getting insurance, if the insurer knew how risky is your attitude. Or if Uncle Sam or your mom weren't covering for you.
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You can't even distinguish between "before launch" and "after launch", the critical distinction in when these redundant parts can fail without replacing them.
I'm not sure why I'm dignifying your "I'm gay" comment with a response, so I won't dignify it. You can find gay people to fuck you anytime you like, since the only girl you know is your mamma, who haunts your insipid posts. Maybe they'll even shove a rocket up your ass, which is as close to your brain as rocketry will ever get.
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If my cornea fails, my retina fails, because the blocked retina is not sending images to my brain. That's how dependencies work.
Your info about the reason for the 4-redundancy rule also indicates that NASA isn't changing the redundancy rules to account for changes in the technology. That oversight doesn't exactly reassure me. They stopped the launch when the "now truly extra" sensor failed. As far as I know, they didn't conclusively even repeat the failure, before replacing a part on which the sensor depends - another bad engineering technique. Because they can't know if they have fixed the fault, or if it's just intermittent. Or if it affects the other sensors, too.
Really, engineering is not some magic discipline open to question only by the high anointed initiates. And calling me a jackass or moronic is really obnoxious. It is you who needs to learn a little more about engineering, so you can see the obvious engineering blunders in this risky launch. It is you who could just admit that they're taking an unnecessary risk, which you agree is acceptable, but which is still not necessary. And hard to justify, given the recent disastrous history of Shuttle launches where NASA took too many risks, people died, and our space program was dealt a blow crippling it for years. Now get off my case.
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I didn't refer to the "2003 launch" statement because it's at worst an insignificant error, and really just a manner of speaking. If you want to gloat, go ahead. Who cares.
As for the "valve/sensor" distinction, that's not even an error. The valve depends on the sensor, which failed. So the valve failed. That's why we say that the launch attempt failed, because the launch couldn't proceed without the parts upon which it depends, working.
So what's the difference with all your quibbling? You're defending NASA taking unnecessary risks on the long-awaited relaunch of the Shuttle, with a smokescreen of BS. I note that you haven't responded to NASA's blowing off the two hardest recommendations for fixing its 2003 problems, that I mentioned. Perhaps you really only care about seeing a pretty launch on TV tonight, against an unusually colorful Florida sky? Rather than the success of NASA's relaunch, and the astronauts lives which depend on it?
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You're a fucking fool. They scrubbed the last mission, pissing off the TV producers, making it harder to scrub this one with impunity. They didn't identify the cause of the actual failure of the sensor, so they don't know what happened, so they don't know it won't happen again. This time when it counts, not in a prelaunch test. Redundant parts aren't "extra", they're necessary - or they wouldn't go into a space vehicle.
Anonymous retard Coward, you betray your abject ignorance of engineering and risk. No wonder you worship the bad engineering and foolish risk-taking governing today's launch. Next, you'll tell me it's all OK, because the Shuttle hasn't blown up yet. It's just a matter of time before you show every flaw your inanely typing brain has been saving for today's auspicious occasion.
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Because you're gay.
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