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Panel Challenges NASA Over Shuttle Safety
Uttini writes "NASA skipped some shuttle safety improvements as it tried to meet unrealistic launch dates for the first flight since the Columbia tragedy, some members of an oversight panel said in a scathing critique. Poor leadership also made shuttle Discovery's return to space more complicated, expensive and prolonged than it needed to be."
They need to keep people thinking that their program is deserving of taxpayers' money. The best way to do that is to launch the shuttle, especially after something like columbia.
They did what they with what they had; the government keeps cutting nasa funding, and THAT is what lead to columbia -- too little money, too much to do.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
I was contracting for a Rockwell division the day the Challenger blew up, and 20 minutes after it went down, we had an office pool going: "How long will it take them to figure out that it was caused by some middle-manager (somewhere in the supply chain) screaming "Whaddaya mean I can't ship on schedule??!!??""
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Something tells me there was a carrier loss when they transmitted your DNA...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If we simply are 100% as perfectly careful as possible, fearing to tread anywhere but our exact previous footsteps, taking forever to inspect and re-inspect, we will never learn how to do it differently.
It is through our mistakes that we learn. Anybody willing to go up in a space shuttle knows they run a strong risk of death. Personally, I'd be excited to have the chance to risk my life in that noble work. Instead, for the sake of those who love me (okay, and for lack of ability or opportunity), I toil with my daily work, contributing my bit to the economy, so indirectly supporting the space program.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
>>> What if that one chunk hadn't fallen off
>>>right in view of the camera?
Dude.... they are using HUNDREDS of cameras now.
It didn't fall right in view of '*the* camera'. They just relesed the best view to show what happened.
>>The return-to-flight mission would have been
>>declared an outstanding success. Regular
>>launches would have resumed. We would be back
>>on track again.
So if you don't see the problem it doesn't exist? Sounds like you're NASA material!
People seem to forget that space travel is freaking dangerous. The whole concept of a lit rocket attached to your ass is probably never going to be as safe as walking to the store.
At some point, NASA will do as much as can be reasonably be expected and allow a volunteer to climb in the shuttle and hope for the best.
People who can, do. People who can't, sit on committees and complain.
Those people need to get out of the way and let NASA do their job.
I heard a news report that said that gap fillers had been known to come loose in the past and no one worried about it too much. We're now hyper-sensitive to any damage to the tile system, probably way beyond what we should be. The fact that it took them so long to decide whether to go out and fix the problem shows that the associated risk was low, especially when compared to the risk of screwing something up if they accidentally pulled off a tile during the repair.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Unavoidable risk: a rocket is an enormous explosive just barely controlled by exotic, expensive and difficult technology.
Avoidable risk: doing stupid things in your design to endanger lives.
The laws of physics, and many realities of engineering, are exactly the same today as they were in 1960.
For instance: what is the right place to locate the humans?
On the very top, because then they are the furthest away from the really dangerous bits. And delicate stuff needed for re-entry can be shielded and be far away from the immensely violent launch and debris and whatever is coming out of the ground and shaken off the rocket.
Corollary: where do you put the fuel tanks? On the rear end, dummy.
There's lots of reasons the Saturn V looked like it does. And how it looks like a whole lot of other rockets, except the shuttle. Ain't a coincidence.
These problems were known and solved, and the shuttle un-solved them.
Obviously, we need some more Nazi rocket scientists.
So a plane which can fly back is supposed to be 'cost effective'. But why does it have to be so big? You generally take big fat cargos up and then work on them. So take them in a big fucking can, which sits UNDER your small, human sized space plane which re-enters and holds the people, tools and control bits. You throw away the can. And under the cargo, you put the fat ass rockets.
You make them as cheap as possible, with metal-wrangling shipbuilding level technology, not ultra-high tech fancy pants stuff. That stuff is use 'once or twice', if it's still OK when you get it back off the ocean. Only the engines are the big monetary per-launch loss, but even now they have big solid rocket boosters which are one-use only.
They should make a big Saturn V style launcher with cheap ass solids strapped around the bottom for the initial heavy lift, like the Soyuz, then a cheap ass liquid booster module. Then a cargo can, and on top, the orbital and re-entry vehicle.
And also put that doohickey on the very top like with the Saturn V. What's it for? It's a little escape pod rocket and parachute to get the people the fuck away from the big explosive bits if something really bad happens.
If the Challenger worked like that, the crew might have been able to walk away, depending on circumstances.