Shuttle to Launch Despite Objections

sam0ht writes "NASA has just named July 1st as the launch date for the space shuttle Discovery, a year after the last shuttle mission. Last July's mission was the first since the break-up of Columbia in 2003, but after foam again broke away from the main tank, the shuttle fleet was grounded. More foam has been removed from the main tank, but NASA staff are divided over whether this is enough to ensure the flight's safety, with some reporting that both the lead engineer and top safety official are against launching again so soon. Managers want to make only one major change at a time, and plan that if damage does occur, the crew would be able to stay in the International Space Station, to which they are delivering supplies, rather than trying to land a damaged shuttle."

Comments

Rules of Shuttle Flight

[ettlz]

1. Do not ignore the engineers.
2. Do not ignore the engineers.
3. Do not open the windows.

Ignoring engineers hasn't got the Shuttle very far in the past. From the Challenger Wikipedia article:

[Feynman] was so critical of flaws in NASA's "safety culture" that he threatened to not sign off on the report unless it included his assessment, which appeared as Appendix F. He pointed to the discrepancy between management claiming a 1 in 100,000 chance of serious failure and the engineers claiming 1 in only 100, a risk one thousand times greater.

Re:Common sense

[Waffle Iron]

Fatality per mile, the shuttle is no doubt kicking cars' ass.

I don't know about that. Most shuttle trips are pretty short: They start at one of the Kennedy Space Center's launch pads, and they disembark just a couple of miles away at the shuttle's runway.