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

grow a pair

[v1]

If this group was in charge of the appolo missions we'd still be doing near earth orbital testing.

Space is dangerous, expensive, and offers very few good opportunities. If you want to get anywhere you have to take risks. I'm not saying that people should just throw their lives away for nothing, but every trip they make into space breaks new ground and teaches them new lessons. If you want the rewards you have to be prepared to walk away with a bloddy nose now and again, especially in a game like this.

It may be harsh, but I would say that if they are trying to make space travel 100% safe, it's just plain never going to happen. Right now I think we should be happy with 90%. From a purely practical perspective, if a dozen people lose their lives to accellerate the space program 10 years, I would call that a good trade. And I'd be happy to be one of those 12.

Re:grow a pair

[HaloZero]

And when Thirteen blew up due to a bad tank coil - 2/3rds of the way to the moon - they actually FIXED the problem before Fourteen left the pad.

Yes, it's perfectly dangerous, but there's no reason to make it worse by not performing your due dilligence, and building a spaceworthy craft. Yes, there are going to be problems, but there's something to be said for learning from your mistakes.

Re:grow a pair

[Alien Being]

That's an unfair comparison. The explosion on Apollo 13 was the result of straightforward engineering and manufacturing errors. The shuttle suffers from an inherent design flaw.

Re:Rules of Shuttle Flight

[kimvette]

You got it wrong. It's:

      1. cut funding
      2. ignore the engineers and launch anyhow
      3. blame the engineers when something goes wrong
      4. State the problem is not what even high-school dropouts suspect is the problem
      5. Ignore the engineers for weeks until it becomes patently obvious to even idiots that the problem engineers warned about and laypersons expected was the problem IS the problem

Re:Common sense

[WindBourne]

Everybody except the top ppl. For some odd reason, the day of the the buck stops here is now that shit flows downhill.

Re:Common sense

[Breakfast Pants]

Completely depends on your metric. Fatality per mile, the shuttle is no doubt kicking cars' ass.

What's the Problem Lately?

[Hercules Peanut]

I'm sure I'll get slammed for this but, well who cares. I remember watching the first shuttles go up. It seemed like we flew a lot of shuttle missions without any problems (sans Challenger, I know BIG PROBLEM). The point is that it seems like problems are far more common now with all of the new tech and more importantly lessons learned than in the old days.

What's happened? Did we redesign something? Are they so old that the parts are wearing out and we can't replace them as well as we built them to begin with? Are we just publicizing problems more now than we used to? I haven't seen anything to tell me why it seems we can't launch a shuttle without something faling off when the old ones flew without a publicized hitch.

Anyone?

This ain't the NASA of the moonshot

[Opportunist]

The moonshot was a "fuck money, whatever it takes to get there" project. They got the best people, the best equipment, priority funding and restrictions simply didn't exist. Success was paramount. Failure was no option, whatever the cost, no failure may happen, for this is a fight of ideology.

Now, this changed big time. NASA gets the people it can afford, it gets the equipment the contractors that bid lowest and offer the best counter-contracts offer, they receive funding whenever something's left from the bomb budget and they have to deal with environmental restrictions and people complaining about the noise of their testing facilities.

Space flight has turned from a prestige object into a business. It has to try to be profitable. Now, it is VERY hard to actually be directly profitable in manned space flight. The moonshot did boost economy and quickened development in many, military as well as civilian, areas, especially we, in the IT biz, would be far from where we're today without the space program.

But today, everything, even science, has to be profitable. That's the big problem with the NASA today. They aren't "worse" than they were in the 60s, they don't slack or work more sluggish. It's just not space race time anymore.