SwiftVets.com

[GenrXr]

NASA is unnecessarily placing Astronauts lives in danger over Money and Politics

Risk assessment for catastrophic failure during the shuttle programs inception ranged from 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 10,000, yet today we can say from actual launches it is closer to 1 in 50. Maybe it is just bad luck or perhaps the actual risk for total failure is closer to 1 in 2 and the Shuttle program has been beating the odds.

Who knows? There is not an engineer on the planet able to calculate the risk. The problem is the shuttle is over engineered with ancient technology. Too many things can go wrong.

NASA and congress have built an entire cottage industry of companies which service the space shuttle and these dollars affect funding for NASA itself. The only reason this trash can is still launching is due to these dollars and the politics played.

My wish is for a continued and adequately funded NASA, yet this dangerous cottage industry must be dismantled and a new launch vehicle built. Now as opposed to some point in the future.

Have the 7 astronauts who board Discovery tomorrow been made fully aware of the latest risk assessments for catastrophic failure? Somehow, I doubt it, yet most likely all of them know in their gut just how dangerous it is and still they fly. Why? Well test pilots fly dangerous craft all the time knowing full well the risks. The shuttle is no test platform though. Rather then cutting edge technology testing the outer limits, we have a 30 plus year old design built at the dawn of the age of computing. As opposed to testing the frontiers of space and technology, NASA spends more time justifying the programs continued existence. We hear a lot of why it should fly as opposed to what it has done. Money, politics and a bloated bureaucracy in self-preservation will do that.

Regardless, my hat goes off to the men and women who actually fly this trash can and hope and pray for a safe return from space.

God Speed Discovery Crew

Rich Tucker, in his article 'Waste of Space' hits upon the same theme.
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"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy

[Schadow]

In a style reminiscent of Challenger days, strong voices registered serious safety concerns in the Flight Readiness Reviews leading up to tomorrow's launch. The reviewers who represented flight safety were, in the end, asked to sign off on the flight and they did. Had they not, the flight could not have gone forward.

So, weakness and lack of resolve have once again triumphed. Maybe the launch will be successful and maybe not, but those signatures concurring in readiness provide the cover necessary to protect NASA managers in the event of failure.

There were five or six NASA managers who should have been charged with negligent homicide in Challenger but they were allowed to retire quietly.

Schadow
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Capt, 8th U.S. Army, Korea '53 - '54

[GenrXr]

[Schadow]

Well, now after two scrubs (in which the liquid oxygen and hydrogen are drained back into the ground dewars) a crack appears in the external tank insulation. The tank has been cycled from cryo temperatures to Florida ambient twice. It would take a pretty tough insulation-to-aluminum interface to withstand that.

I'm glad I'm not in the meeting taking place now. With all the focus on this problem, don't be surprised at an announcement of roll-back and indefinite schedule slip.

Schadow
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Capt, 8th U.S. Army, Korea '53 - '54

[dusty]

Whoever heard of building a permanant space station without giving it artificial gravity anyway. They would never have done it this way in Star Trek.

Dusty
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Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right!