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Pastimes : Shuttle Columbia STS-107 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (244)	2/3/2003 7:29:59 PM
From: ownstock	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 627

And to add further to the story: The US has lots of resources to take pictures of satellites in orbit. Even if the crew members could not have reached the under part of the leading edge, they could have had any number of military assets take a photo of it. Take a look at the link I posted to the MSNBC site. Looks to me like a large area of tile on the lower leading edge of the left wing blew off. The left tire pressure was low due to being cold: no tiles over the door. After the "launch incident" was closed, of course the tire problem was un-correlated. Nobody seems to have remembered the zipper effect. They should have off-loaded as many of the crew onto the ISS as they could get. Even if they had only been able to get two off (the reported number of suits onboard), they should have. You do not need a docking ring; just an airlock, and that is built into the Shuttle. But that would have been embarrassing. Better to just let the problem go away, or maybe we get lucky? Semper Fi, do and die. JMHO -Own

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (244)	2/3/2003 9:03:16 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 627

Y'all - The problem is that you are assuming that NASA knows when something is adequate and when it is not. That it is an exact, or even imprecise, science. It isn't. I've done similar fault analyses and it is an art. As for the concept of doing space walks with just a tether - this isn't Buck Rogers or Star Trek. You and the rope have to have something to push/rub against and the only thing out there is fragile tile. As for the concept of transferring to the Space Station, I do not know what orbit the shuttle was in relative to the ISS but I'd be willing to bet that any attempted transfer would have been over thousands of miles and at miles per second. (i.e. not possible) As for the concept of using military assets, well who knows but keep in mind that the shuttle is travelling miles per second and could be many hundreds or thousands of miles away. They might see the shuttle, but individual tiles?? The only possible solution would have been to do something before launch like have some way to see and fix a missing tile. But that is extremely difficult since the tiles are soo damn finicky. Bottom line - space travel is dangerous. And you can absolutely count on the fact that the astronauts know it. They choose the risk. So do we - anybody who is paying attention. And it will not be 'safe' anytime in our lifetimes; it can just be made safer. There is just too darn much energy involved. Clark

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (244)	2/4/2003 7:55:25 PM
From: Yogizuna	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 627

Maybe they wouldn't have had any options, but hell management didn't even try. I'm not happy that every time they talk they seem to be trying to get in front of things in such a way to just cover their ass. I will add , it's coming out faster and better than I thought it would. But I bet it's more because of the pressure being put on them, than any yearning to be honest. Jim Yes, unfortunately, management often turns out to be the weakest link in many instances. And of course since these people are placed on a pedestal or place themselves on a pedestal, covering their own backsides becomes the overwhelming priority much of the time..... NASA is better these days at coming clean relatively quickly, but there is still plenty of room for improvement in their attitudes and methods.... I do not believe we should be sentencing astronauts to death when something goes wrong without even attempting or being prepared for a rescue mission. This is criminal and shameful and must be changed.