On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 23:43:29 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Maybe because people smell blood in the forthcoming CAIB report, it has
been fashionable lately to bash NASA management for the Columbia disaster.
This seems to be the exceedingly rare point on which Oberg, the New York
Times, CAIB, and many other parties all seem to agree. But not me.

(Curiously, relatively little anger is directed at NASA director Sean
O'Keefe, even though he calls himself a "bean counter". Does "bean
counter" sound like "flight safety"?)

Whatever problems they find in NASA management, I'm sure they were
there long before Mr. O'Keefe came along. The perceived problem when
he took the job was budgets and schedules, not flight safety. I
hardly think it's reasonable to blame him for not going up and
cleaning up what was not perceived to be a problem.

The real problem is that the shuttle is not safe for astronauts and
never will be.

No, the real problems are that the Shuttle is too expensive, too
fragile, and every accident make a fleet that's already too small
smaller, by an increasing percentage.

Lives of the astronauts are a secondary issue. NASA has too many of
them, and if they don't want to take the risk, they'd have no trouble
find more who will. This whining notion (by those whose lives aren't
even at risk) that human life takes precedence over all other
considerations is absurd. It's not true of any other human endeavor,
and opening a frontier is the last place in which that emphasis should
be placed.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

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