January 17, 2004

Charles Buckley wrote:

At some point, in any engineering endeavor, someone has to
run the numbers and pull the plug. The plug here is Shuttle.
By my count, there are about 20 more flights for Shuttle.
Which is damn close to a 50-50 chance of another Shuttle
accident under the current safety rating before it is retired.

Time to double check your Shuttle units. Let's see, the shuttle has a demonstrated
1 in 100 flight loss risk, and now we've made some improvements ... How many
shuttle flights before 2010? I'm so confused.

Any Shuttle mission now has a discernable risk.

As opposed to a previously indiscernible flight loss risk?

Simple risk analysis. Is an incremental maint mission
of Hubble worth the 2% chance of a loss of an irreplaceable
Shuttle? Nope.

First you state the Shuttle will be retired, but now you call them irreplaceable.
Can you please make up your mind!

Space is scary. I'm so scared. Better we not take any pictures.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net