"J Waggoner" wrote in message
...
There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
necessary. Lets face it Griffin has been campaigning for this
since Bush announced the back to the moon plan. The Russians
have given shuttle fans a gift in this way. Remember the Shuttles
were not to blame for the loss of Columbia or challenger. It was the
SRB joint and the tank foam. The real blame of course sits with
engineers who are human.

With Challenger, the blame sits squarely on management's shoulders. The
engineers recommended to *not* launch Challenger in such cold conditions.
They had some data to back them up, but management wanted them to prove the
shuttle would fail if they launched. Management turned safety upside down.

With Columbia, some management decisions were equally silly. As testing on
the ground showed, there was likely a huge hole in the wing leading edge,
yet no attempt was made to look for the hole. Many of the post-Columbia TPS
repair methods were originally concieved before STS-1 even flew. Obviously
it was a mistake for NASA to slowly start treating the TPS as a maintenenace
issue rather than a safety issue.

Once you go down that road, there isn't any point in inspecting the TPS,
since you couldn't fix it anyway, right? The mistake in this logic is that
if the hole had been discovered while Columbia was in orbit, every attempt
would have been made to save the crew. The engineers never had the
opportunity to attempt a rescue like Apollo 13.

Another method of launching the shuttle could always be revived. But
I do think Orion will be slowed down and perfected. Its not good to
rush a new program, you end up with disaster like Apollo One or
Challenger.

Look at the details of Ares I. That program is one giant hack on top of
another. It needs to die a quiet death and be replaced with something more
sane, like Orion launched by EELV's. The shuttle's paint shaker SRB's ought
not be allowed on any future launch vehicle, manned or otherwise.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein