Shuttle Ops in a Post-9/11 world

Craig Fink wrote:

More than just money, we're losing the war by giving up our freedoms.
Losing the very thing we've fought so hard for over the last couple of
centuries. It doesn't make me feel any safer to see little old ladies
taking off their shoes and giving up their fingernail clippers to get on
an airplane.

On 9/11 we had a paradigm shift, about what a hijacking is all about.
Three planes hijacked and used as weapons. People on the fourth plane
actually learning about the paradigm shift real time, and responding to
properly to the paradigm shift. They were heroes who did what was
necessary to stop the aircraft from being used as a weapon, and it worked.
What 9/11 did was change the paradigm and make the life of a would be
hijacker much more difficult. As the other passengers are no longer going to
cooperate and are much more likely to shove the hijackers out the door.
Cooperating was the proper thing to do pre 9/11, but no longer.

To me, the tactic of using aircraft as weapons only worked because it was
not in the conscious realm of possibilities. Now that it is in the realm of
possibilities, it won't work again. All the expense in money, freedom, and
ideals are a bad trade for the illusion of security.

Well said. ...
We seem to be trying to preserve our freedoms by having them taken away.
[USA]. USA founding fathers did not found this country to be "SAFE" but
"FREE."

--
Barbara Needham

Craig Fink wrote:

Photo op, the subject of the picture isn't the astronauts.


We're spending a lot of money to give us the illusion of security, when
the reality is that many of the measures put in place after 9/11 won't
do much to stop terrorism.

bingo. The vast majority of "security" measures are just PR fluff, they
don't do anything to make us safer.

Why is this? Because making a Big Gesture is a lot cheaper and generates
a lot more warm fuzzy feelings for the organization than actually taking
the steps needed to solve the problem *and keep taking those steps, day
in and day out*.


More than just money, we're losing the war by giving up our freedoms.
Losing the very thing we've fought so hard for over the last couple of
centuries.

funny, you mention a paradigm shift about the way to handle a
hijacking...but you completely ignore the other paradigm shift that
happened after 9/11: the shift that means that if the Bad Guys are using
our freedoms against us, we're better off scaling those freedoms back a bit.

Guess one chooses to honor the paradigm shifts that one personally
agrees with, eh?

It doesn't make me feel any safer to see little old ladies
taking off their shoes and giving up their fingernail clippers to get on
an airplane.

okay Craig, tell me what a genuine terrorist looks like. How do you spot
one before they can do their hideous deeds?

On 9/11 we had a paradigm shift, about what a hijacking is all about.

snip

To me, the tactic of using aircraft as weapons only worked because it was
not in the conscious realm of possibilities.

Sure it was, among other things it was the central plot point of at
least two bestselling technothrillers (Clancy's "Debt of Honor" and Dale
Brown's "Storming Heaven"). The ways the aircraft were used in those
books was different in important ways from what actually happened (and
the reality was so much worse and horrific than what was depicted in the
books that the technothriller genre became obsolete overnight), but the
basic concept was well known. The term "poor man's cruise missile" had
been in widespread use for at least two decades before 9/11.

The 9/11 attack was indeed in the conscious realm of possibilities (my
first thought when I heard about the second tower being hit was 'well it
finally happened'), but it was not in the conscious realm of *feasibility*.

In short, everybody knew it was possible, tehre was just no reason to
think it would happen in any particular place at any particular time.

--
Terrell Miller


"Every gardener knows nature's random cruelty"
-Paul Simon George Harrison

Kim Keller wrote:

I forgot to add that the presence of armed security guards
is not new.

snip

I forgot to add something myself. The security guards I respect are the
grunts who stand tall against tyranny, be it here in the newsgroups
against unwarranted attacks by the likes of book-banning Derek Lyons
(who planted words in a guard's mouth when he used the term "naval") or
be it while protecting our interests in the ghetto, aboard ships, and
in the Middle East.

I also recall a coworker's story about security guards
with shotguns on the roof of an OPF during roll-over to
the VAB. That was back in the early 80s.

That sounds about right, back during Reagan's stunts with Challenger,
when Gomez led NASA Security and Hattaway led Lockheed Security. That's
where the national security problems generally are, at the top. I have
it on good authority that after Mission 51-L, Hattaway was dismissed
for unauthorized wiretaps of Lockheed employees at KSC (if not also at
Vandenberg).

The security's not new, but it does seem kind of ridiculous.

I think it depends on which end you're looking at it from. I'm sure
that kid in the photo, like my son Paul, is just doing his job. I'd
trust either one of them with my life.

Challenger's Ghost

In article ,
Terrell Miller wrote:
funny, you mention a paradigm shift about the way to handle a
hijacking...but you completely ignore the other paradigm shift that
happened after 9/11: the shift that means that if the Bad Guys are using
our freedoms against us, we're better off scaling those freedoms back a bit.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt, 1783

It doesn't make me feel any safer to see little old ladies
taking off their shoes and giving up their fingernail clippers to get on
an airplane.

okay Craig, tell me what a genuine terrorist looks like. How do you spot
one before they can do their hideous deeds?

With a competent intelligence network, not with idiocies like banning
penknives from airliners.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On Thu, 12 May 2005 12:51:01 -0500, Henry Spencer wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Terrell Miller wrote:
funny, you mention a paradigm shift about the way to handle a
hijacking...but you completely ignore the other paradigm shift that
happened after 9/11: the shift that means that if the Bad Guys are using
our freedoms against us, we're better off scaling those freedoms back a bit.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt, 1783

Read the quote in my .sig; it pre-dates Pitt's quote by 14 years.

It doesn't make me feel any safer to see little old ladies
taking off their shoes and giving up their fingernail clippers to get on
an airplane.

okay Craig, tell me what a genuine terrorist looks like. How do you spot
one before they can do their hideous deeds?

With a competent intelligence network, not with idiocies like banning
penknives from airliners.

Along with nail clippers, knitting needs, cigarette lighters . . . all
items with a long history of use in hijacking aircraft, of course. :-/


--
Herb Schaltegger, GPG Key ID: BBF6FC1C
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
http://www.individual-i.com/

On Thu, 12 May 2005 19:02:30 -0500, Herb Schaltegger
wrote:

On Thu, 12 May 2005 12:51:01 -0500, Henry Spencer wrote
(in article ):

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt, 1783

Read the quote in my .sig; it pre-dates Pitt's quote by 14 years.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

24 years, but close enough... It must have been inspiring to have lived
in an age when leaders were so idealistic. Perhaps we're just in a lull.

Dale

On Fri, 13 May 2005 07:40:41 -0500, Dale wrote
(in article ):

24 years, but close enough... It must have been inspiring to have lived
in an age when leaders were so idealistic. Perhaps we're just in a lull.

Call it a brain-fart due to an overload of righteous indignation. Much
like refried beans, a little goes a long way . . . ;-)

--
Herb Schaltegger, GPG Key ID: BBF6FC1C
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
http://www.individual-i.com/