Space Shuttle Grounded Indefinitely AGAIN Due To Major Flaw

"Zigler" wrote in message
...

I was talking to a crazy ******* today who expressed the opinion:

"what a ****ing waste of time and money. Who'd have thought that humans
weren't meant for outer space, unless they watched too much
sci-fi or the Jetsons... The white man has ****ed up the earth and now
wants to extend its "progress" to the rest of the galaxy..."

I'm not sure what to make of such radical views, but I would like to know
the real benefit to humanity for this obsession with
traveling and "conquering" outer space when things right here on earth are
royally ****ed and millions are starving to death of no
fault of their own. It makes you think, if you do think at all.


The Meek shall inherit the Earth.

The rest of us are going to the stars.

wrote:

Every once in a long while, there's a story that brings me nearly to
tears. This is one of them. Ever since I was a little kid, I loved
everything about spaceflight, and space science. I had such hopes for
the return to flight -- a triumph after a tragedy. My father was on the
Columbia Disaster Recovery Crew. Picking up the pieces. To see the
shuttle broken again really hurts.

"Broken again"???

The shuttle was broken from the day they built it.
Some things, like the Rube Goldberg system of fragile thermal protection
tiles which can come off for all sorts of reasons, are basic design flaws.

So is the use of solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Rockwell, the winning
bidder for the shuttle contract, touted SRBs as "more reliable" than
liquid-fueled boosters. Talk about a half-truth. It is true that the
failure rate of solid rockets is lower than the failure rate of
liquid-fueled boosters. But when a solid rocket fails, it fails
*catastrophically*. When a liquid rocket fails, it shuts down. When a
solid rocket fails, it explodes.

Why did NASA go with this poor design rather than the competing
McDonnell Douglas design? The usual reason. Low bid.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

Steven L. wrote:

Rockwell, the winning
bidder for the shuttle contract, touted SRBs as "more reliable" than
liquid-fueled boosters. Talk about a half-truth. It is true that the
failure rate of solid rockets is lower than the failure rate of
liquid-fueled boosters. But when a solid rocket fails, it fails
*catastrophically*. When a liquid rocket fails, it shuts down. When a
solid rocket fails, it explodes.

Why did NASA go with this poor design rather than the competing
McDonnell Douglas design?


There MUST be a way to pin this on Bush somehow!
I'll work on it!

Ryd

In article . net,
Steven L. wrote:
The Shuttle is scheduled to be phased out around 2008...

No, 2010, and it has work to do before then -- there are commitments to
be met, promises to keep.

Maybe the Bush Administration should just stop beating a dead horse,
junk the Shuttle, and institute a high-priority crash program to build a
new state-of-the-art vehicle.

High-priority crash programs are very expensive, especially when done by
today's NASA and its traditional contractors, and the political support to
spend that kind of money on spaceflight isn't there -- not in the White
House, not in Congress, not in public opinion.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

"Ryd" wrote in message oups.com...
Steven L. wrote:

Rockwell, the winning
bidder for the shuttle contract, touted SRBs as "more reliable" than
liquid-fueled boosters. Talk about a half-truth. It is true that the
failure rate of solid rockets is lower than the failure rate of
liquid-fueled boosters. But when a solid rocket fails, it fails
*catastrophically*. When a liquid rocket fails, it shuts down. When a
solid rocket fails, it explodes.

Why did NASA go with this poor design rather than the competing
McDonnell Douglas design?


There MUST be a way to pin this on Bush somehow!
I'll work on it!

dude, it's not rocket science...


Ryd

Independent_Voter ) wrote:
: It's time to privitize NASA

Just because of the shuttle? What about near earth satellites and deep
space probes that are unmanned? Simply can them too because you're not
happy with the shuttle? You obviously have not thought this through and
have taken a kneejerk approach.

Privatize the war in Iraq first!

Eric

) wrote:
: Every once in a long while, there's a story that brings me nearly to
: tears. This is one of them. Ever since I was a little kid, I loved
: everything about spaceflight, and space science. I had such hopes for
: the return to flight -- a triumph after a tragedy. My father was on the
: Columbia Disaster Recovery Crew. Picking up the pieces. To see the
: shuttle broken again really hurts. Now it's a tragedy again.

No one is dead and we shouldn't act as if anyone is. No doubt the re-entry
of Discovery will be nail biting time, but to act as if this mission
failed because it wasn't flawless is just silly. As the Brits would say,
"keep a stiff upper lip".

Eric

Jon S. Berndt (jsb.at.hal-pc-dot.org) wrote:
: To see the shuttle broken again really hurts. Now it's a tragedy again.
: ...
: Ground the Shuttle forever!
:
: etc.

: Geez. I thought I'd test the waters and revisit s.s.s and s.s.p. Then to
: see crap like this again ... The signal to noise ratio is still too low.

: We've got a camera on the ET, now, for only the second time in the program.
: It's not that this hasn't been happening all along. Now we just know about
: it. Sure, the insulation issue it needs to be addressed, but I don't see a
: really long standdown due to this. I have a hunch that the orbiter belly is
: cleaner (fewer divots) than in most previous flights based on what I've seen
: so far. The ascent was very uneventful, in the words of Commander Collins,
: as I recall reading.

: Get a grip.

I agree! People declaring this some sort of disaster at this stage is
simply wrong.

Eric

: Jon

jonathan ) wrote:

: "Jon S. Berndt" jsb.at.hal-pc-dot.org wrote in message
: ...
: To see the shuttle broken again really hurts. Now it's a tragedy again.
: ...
: Ground the Shuttle forever!
:
: etc.
:
: Geez. I thought I'd test the waters and revisit s.s.s and s.s.p. Then to
: see crap like this again ... The signal to noise ratio is still too low.
:
: We've got a camera on the ET, now, for only the second time in the program.
: It's not that this hasn't been happening all along. Now we just know about
: it. Sure, the insulation issue it needs to be addressed, but I don't see a
: really long standdown due to this. I have a hunch that the orbiter belly is
: cleaner (fewer divots) than in most previous flights based on what I've seen
: so far. The ascent was very uneventful, in the words of Commander Collins,
: as I recall reading.
:
: Get a grip.



: A reality check is the entire point. Let's see who has a grip.

: The entire point of the shuttle was to build a flippin space station
: as a foundation for greater goals. And now the prospect of having
: the ISS wear out before it's even finished is staring us in the face.

Wear out? In what way? Will it become obsolete due to the competition?

: Sorry for my English, but I can't emphasize the stark reality.
: THIRTY FLIPPIN YEARS of work down the tubes
: if the space station fails and we have to start over.

I bet you were one of the ones that didn't want to save Mir?

: We were supposed to have a reliable transportation system
: and a space station at the....same time. By the time we have
: a replacement shuttle the space station won't ...be there.

Where is it going?

: And by the time we build an ISS2, the shuttle2 will be
: worn out. Kind of a fundamental flaw in planning, as in
: it couldn't be any worse.

Makes you wonder about Bush's commitment to "moon, mars and beyond",
doesn't it?

: Flushed, a complete failure of Nasa's primary program stretching
: the better part of half a century.

: That's what history will say.

No it won't. It'll say that an aging fleet had troubles, and was
eventually replaced... Words like "failure" won't enter into the picture.

We still have three shuttles left, let's use them after we fix the fuel
tank problem.

Eric

: Jonathan

: s





:
: Jon
:
:

Zigler ) wrote:

: I was talking to a crazy ******* today who expressed the opinion:

: "what a ****ing waste of time and money. Who'd have thought that humans weren't meant for outer space, unless they watched too much
: sci-fi or the Jetsons... The white man has ****ed up the earth and now wants to extend its "progress" to the rest of the galaxy..."

: I'm not sure what to make of such radical views, but I would like to know the real benefit to humanity for this obsession with
: traveling and "conquering" outer space when things right here on earth are royally ****ed and millions are starving to death of no
: fault of their own. It makes you think, if you do think at all.

Not going into space will not fix the problems here on earth, as the
fallacy of believeing that money is what solves problems is still present.
IOW, taking the NASA money and using it here on earth will not solve the
hunger problem. It will simply mean that you don't have a space program.

Going into space is actually an art form in the humanities sense. If you
think art and music are worthless, then there is no point in trying to
convince you that going into space is worthwhile. But, if you do
appreciate art, then by extension space travel is a similar endeavour,
not unlike climbing a mountain or any other form of human exploration.

Eric