Welcome home Atlantis

Aaron Lawrence wrote in
:

On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of TGH exclaimed:
A very nice landing indeed.

Not to disrespect them, but aren't you complimenting the computer there?
Or maybe the pilot's button-pressing abilities?

No, the crew took over manually at Mach 0.9.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

nmp wrote in newsan.2006.09.22.15.29.57.791166
@is.invalid:

Op Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:09:20 -0500, schreef Jorge R. Frank:

Aaron Lawrence wrote in
:

On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of TGH exclaimed:
A very nice landing indeed.

Not to disrespect them, but aren't you complimenting the computer
there? Or maybe the pilot's button-pressing abilities?

No, the crew took over manually at Mach 0.9.

But even if they didn't it could still have been a nice landing, no?

It could, but that's not the point. TGH wasn't complimenting the computer
or Brent Jett's button-pressing abilities. He was complimenting Brent
Jett's *flying* abilities. As do I.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Jorge R. Frank exclaimed:
No, the crew took over manually at Mach 0.9.

Thanks, interesting. Previously I had heard that the whole flight was
normally automated.
Still, is there any *point* to them doing it manually?

--
aaronl at consultant dot com
For every expert, there is an equal and
opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke

Aaron Lawrence wrote in
m:

On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle, a person by the
name of Jorge R. Frank exclaimed:
No, the crew took over manually at Mach 0.9.

Thanks, interesting. Previously I had heard that the whole flight was
normally automated.
Still, is there any *point* to them doing it manually?

The autoland software isn't fully certified. Granted, the main reason is
opposition in the astronaut office. The main concern is that if the
autoland software did something stupid close to the ground the crew
wouldn't have time to react. They probably wouldn't be able to do anything
meaningful even if they could react. Unlike other airplanes with autoland,
the shuttle is a glider with no go-around capability; you only get one shot
at the landing.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.