Discovery ET to be reinforced all the way around

On Jan 13, 8:37*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:20:57 -0800 (PST), "

wrote:
Well imagine the worst happens shuttle stuck at station, not enough
life boats and something bad occurs and 4 die, leaving a possibly
out of control station losing modules all over its ground track as it
breaks up.and re enters

Yep, that would be a disaster alright. Doesn't mean it is very likely
that both a Shuttle disaster and a Space Station disaster will happen
at the same time, though. There is risk someone will die because they
can't get off the Station, but that risk is enormously less than that
of simply being killed during a routine launch or landing, or getting
hit by orbital debris during a spacewalk.

I believe that will end US manned space for generations.

Well, NASA manned space anyway. Commercial would continue, perhaps
even thrive.

wierdly before coulumbia I was laughed at and called chicken little
when I asked about a shuttle stuck at station.

You spoke of every conceivable Shuttle failure. Every time there was a
glitch, like the flow liners, you were here proclaiming imminent
disaster and that the Shuttle should be grounded. Columbia went down,
but in the years before you never once warned of ET foam liberation
punching a hole in the Shuttle's wing as an accident waiting to
happen.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

of course if any shuttle got stuck at station, the event itself would
likely ground the shuttle.

Depends on what causes the problem. Orbtal debris punching a hole in
an elevon would not ground the fleet.

the real solution is russia having a few extra soyuz with boosters in
stock for fast emergency launch........

In a perfect world, that would be the right choice. We don't live in a
perfect world. The Space Station is safe and stable, there's no reason
to believe there will be an evacuation-requiring accident while there
are four crew and only three lifeboat seats.

Brian

my prediction of a shuttle disaster wasnt divine knowledge.

it was based on the increasing number of flying catches near disasters
on the shuttle flights of that time. and it was a symptom of schedule
pressure combined with management failure....

Dr J R Stockton wrote:
Val Kraut posted:

This is all part of the Dumming of America.

Indeed. Some Americans have become so dumb that they don't even know
how to spell the word.

In the news this week is a zodiac with the dates adjusted for precession
of the equinoxes. There are folks who don't know this? Precession of
the equinoxes is something I learned in junior high school. The regular
life example was a spinning top that precesses and the extention was the
Earth's spinning precessing the same way on a scale of thousands of
years.

"This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius". The song was nonsensical
jingle other than its lesson about precession of the equinoxes.

Brian Thorn wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

If I were a member of that crew, I'd write a brief note to headquarters
that included the phrase: "**** you and the ****ing horse you rode in on".

That's one of the innumerable reasons you're not an astronaut.

A sizable chance of being blown to bits on a mission was never on my
list of why I am not an astronaut. My wife will never understand that
but it's a bridge I'll never get to because of the items that were on
the list. Mostly I knew I would barely make the athletic requirements
at one of the academies and therefore had no chance of getting into a
test pilot or astronaut program were at the head.

On 1/13/2011 5:57 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:12:38 -0800, Pat
wrote:

Who's supposed to choose which six can evacuate it, and which four have
to stay aboard till two more Soyuz lifeboats arrive, or they die?''

The commander. That's what we pay commanders for, making tough
decisions when necessary. That's why these commanders are well trained
military officers and not, well, someone like you.

You're a bit snippy today aren't you?

This is a _very_ stupid idea, and the fact that it's being done simply
to extend the Shuttle program a few months rather than out of any real
necessity makes it doubly stupid.

Nonsense. The risk is very low. There is a much, much greater chance
the crew will die on launch or landing, on either Shuttle or Soyuz,
but you don't seem to be demanding that we stop flying our people on
Soyuz. Make up your mind. Is space too dangerous for humans, or isn't
it? If you're against manned space, then come out and say so. At least
we'll all know you have no backbone and will consider your comments
accordingly. Pussyfooting around with hugely implausible "lifeboat"
scenarios just makes you even worse than Bob, who at least has
*always* come right out and said humans shouldn't be flying on
Shuttle.

We don't know exactly how safe the ISS is; Mir had two near-fatal
accidents (the fire and the Progress collision).
As far as whether it's worth the risk to send people into space, that
depends what they are doing up there... going to the Moon or Mars?
Maybe, if there's something worthwhile for them to discover at their
destination...but just going round-and-round in LEO? Probably not.
The argument that the ISS teaches us how to live in space for long
periods of time would be good if we had any plans to go to Mars at the
moment, but we don't.


Frankly, I'm surprised the Russians didn't veto this extra mission idea
the moment it came up.

I'm not. I suspect the biggest reaction in Russian was surprise that
NASA has the balls to try it. To Russia, this would be a very easy
"yes" decision, but for risk-averse NASA it's a bit out of the
ordinary.

Russia is probably thinking about how much money they could rake in if
the crew did get stuck up there, and they had NASA in a "your money or
your life" situation regarding the marooned crew.

Pat