"Nobody will ever accuse Congress of having the right stuff"

Charleston.net: "Shuttle should fly, Apollo astronaut says":

http://www.charleston.net/stories/11...01apollo.shtml

Exerpts:

"We ought to get the space shuttle back flying," Cunningham said Friday.
"It's the safest spacecraft we've ever had. Two failures out of 113 isn't
bad."

....

"We were very careful after Apollo 1 to keep them from killing us with
kindness," Cunningham said. "I think we're going to end up with some changes
on the space shuttle, but there will be other problems. Anything you change
or add is just one more thing that can fail."

---

Interesting reading.

Jon

"rk" wrote:
Jon Berndt wrote:

Charleston.net: "Shuttle should fly, Apollo astronaut says":

http://www.charleston.net/stories/11...01apollo.shtml

Exerpts:

"We ought to get the space shuttle back flying," Cunningham
said Friday. "It's the safest spacecraft we've ever had. Two
failures out of 113 isn't bad."

Define "bad" Walt;-(

...

"We were very careful after Apollo 1 to keep them from killing
us with kindness," Cunningham said. "I think we're going to end
up with some changes on the space shuttle, but there will be
other problems. Anything you change or add is just one more
thing that can fail."

This from a guy who's spaceflight success was primarily that of being a
follower of a cranky leader. Engineering *improvements* are what kept the
Shuttle flying without catastrophe for so long after Challenger, IMO.

Interesting reading.

Yup, a few more quotes that popped out as "interesting,"
particularly from his perspective, flying after Apollo 1/AS-204:

"We knew it was risky. We weren't stupid," Cunningham said.
"Yes, there are things worth dying for. It's the Christopher
Columbuses and Neil Armstrongs that move us forward. If
Ralph Nader had led the wagon train, we would have never
got anywhere."

Here I agree totally. One will never really know where the limits are until
the edge of the envelope tears--ala Apollo 13--for instance. Of course the
Shuttle OFT flights were supposed to define the envelope uncertainties
fairly well.

-and-

"Nobody will ever accuse Congress of having the right stuff,"
Cunningham said, a reference to the Tom Wolfe book about the
earlydays of manned space flight.

You could replace "right" with "any" for some of the members of Congress.

--
rk, Just an OldEngineer
"In God we trust, all others bring data."
-- Framed plaque from the '60s, hanging in the Mission Evaluation
Room at Johnson Space Center, downstairs from Mission Control

Nice sig. I presume the data is from properly time-tagged and calibrated
sources too:-)

--

Daniel
http://www.challengerdisaster.info
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

"Charleston" wrote:

"rk" wrote:
Jon Berndt wrote:

Charleston.net: "Shuttle should fly, Apollo astronaut says":

http://www.charleston.net/stories/11...01apollo.shtml

Exerpts:

"We ought to get the space shuttle back flying," Cunningham
said Friday. "It's the safest spacecraft we've ever had. Two
failures out of 113 isn't bad."

Define "bad" Walt;-(

One wonders what the sucess rate of Apollo would have been had it made
it to 113 flights. As it is, it's not statistically much better than
the Shuttle.

Given American experience with capsules, and Soyuz's operational
record, I reject all arguments of the form 'capsules are safer because
they haven't killed anyone in _x_ years' as nostalgia for the Glory
Years, not rational judgement.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

rk wrote:

Jon Berndt wrote:

Charleston.net: "Shuttle should fly, Apollo astronaut says":

http://www.charleston.net/stories/11...01apollo.shtml

Exerpts:

"We ought to get the space shuttle back flying," Cunningham
said Friday. "It's the safest spacecraft we've ever had. Two
failures out of 113 isn't bad."

...

"We were very careful after Apollo 1 to keep them from killing
us with kindness," Cunningham said. "I think we're going to end
up with some changes on the space shuttle, but there will be
other problems. Anything you change or add is just one more
thing that can fail."

---

Interesting reading.

Yup, a few more quotes that popped out as "interesting,"
particularly from his perspective, flying after Apollo 1/AS-204:

"We knew it was risky. We weren't stupid," Cunningham said.
"Yes, there are things worth dying for. It's the Christopher
Columbuses and Neil Armstrongs that move us forward. If
Ralph Nader had led the wagon train, we would have never
got anywhere."

-and-

"Nobody will ever accuse Congress of having the right stuff,"
Cunningham said, a reference to the Tom Wolfe book about the
earlydays of manned space flight.

Cunningham's 'Nader' analogy doesn't work. Ralph Nader would have been
involved with making safer wagons not leading the wagon train. In the
case of Apollo-1, he would have been opposed to the pure oxygen
atmosphere in the capsule.


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In article , Derek Lyons wrote:

One wonders what the sucess rate of Apollo would have been had it made
it to 113 flights. As it is, it's not statistically much better than
the Shuttle.

Earth-orbital on Saturn IBs and the like, or lunar with the full "Apollo
kit" - LEM, S-V, CSM?

Going by nothing more than a gut guess, I'd say at least two serious
LOCV incidents in the first case - although we came quite close at least
once (ASTP) to LOC without LOV, and on an expendable the latter's a bit
more forgiving. (Was Liberty Bell 7 a LOV? Apollo 13?)

In the latter case? I'm not sure if there was a landing flight where
something didn't go wrong in a potentially messy way. Gut says five
major accidents, to a first-order approximation, assuming the program
doesn't get canned after one or two. And '13 was *that* close...

[Disclaimer - figures are gut guesses, caveat emptor, may not reflect
actual reality, YMMV, please don't hit me, &c]

--
-Andrew Gray

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Charleston" wrote:

"rk" wrote:
Jon Berndt wrote:

Charleston.net: "Shuttle should fly, Apollo astronaut says":

http://www.charleston.net/stories/11...01apollo.shtml

Exerpts:

"We ought to get the space shuttle back flying," Cunningham
said Friday. "It's the safest spacecraft we've ever had. Two
failures out of 113 isn't bad."

Define "bad" Walt;-(

One wonders what the sucess rate of Apollo would have been had it made
it to 113 flights. As it is, it's not statistically much better than
the Shuttle.


Given American experience with capsules, and Soyuz's operational
record, I reject all arguments of the form 'capsules are safer because
they haven't killed anyone in _x_ years' as nostalgia for the Glory
Years, not rational judgement.

Okay, reject away. Somewhere in the snipped electrons I wrote IMO, IIRC. I
could add FWIW--the electrons sending the message perhaps.

Thanks, Walt;-)

--

Daniel
http://www.challengerdisaster.info
Mount Charleston, not Charleston, SC

Andrew Gray wrote:

In article , Derek Lyons wrote:

One wonders what the sucess rate of Apollo would have been had it made
it to 113 flights. As it is, it's not statistically much better than
the Shuttle.

Earth-orbital on Saturn IBs and the like, or lunar with the full "Apollo
kit" - LEM, S-V, CSM?

Either one. For all intents and purposes, neither the CSM or LEM were
what I'd comfortably call a well debugged spacecraft.

Going by nothing more than a gut guess, I'd say at least two serious
LOCV incidents in the first case - although we came quite close at least
once (ASTP) to LOC without LOV, and on an expendable the latter's a bit
more forgiving. (Was Liberty Bell 7 a LOV? Apollo 13?)

An LOV is an LOV... I'd count Liberty Bell, but not A13 myself, as
the craft returned more-or-less safely and in the intended condition.
It also points up something important, an accident *doesn't* have to
kill the crew or destroy the vehicle to be very serious.

In the latter case? I'm not sure if there was a landing flight where
something didn't go wrong in a potentially messy way. Gut says five
major accidents, to a first-order approximation, assuming the program
doesn't get canned after one or two. And '13 was *that* close...

13, the docking problems on 12, the parachutes on 15, the SPS problems
on 16, the leaking RCS on Skylab 4... All things that could have been
exceedingly messy, and not a good record for as few flights as Apollo
had.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message

Given American experience with capsules, and Soyuz's operational
record, I reject all arguments of the form 'capsules are safer because
they haven't killed anyone in _x_ years' as nostalgia for the Glory
Years, not rational judgement.

True, *that* argument is not a good one in favor of capsules. The arguments
I can see in favor of such is:

1) Can perform a normal entry in a passive or somewhat passive mode
(ballistic).
2) Can sustain larger unexpected entry accelerations without breaking wings.
3) Fewer systems subject to failure.
4) Thermal protection system simpler (?)
5) More likely to accomodate abort modes in all flight regimes.
....

Jon

"Jon Berndt" wrote ...
True, *that* argument is not a good one in favor of capsules. The arguments
I can see in favor of such is:

1) Can perform a normal entry in a passive or somewhat passive mode
(ballistic).
2) Can sustain larger unexpected entry accelerations without breaking wings.

*ahem*

3) Fewer systems subject to failure.
4) Thermal protection system simpler (?)
5) More likely to accomodate abort modes in all flight regimes.

Number two is inarguably correct. Maybe not /quite/ what you meant to say, but
inarguably correct.

"Jon Berndt" writes:
True, *that* argument is not a good one in favor of capsules. The arguments
I can see in favor of such is:

1) Can perform a normal entry in a passive or somewhat passive mode
(ballistic).
2) Can sustain larger unexpected entry accelerations without breaking wings.
3) Fewer systems subject to failure.
4) Thermal protection system simpler (?)

Certainly, since you have fewer sharp edges (wing and nose leading
edges) and you can have fewer (possibly no) openings in the base of
the shield. I think the shuttle has five doors in the bottom of the
shuttle, three for landing gear and two for the ET umbilical doors.

5) More likely to accomodate abort modes in all flight regimes.

It's good to be at the top of the stack rather than slung on the side.
;-)

6) Easier to integrate with a launch vehicle since no wings means no
moment on the LV (or large payload fairing to enclose the wings).

7) Touchdown possibilities on both land and water without forcing the
crew to bail out if the vehicle can't reach a runway for some reason.
Note that bailing out of the shuttle has to start at a very high
altitude, or you simply can't get everyone out before it hits the
ground. This means that problems that develop below some altitude
threshold limit that prevent a safe runway landing means that not all
of the astronauts will make it out alive.

Jeff
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