August 01, 2005
Shuttle Future
Shame on NASA for putting American lives in danger in an aging, dilapidated launch vehicle. Risking our future in space to maintain relevancy is absurd and dangerous. I pray they patch the known problems and make it home alive. I know that my opinion is a not popular but it is realistic. It is better to err on the side of caution and work in a new direction than knowingly place people in harms way. This level of ineptitude is criminal.
Pic.= Fark
Posted by BillyBudd at August 1, 2005 08:32 AM | TrackBackThis shuttle event really seems to indicate incompetance from the laymans (me) perspective. I really can't believe that this is happening in two launches in a row.
Posted by: gindy at August 1, 2005 09:55 AMWell.... I tend to think NASA is over-reacting about the extruded gap fillers. This has probably been happening all along and its only the first time we've had real photographic evidence to see it.
As far as 'aging dilapidated launch vehicle' is concerned, the ET and SRB's are going to be in use for many years to come, it seems, as heavy launch capability hardware and it will probably do very well in that role. Stack a 2nd stage on top of an ET, put some engines on the base and light it off, who cares how much foam comes off then since there won't be an orbiter hanging off the side. Weaknesses of the shuttle system aside, we apparently at least are not going to repeat the mistake of walking away from a perfectly good heavy launch capability like we did in the 70's with the Saturn V and Saturn 1B.
Oh, and as a side note, the russians have been flying their aging dilapidated R7 launch vehicle since 1957.
Posted by: wgnoyes at August 2, 2005 04:36 PM