M
mkham6
Guest
<b>NASA WIMPS OUT</b><br /> Nasa has continued their defeatist attitude so evident in the scandalous abandonment of the Columbia astronauts (only a couple of space suits, no notification to astronauts for 5 days, no repair kits, no inspection of shuttle by telescopes). Inexplicably, they announced the immediate grounding of the shuttle fleet, to the delight of the poor crew up in space, because more pieces broke off, rather than at least wait till they landed. Frankly, this problem was to be expected- when you redesign something, you introduce more sources of problems; and the original contention that foam was light and harmless was mostly correct (see how it flutters away in video). The problem in 2003 was:<br /><br />http://hammernews.com/columbia.htm <br />--it was reported and promptly forgot that the Columbia sat on the launch pad for some 6 weeks, 4 times longer than normal, and Florida had the wettest Dec in 50 years (I think), so by launch time the tank insulation was perhaps saturated with water (or damaged by the impacts). Once loaded with -423F degree liquid hydrogen, that would freeze, making that 2.6 lb. piece of foam that they keep talking about, over 100 lbs and moving at 750 mph. A fan of shattered debris bigger than the shuttle itself was obviously life-threatening. NASA knew that the shuttle was grievously injured and did nothing about it, because they cravenly decided there were no options (including success). <br /><br />Now it seems NASA itself (or someone higher) is angling for dumping the shuttle program, though there's nothing to replace it (unless they give Rutan $1-2 billion), and the naysayers are rejuvenated- a wimpy LATimes editorial calls for grounding the shuttle till the sun burns up and abandoning the space station. <br /><br />The shuttle program is beset with the same blanket paranoia that inf