Shuttle-friendly editorial article

[CalliArcale]

This is from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune at http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5551755.html -- since registration is required, I'll post it here in its entirety. I won't be sticking around to discuss it; I'm hideously busy today at work. But during a break, I saw this article and knew I had to post it here. I know some folks will want to disagree, especially those who aren't Shuttle fans, but for those who ARE Shuttle fans, I think this is a nice piece, especially after AP describing STS-114 as a "troubled" mission and general media pessimism.<br /><br /><br />Editorial: A giant leap for shuttle reliability<br />August 10, 2005 ED0810<br /> <br /><br />Discovery's safe landing on Tuesday probably assures the shuttle fleet's eventual restoration to full flight status. Despite a few glitches during the mission, which could not help but recall the catastrophic loss of the Columbia 2½ years ago, craft and crew demonstrated that these stubby, stalwart gliders can still do the job.<br /><br />That job is destined to disappear as soon as 2010, or whenever the United States decides it has fulfilled its obligations to the international space station. Then it will be time to retire the shuttles -- not because they are aging, not because they are faulty, but simply because their purpose is fulfilled.<br /><br />It has always been a humble purpose, essentially to ferry stuff into orbit -- satellites, at first, and then shipments for the space station and the Hubble Space Telescope. But critics who mock the shuttles as rocket-powered delivery vans mistake the simplicity of their task for insignificance.<br /><br />An honest argument can be made that there were better, cheaper ways to lift some of the early payloads into orbit. But unless you are among those who see no worth in the Hubble or the space station -- and probably, therefore, in most anything NASA does -- there is no denying the critical role <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[askold]

I fail to see how this mission can be called a "success".<br /><br />If its goal was to test 2 1/2 years and $1.4 billion of repairs and reengineering - it failed. Some foam almost took another wing out.<br /><br />Some supplies were delivered that are routinely delivered by unmanned Progress freighters. The same 2 guys are manning the ISS and spending all their time just doing maintenance.<br /><br />Nothing has changed; nothing has been accomplished.<br /><br />I'm waiting for MRO to launch - now that's usefull science.

 

[jll62]

Thanks for posting that, Calli. I'm generally on the other side of the fence with most of the editorials in the StarTrib, so I was pleased to see this in there.

 

[frodo1008]

YOU ARE one of those with your own agenda; of course you would not recognize that the flight of Discovery to the ISS DID prove that the shuttle is now as basically as safe as it ever was to fly. As the article points out, space flight of ANY kind including the robotic flights that you do approve of (and so do most supporters of the ISS and the shuttle) sometimes go bad. <br /><br />The shuttle is safe to fly to the ISS for several reasons. One, we now have the ability to perform some of the repairs at the station that can make the shuttle ready to come back to earth even if it is hit by debris. By the way ALL rockets going though NEO are subject to an increasing amount of debris, not just the shuttle. <br /><br />Then two, there is the worst case scenario, and a shuttle IS damaged beyond repair, then the ISS itself becomes a safe harbor, until either another shuttle (and while the possibility that two such shuttles would be damaged beyond repair is not zero, it is VERY close to zero) brings back the stranded crew (in which case the damaged shuttle would itself be automatically retired). Or while there are not now many soyuz capsules available, the excellent Russian industry is fully capable of building and flying such on such a schedule as to be able to bring the crew back fast enough that the ISS can be kept supplied in the meantime. Heck, this may even have the advantage of forcing our congress into allowing NASA to buy directly from the Russians (as if the cold war were still in such full swing that we should still regulate this important business).<br /><br />I am NOT in favor of keeping the shuttles flying any more than is absolutely necessary to complete the part of the ISS that we have already promised our partners that we would. The reputation of this country has already suffered enough on the world stage to allow the US to not finish its obligations on the ISS!!<br /><br />While people like you and I do fully support the scientific missions of NASA, and are

 

[samo]

" . . . as safe as it ever . . ." <br /><br />Are you kidding??<br /><br />To avoid disturbing the High Mucky Mucks who jammed the Solids down NASA's throat, no one is investigating <br /><br />WHY FOAM BREAKS OFF (well, on the side of What jars it).<br /><br />There are two views:<br /><br />1. Wind shears: although I did not see it, I heard one piece just floated away (since there was so little air at the height it came off).<br /><br /> The Weather Services say WIND SHEARS are impossible, that the STS encounters them 100,000s of times too often.<br /><br />2. May 1988 Spaceflight pictures a tongue of flame coming out an SRB side. The Challenger Commission had ordered NASA NOT NOT NOT to develop pics of anything except the area of "the" hole.<br /><br />As we know, John Maxon has pics of flame near the Upper Left Struts. <br /><br />"The" hole was above the lower right forward strut, the May 88 photo - - which was confimed as it showed a wing penetration which could be, and WAS found on a piece retrieved from storage - - and, extrapolated:<br /><br />WOULD HAVE KILLED CHALLENGER EXACTLY LIKE COLUMBIA - - had Challenger not blown up from other damage. <br /><br /> Note Columbia ejected, like Challenger, plenty of Chunks of SRB fuel, following the profile Pad-Damage / Hot-SRB / Early-SRB Burnout found on many flights eg STS #4 or the recent Delta failure Boeing was fined for (they tried to say the low orbit was intentional).<br /><br />In addition, flames have OFTEN been seen emerging from O-ring joints.<br /><br />Thus, the Weather people say, THERE ARE NO WIND SHEARS.<br /><br />Shuttle motions VOTED, by non-expert Panels of Political Vassals to be caused by WIND SHEARs, are in fact, fairly cntrollable - -<br /> - - if they were allowed to control for humidity variations (STS-4 & 25 were drought flights - - (even the recent -114 was a mini-drought .03 inches in 14 days, though humidity was high at launch), and Columbia was just after a Tropical storm was likely Drying-out next mos