Shuttle repair techniques not required...

[najab]

Yes. I'm saying exactly that. The concerns about the effects of cold weather on the seals never made it out of MTI/MSFC.<p>The astronauts were friends with the KSC and JSC staff - I know for a fact that the KSC (both NASA and contractor) engineering staff would tell NASA management to go take a flying leap if they thought the launch was unsafe.</p>

 

[chew_on_this]

Then they were all ostriches with there heads in the sand.

 

[drwayne]

As naja stated, the folks at Marshall are the ones that made the screwed up, "unless you can prove its not safe to fly, we're flying" type of decisions. I have trouble to this day with thinking about Mr. Malloy and not thinking "That ******* killed those astronauts"<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

Yikes, didn't expect that much hay. Nah I don't think that NASA would launch something without trying to make sure it was as safe as possible. The tricky part is determining just what safe as possible is. Since we are talking about a space craft that flies in very unforgiving situations and has hundreds of parts any one of which could fail and kill the crew and a craft that has only flown a little over one hundred times(v.s. thousands for an airplane). <br /><br />