Commentary on Apollo 8: Space and the willingness to die

[ToSeek]

Space and the willingness to die (http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041221-042300-9198r.htm)

Thirty-six years ago this week, three astronauts and their families demonstrated the courage, boldness, and determination necessary for the human race to conquer the stars. The question is whether NASA and Congress today are willing to show as much bravery.

[Kaptain K]

Beautiful! =D> If only our "leaders" had this kind of courage!

[Doodler]

If only. Too many bureaucrats worried only about the next election and how much special interest money they can ferret away before the House Ethics Committee catches up with them.

Screw the CAIB, fly the damned shuttle. Just over a hundred flights with 2 accidents on an experimental space craft (experimental by their own admission) is more than acceptable. These people know what they are being asked to do and the risks involved.

Speaking as an American, I am just plain sick and tired of the sorry, sad sack, reign to fear that has come over this country. We don't need whack-job terrorists to make us cowards, we do it to ourselves with far more elan than those amateurs could muster. Look at the last election, it wasn't won by a candidate winning over the support of the people, it was won by making them afraid of the consequences of his opponent.

Forces are in motion in American lives driven by fear. People don't want risk in their lives and its pathetic. All the navel contemplation and witch hunting the CAIB has inflicted on NASA hasn't come up with one iota of improvement that could prevent what happened last year. The shuttle wasn't destroyed by bolts mounted the wrong way, nor was it taken down by a system that wasn't functioning because the management team decided it wasn't a priority, a friggin' piece of styrofoam whacked a wingedge at Mach whatever it was. A system designed to the best of an engineer's ability, with who knows how many expert opinions in support, had a system fail in a manner which no one foresaw. No one believed that a hit could produce a gash like that. All this shinkicking over the rest of NASA is so much salt on an open wound. Some shark smelled blood and started thrashing.

Filter out all the jargon from the CAIB report and you get one final conclusion. "Stuff happens, and if it does, you are most likely going to die."

Put that in writing, and ask any astronaut/passengers on the shuttle to sign off the acknowledgement they already accepted when they first flew out of an atmosphere, and you'll still have people beating on the doors to get into space.

Pioneers aren't members of the human herd, they make their own way in life, to Hades with the risks. Unfortunately, policymakers and voters are herd animals, moving en masse against the perception of fear from forces on the outside of the pack, and that is the real tragedy of spaceflight. Pioneers, true humans, held back by the mass of dead weight.


Sorry for the rant, but reading about how things used to be compared to how they are now is both saddening and irritating. People squeamish about flying a system with a 98%+ success rate, when you look back and see a group of people willing to fly in the face of even odds.

God, we've lost something...

[Christopher Ferro]

Screw the CAIB, fly the damned shuttle. Just over a hundred flights with 2 accidents on an experimental space craft (experimental by their own admission) is more than acceptable. These people know what they are being asked to do and the risks involved.


Hear, hear!

CJSF

[frogesque]

See here (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18490) No one's telling that lil' lass "Don't do it girlie, you might get hurt. Ok it's not space as we know it but that's a lot of ocean to tackle alone and she's out there doing it. One fine ship and one fine woman.

The US has the ability to go to space, whether by Shuttle or Atlas or whatever and it's not the want of brave men or women that's the problem. Pen pushers and 'crats need to get hold of some courage and vision and look beyond a balance sheet or election result. I've never seen the US as also rans when it came to space exploration but missions take time to plan, develop and impliment so go to it and have at them or the Chinese will leave you outside in the street staring at a one course menue because at the moment it seems as if the fear of failure is crippling you.

I'm not saying be reckless, all sensible precautions have to be taken but once all the calculations have been done somebody, somewhere, has to have the moral fibre to hit that great big green button.

[Wolverine]

I'm not saying be reckless, all sensible precautions have to be taken but once all the calculations have been done somebody, somewhere, has to have the moral fibre to hit that great big green button.

I agree completely -- and if they're going to be using this (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12798) as a logo, IMHO it would behoove them to back up the phrase they chose with substance, not trepidation.

[DALeffler]

Screw the CAIB, fly the damned shuttle. Just over a hundred flights with 2 accidents on an experimental space craft (experimental by their own admission) is more than acceptable. These people know what they are being asked to do and the risks involved.

IIRC, the CAIB report faulted NASA for pronouncing the space shuttle operational where it should have been flown as an experimental spacecraft.

Speaking as an American, I am just plain sick and tired of the sorry, sad sack, reign to fear that has come over this country. We don't need whack-job terrorists to make us cowards, we do it to ourselves with far more elan than those amateurs could muster. Look at the last election, it wasn't won by a candidate winning over the support of the people, it was won by making them afraid of the consequences of his opponent.

Forces are in motion in American lives driven by fear. People don't want risk in their lives and its pathetic. All the navel contemplation and witch hunting the CAIB has inflicted on NASA hasn't come up with one iota of improvement that could prevent what happened last year.

See http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/. William Harwood details the differences between the planned STS-114 mission versus that of STS-107. At the very least, any significant TPS damage should be easily identified.

The shuttle wasn't destroyed by bolts mounted the wrong way, nor was it taken down by a system that wasn't functioning because the management team decided it wasn't a priority, a friggin' piece of styrofoam whacked a wingedge at Mach whatever it was. A system designed to the best of an engineer's ability, with who knows how many expert opinions in support, had a system fail in a manner which no one foresaw. No one believed that a hit could produce a gash like that. All this shinkicking over the rest of NASA is so much salt on an open wound. Some shark smelled blood and started thrashing.

STS-107 happened exactly because a system that wasn’t functioning the way it was designed to function was not given the analysis it deserved. External Tank insulation was not supposed to fall off during a launch. Even if it did fall off it wasn’t supposed to cause significant damage to the orbiter thermal protection system – ever. ET foam shedding has occurred on every STS launch with varying degrees of orbiter TPS damage. It’s even expected to happen again on STS-114. The difference is that now the causes and remedies of foam shedding are much better understood.

Filter out all the jargon from the CAIB report and you get one final conclusion. "Stuff happens, and if it does, you are most likely going to die."

Put that in writing, and ask any astronaut/passengers on the shuttle to sign off the acknowledgement they already accepted when they first flew out of an atmosphere, and you'll still have people beating on the doors to get into space.

Pioneers aren't members of the human herd, they make their own way in life, to Hades with the risks. Unfortunately, policymakers and voters are herd animals, moving en masse against the perception of fear from forces on the outside of the pack, and that is the real tragedy of spaceflight. Pioneers, true humans, held back by the mass of dead weight.

I’d agree, except now you’re asking the taxpayer to fund any pioneers’ dream of space exploration. People wanting to fly space shuttles are a dime a dozen. People building space shuttles and then qualifying people to fly or fly in space shuttles, well…

Sorry for the rant, but reading about how things used to be compared to how they are now is both saddening and irritating. People squeamish about flying a system with a 98%+ success rate, when you look back and see a group of people willing to fly in the face of even odds.

God, we've lost something..

Nah… We’ll get there.

Collins, Kelly, Camarda, Lawrence, Noguchi, Robinson, and Thomas? Yeah, I think they’ll do us all proud. They all got it. Is it the same as the ones who went before? Yeah. Is it the same as the ones who’d come after? I’d believe it. Are we sending the best we could? We better be...

[Bawheid]

See here (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18490) No one's telling that lil' lass "Don't do it girlie, you might get hurt. Ok it's not space as we know it but that's a lot of ocean to tackle alone and she's out there doing it.

Southern Ocean in a force 9 might as well be space for all the help that can reach you.

[Brady Yoon]

I remember Gandalf's quote...or was it Dumbledore's. "Death is part of life for the well prepared." Anyway, there are some things that are worth risking your life for, if you believe in them.