You states that "if the problem had been detected..." then, there would have been other alternatives. Like you, I have also been thinking to the international space station as a possible escape, although I don't know whether that would have been feasible. But the issue, lies with the detection of "the" problem. IMO, a shuttle is such a complex object that there are always many sources of possible problems and many actual problems detected. The real question is that of their evaluation, both individually and in interaction with each others. Then, it's the manager's task to ponder the supplementary costs of such radical measure of security with the probability of having a serious problem. I don't know how much the men in the shuttle weight in that balance, especially when GWB is investing loads of money for the war in Iraq and at the same time cutting taxes and restraining NASA budgets : if the shuttle was lost anyway, then the rescuing of the astronauts wouldn't be able to restore the harms done to the image of a winning America. So I'm not very optimist as to what the managers would choose. I don't know either, whether the managers would tell publicly if they had detected possible problems, but weren't able to take security measures for cost reasons : the GWB administration has its own understanding of information and it's surely not aimed toward transparency. I've read in the newspapers that several NASA engineers had resigned because their security reports where simply discarded. Anyway, it seems curious that they didn't investigate more, after what succeeded at the launch time. Or may be they did and knew, but came to the conclusion that there was no real doable escape. Le 8.2.2003 17:52, « PhotoRoy6@aol.com » <PhotoRoy6@aol.com> a écrit : > If NASA had realized there was a problem there are many other hypothetical > alternatives like staying in orbit longer, going to the international space > station, sending up a another space shuttle or Russian rockets with empty > space escape pods like the one pod that is attached to the international > space station now for use in an emergency. Solutions could have been found > if the problem had been detected. David Brown while in orbit did take > pictures of the left wing for some reason but didn't transmit them to earth > and of course they were lost with the ship. > > In a message dated 2/8/03 9:57:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, > sgflack@prodigy.net writes: > > << Bob, I believe NASA has already established that this mission was neither > equipped nor trained for a space walk. They have said many times that, > even if they did find a problem with the wing or with the tiles, they > would have no mechanical recourse by which to address it. The best thing > they might have done was alter its reentry orientation to shield the > damage with the rest of the craft long enough to get it through the most > dangerous part of reentry. And that was, at best, a gamble with sorry > odds. > > It seems they may have been doomed from the beginning. >>> > -- Christiane
