Shuttle Doomed at Takeoff (Astronauts doomed from the start)

abc news ^ | 4/18/2003 | Lisa Stark and Gina Treadgold

[konaice]

"It sounds like a bunch of sensor data was processed in a very basic form and simply 'laid onto magnetic tape' -"

This craft was instrumented with a lot more sensors than the others because these were embedded at build time for performance analysis on the early vehicles.

Most of this extra sensors and the wires to support them were torn out (saveing 7000 bounds (or was it kilos) of vehicle weight.

According to nasa, only those few sensors that were hard to get to were left in place. (This per one of the televised briefings a month ago).

Im speculating thats where these measurements came from.

[konaice]

"Incredibly stupid comment IMHO. The decision to abort would only be made if an obvious catastrophic event was taking place, as an abort is serious sh_t in itself. "

Serious ?
Financially maybe, but abort to Rota is PLANNED in every mission. Its practiced in the simulator time and time again.

The largest consequence (other than the loss of the mission) is the cost of flying the shuttle back across the Atlantic on the 747.

[Fledermaus]

There are countless things we've gotten from the space program once a process or experiment or a device was, by the companies they contracted, developed for commercial use. Like mircowave ovens.

Would that stuff have been invented on it's own? Probably. But the innovation was sparked by working on the space program.

And NASA's budget is nothing compared to the vast waste of money on some worthless and proven unworkable gov't programs.

Regardless, we are explorers and we always will be.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

They chose not to send up another orbiter after them. They knew they could have and chose not to.

And yes, shuttle launches have been scrapped due to woodpecker damage. They have been rolled back to the assembly building for it from the pad.

"NOTE: Workers at Launch Pad 39-B are preparing the Shuttle Discovery
for rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building beginning at 3:30 a.m.
Thursday. The decision to go back to the VAB was made in order to
repair damage done by woodpeckers in the foam insulation of the
external tank. It is estimated that about six days will be needed to
repair the woodpecker holes once access is gained to the external
tank in the VAB."

[TLBSHOW]

they died because of NASA and their problems!

[TLBSHOW]

ping

[ironman]

The article implies the data was recorded and was never engineered or intended to be transmistted.

[leadpenny]

Thanks for the heads-up. What is your best WAG or SWAG for a date that we may see another shuttle launch? If ever?