3 Years Ago . . . Yesterday . . .

[CaptnKirk]

Space Shuttle Columbia Lost

How quickly we forget, or chose to ignore - the world we live in.


There was not a single entry in the P&N yesterday on the 3 year anniversity of this accident.
I thought aboaut it, remembering all that has come to pass in the aftermath of this catastrophe.

 

[mOeeOm]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Space Shuttle Columbia Lost

How quickly we forget, or chose to ignore - the world we live in.


There was not a single entry in the P&N yesterday on the 3 year anniversity of this accident.
I thought aboaut it, remembering all that has come to pass in the aftermath of this catastrophe.

Did it involve muslims? if not..I don't think it will be brought up...sorry..

 

[Uhtrinity]

There wasn't a headline so I did'nt even think about it

 

[Slick5150]

You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

I look at it as American Apathy, and lack of concern for others.
No empathy at all.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

I remembered... I just didn't post anything.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

I don't watch TV news, and I didn't catch it in a headline on an online source (not just P&N).

 

[DVK916]

A very sad event.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Three years ago I changed my sig and switched to the red/white/blue ribbon avatar.

(I eventually became one of the stripies when people assumed ribbon = far right, when I'm more of a centrist and libertarian.)

 

[imported_LoKe]

I don't mean to sound like an a$$hole...but there have been plenty of other accidents that have happened that haven't had any special recognition. Why's this one so much more important?

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

I look at it as American Apathy, and lack of concern for others.
No empathy at all.

well, sure.

I mean, 3 years ago there was a mechanical accident and some people died. yeah, it sucked, but if we mourned every person who ever died, we'd never get out of bed in the morning.

 

[ModerateRepZero]

i think it's not only that...it's the numerical signfificance. It's normal to obvserve anniversary, 5, 10th anniversary etc. But how many people will care about the 201st anniversary of our nation's founding, for example?

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

I look at it as American Apathy, and lack of concern for others.
No empathy at all.

Because I didn't post about this, I don't have concern for others?
Talk about hyperbole . . .

 

[TallBill]

I'm not going to remember the anniversary of every event in American history. Just not a chance.

I can remember July 4th, June 6th, and thats about it. (I left September 11th off the list on purpose. I hated terrorists long before that day.)

 

[charrison]

What is going to be even worse, is the shuttle will probably fly again one day and another crew will be lost. The decision to scrap the shuttle and replace it asap should have been made by now. But is appears nasa pride wants to keep the shuttle in service, even though it has little purpose anymore. The money saved from scrapping the shuttle would easily pay for resupply of the space station, heavy lift needed to complete the space station and building a new better hubble telescope.

 

[fornax]

Originally posted by: charrison
What is going to be even worse, is the shuttle will probably fly again one day and another crew will be lost. The decision to scrap the shuttle and replace it asap should have been made by now. But is appears nasa pride wants to keep the shuttle in service, even though it has little purpose anymore. The money saved from scrapping the shuttle would easily pay for resupply of the space station, heavy lift needed to complete the space station and building a new better hubble telescope.

Exactly. With the hope of using the shuttle again, NASA is delaying the development of new, safer and cheaper vehicles. They still cling to the notion that despite two fatal accidents and several near-misses, the Shuttle is the best thing ever. Meanwhile we depend on the Russians to transport our astronauts, and to supply engines to our rockets. China is also rapidly moving ahead in manned space flight. Another 5-7 years and we'll be hopelessly behind Russia and the EU.

 

[2Xtreme21]

 

[Bowfinger]

Thanks Captn. I did forget; shame on me.

 

[slash196]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: charrison
What is going to be even worse, is the shuttle will probably fly again one day and another crew will be lost. The decision to scrap the shuttle and replace it asap should have been made by now. But is appears nasa pride wants to keep the shuttle in service, even though it has little purpose anymore. The money saved from scrapping the shuttle would easily pay for resupply of the space station, heavy lift needed to complete the space station and building a new better hubble telescope.

Exactly. With the hope of using the shuttle again, NASA is delaying the development of new, safer and cheaper vehicles. They still cling to the notion that despite two fatal accidents and several near-misses, the Shuttle is the best thing ever. Meanwhile we depend on the Russians to transport our astronauts, and to supply engines to our rockets. China is also rapidly moving ahead in manned space flight. Another 5-7 years and we'll be hopelessly behind Russia and the EU.

:thumbsup:

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Thanks Captn. I did forget; shame on me.

not a 'shame' thing.

There was a time, just a few years back that our country stood proud of our Space Program.
We had walked on the Moon, and returned. We made that trip several times, and technology thrived on what we did.
Computers, microelectronics, communications transmitters and receivers. NASA was the cutting edge of American Knowhow.

Then came the budget cuts.

The vehicle that NASA had under development got 'modified' as Congress reduced the funding to NASA,
which cost them people - the best minds in the industry, some had to go.
To save the program and advance the technolaogy within the reduced budget, NASA had to change the vehicle to accomodate
the Military and forfeit thier prominence to Military oversight, and Political pressures.

So in the afterglow of the initial buget cuts, we got a 'Space-Truck' not what NASA wanted nor what the Military wanted,
but a rat built to MIL spec - a little of two things that were in conflict from the start.
Overall the Military got their way - right down to forcing the issue of launch even when it was wrong to do so.

April 12, 1981 - Nine years in development

So what happened to the Space Program ?

Budget Cuts

Budget Cuts

Budget Cuts

There comes a time when taking subtance away from a program jepordized that program and pushes it over the cliff.

We've been flying the Shuttle for 25 years under dumber and dumber budget constraints
and the're nothing in the pipeline to replace it.
Congress wouldn't let anything new advance as a viable replacement since Nixon back in 1972.
It would take 6 - 9 years from now to have a vehicle in the future. Nothin do-able before 2012.

Ah, but that was from a better day - Survivor, Tom Cruise, J-Lo, Gay Marriage, Cloned Human - Animal Hybrid Abortion Rights are more important.

People just don't care about anything but themselves anymore, look what they've allowed our Government to become.

 

[ModerateRepZero]

according to a Gutmann & Thompson book on ethical issues, the problems which led to disasters such as Challenger were due in part to budget cuts, as Captn mentions. G&T place the funding blame on Nixon, saying that the space program was Kennedy's brainchild, and so Nixon wouldn't get any credit for its sucesses. Unsurprisingly he tried to kill it but it was still enormously popular so the only thing Nixon could do was cut its budget. NASA had been very rigorous in its safety standards but in order to stay alive it had to abandon some safety checks. It didn't help that one NASA manager (i think his name was Fletcher) sold Congress on the notion that NASA could do things cheap....ie.$1.8 million on a shuttle launch which was supposed to cost $3-5 million. Another thing to note is that while in the 70s and 80s unmanned space exploration was possible, it was more exciting and supported by the public to have manned exploration (hence the shuttles with astronauts).

If you accept G&T's view of NASA, it doesn't seem that the military had much to with the budgetary issues.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: ModerateRepZero

If you accept G&T's view of NASA, it doesn't seem that the military had much to with the budgetary issues.

FYI


the Nixon administration advised NASA that not only were there to be no flights to Mars, no nuclear interplanetary stages, no space station, no more Saturn V's, no orbital transfer vehicle - but there wouldn't be a space shuttle either if NASA couldn't get the development cost down and get the USAF to participate. A USAF requirement was a large cross-range to allow recovery of the orbiter at Vandenberg AFB from polar orbits in the case of abort-once-around scenarios. This, together with wind tunnel studies indicating that Faget?s straight wing was unstable at re-entry speeds, drove NASA to the delta wing. The reduction in development cost led NASA to throw away the concept of reusing anything but the engines and guidance systems. Instead the shuttle would be boosted by cheap solid fuel boosters and, taking a concept from the Air Force, the propellants would be put in a big expendable drop tank.

Following the usual charade of competitive bidding, NASA picked the same contractors as for X-15 and Apollo, who would build precisely the vehicle it had in mind. North American Rockwell was selected to build the orbiter, with its Rocketdyne Division making the main engines, Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters, and Martin Marietta for the External Tank, to be built at the government Saturn IC factory at Michoud.

To finance the Shuttle in the austere 1970?s, already-built Apollo hardware that would have supported a second Skylab mission was sent to museums and American manned space flight went into a long hiatus. Budget cuts and overruns reduced the number of shuttles built from five to four and delayed the first flight from 1978 to 1981 (thereby ruining the plan to save Skylab on an early shuttle mission). Although several elements were cancelled (a space tug), the project did not much overrun its original cost (development ended up costing $ 6.744 billion in 1971 dollars, versus $ 5.15 billion estimated - less than a quarter of the Apollo program cost).

The pretext for the shuttle was that it would be much cheaper than expendable launch vehicles and would replace them all. Production was accordingly terminated by the US government of Delta, Atlas, and Titan vehicles. NASA staff and contractors were under incredible pressure to justify this decision by increasing the shuttle launch rate, lowering the turn-around time, and thereby reducing the cost per launch. When the shuttle Challenger exploded and the entire US space lift program was shut down for almost a year, the fallacy of this situation was exposed. The US Air Force and commercial users returned to use of expendable launch vehicles. When the shuttle began flying again, it was only for NASA programs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Read the whole article . . .

 

[Taejin]

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You rely on P&N for your knowledge of the news? This story was reported on many news sites/TV stations, etc... If it doesn't involve something people can argue about, nobody is going to post it on here.

I look at it as American Apathy, and lack of concern for others.
No empathy at all.

well, sure.

I mean, 3 years ago there was a mechanical accident and some people died. yeah, it sucked, but if we mourned every person who ever died, we'd never get out of bed in the morning.

qft.

 

[JDrake]

:Q 3 years?? woah..

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: charrison
What is going to be even worse, is the shuttle will probably fly again one day and another crew will be lost. The decision to scrap the shuttle and replace it asap should have been made by now. But is appears nasa pride wants to keep the shuttle in service, even though it has little purpose anymore. The money saved from scrapping the shuttle would easily pay for resupply of the space station, heavy lift needed to complete the space station and building a new better hubble telescope.

Exactly. With the hope of using the shuttle again, NASA is delaying the development of new, safer and cheaper vehicles. They still cling to the notion that despite two fatal accidents and several near-misses, the Shuttle is the best thing ever. Meanwhile we depend on the Russians to transport our astronauts, and to supply engines to our rockets. China is also rapidly moving ahead in manned space flight. Another 5-7 years and we'll be hopelessly behind Russia and the EU.

Manned space flight is a race to no where.