Writes Peter S. Rieth: “I’ve been following the Discovery mission via simple news reports since before the launch. I am by no means an engineer, but the entire venture seems a morbid exercise in bad comedy, and it would be nice if the facts spoke for themselves on the subject of government funded space exploration.
“Pre-Launch:
1. NASA spends 1 Billion plus USD to prevent a piece of foam from destroying another shuttle.
2. Discovery Launch is post phoned when Fuel Gage refuses to work during pre-launch test.
3. NASA scientists “wiggle” the wires to see what’s wrong.
4. NASA scientists can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong, so they scrap the safety requirement and green light the shuttle launch.
“Post-Launch:
1. Having spent 1 Billion plus USD to prevent a piece of foam from destroying the shuttle Discovery, NASA notes a huge piece of foam fell off the external fuel tank.
2. NASA discovers two 2 inch pieces of filler material sticking out of tiles on Discovery’s belly and fears they could cause the shuttle to be destroyed.
3. Astronaut removes 2 inch pieces of filler material while risking damage to “glass coated” thermal tiles (glass coated!!??)
4. NASA then discovers another problem, to quote:
‘There is some concern that the blanket — located right beneath the commander’s cockpit window — might come off during re-entry and smack into the shuttle, flight director Paul Hill said. The blanket — a quilted fabric covering pillowlike stuffing — was ripped open most likely by launch debris and puffed up with air.’ AP (8/03/05)“Ergo – ‘a quilted fabric covering pillowlike stuffing’ threatens to destroy the space shuttle.
“I have also been reading up on the Challenger disaster, and the engineering of the space shuttle, in light of Challenger, Columbia and Discovery… is just bizarre. It was pattently evident that every time the shuttle flew, 1R O-Rings experienced deterioration each consecutive mission, and at one point primary O-Rings were totally defunct; yet prior to the Challenger blowing up, nobody noticed the simple coinciding of temperature to O-Ring deterioration that had been taking place for 6 years… (nobody except for some engineers).
“Imagine a company building an airplane that could be threatened by ‘quilted fabric covering pillowlike stuffing’… imagine if an airline company announced that in response to systems malfunctions, engineers were ‘wiggling wires’… imagine an airline company faced with engineers who say that two inches of harmless foam could blow up the plane.
“Why is it that the press is having a field day portraying the ‘heroism’ of this “breath taking adventure” when in fact any third grader can see that this is utter black comedy of the creepiest sort?”
3:38 pm on August 3, 2005
