This is a sad day on many levels. My fear now is that this will give people another reason to shut down the space program. If not shut down, severely hack funding. Man…bad fuckin’ day:(
I’m watching CNN now and ,well, I don’t know what to say. It’s horrible.
I was amazed when I heard that Columbia has flown 28 missions in 22 years.
Did the designers ever expect that it would be used that often or that long?
In the course of the overall space shuttle program, we have been fortunate in that there have been only two major accidents. I don’t want this to put an end to the current program, but I think it’s time to start replacing the shuttles. I know they’ve been looking at designs for a while. Are they close to making any kind of decision? What is the possibility of building new shuttles of the current design at this stage? That design is so old, would it be worth the cost as opposed to making a decision and going with a new design?
The airframe has a conservative-estimate lifespan of 100 missions, and Columbia has recently had an avionics overhaul, so even though Columbia is the oldest in years, it was quite up to date in technology.
Other countries will carry on the space program. Just like other countries are carring on with stem cell research and other types of research and development that America isn’t. America’s timid behavior and shock at danger and death will no doubt eventually drag us down untill we are no longer even in the running to be considered a “Technological superpower.”
Damnit. The shuttles should have been retired five years ago. We should be on a new model by now.
Better. Faster. Safer. Larger.
… And now all we have is something to put on the memorial wall.
**
ugh… I can’t help but feel that anyone who sees this as “another reason to shut down the space program” must have no respect at all for the dreams that these people were willing to risk their lives for. I feel sick.
I’ve been hearing things like this from other news sources and seeing it on the net.
Damn! Let’s get through the sadness first!
Odd news reports of debris in SE Texas…
I saw this too. Where the hell do these people come from? :mad:
I’m at work and have only 'Net coverage -what was the crank call some of you have referred to?
Cricket
with the shuttle design, since the beginning, is that they thought it was cost-prohibitive to design a shuttle with a real crew escape system. There were other designs proposed with other escape systems. Although, during re-entry, at that speed, and altitude…
Of course, it’s the losing the whole crew part. Every mission has some kind of mechanical failure(s). It’s the catastrophic ones.
As for shutting down the space program. Erm, the guys on the ISS might wish to discuss that. The Hubble may need new glasses some day. Space telescopes are the wave of the future. Satellites need repair. Mars needs a colony.
The brilliant people who fly the missions think it is worth the risk. Nobody understands the risks better than they do.
At 200 miles per minute, it wouldn’t take much for a spin to generate some hellacious g-forces. 
I was watching some ‘science’ channel just the other day and they were showing the emergency proceedures for just this thing. Apparently there is some rail (about a 20’ girder, that they have to extend from the crew cabin and then attach a cord from their chute to the rail and then slide out.
Even watching it I thought ‘There is no way to get that rail up and go out if some emergency was going on’.
I wonder if they just hit some of the trash that is floating around up there from 40 years of space exploration.
Oh and to sum up.
This fucking sucks.
Some bozo claimed to be an eyewitness, so Dan put him on the air, and started to talk to the person next to him as well as the caller, when you could hear the caller say, ‘You’re a real idiot, you know that?’ The caller was promptly disconnected, and Rather, along with the other reporter, classified it as a crank call.
Hard not to wonder about that one. Not everything shows up on radar.
It happened at 200,000 feet. Nothing is ‘floating’ at that altitude.
Did you hear what the guy said? He said something like “I found some debris…” and something about a tooth. Very weird- I don’t know who made the idiot comment. That was bizzare.
Saw another guy being interviewed live reporting that there was debris all over his lawn. Asked if he had contacted the authorities, he said No, the news station was the first place he called (to be interviewed no doubt–“Look Ma, I’m on the TV!”). :rolleyes:
Countdown until we hear about the first asshat who will be caught grabbing some debris as a souvenir. :mad:
Grabbing debris as a souvenier makes you a federal criminal, a moron, and a world class anal pustule.
Ramon had a picture with him “Moon Landscape” by a Jewish child killed in Auschwitz.
http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/about_yad/press_room/temp_index_press_room_ramon.html