From: Dave Ball (vought@msn.com)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 00:01:34 PST
The tragedy in this is the astronauts up on this trip were there for reasons
other than EVA activities so were not trained for that mission.
In my mind I thought maybe the robotic arm could be used with its Cameras
but this is also a mission trained specialist task.
Hindsight in it self is worse than Murphy's law we all at one time or
another have been out in the MV going long distance and had something go
south and thought... What if I had only done this or brought that but that
thinking only serves to remind us how important it is to be prepared for
anything and everything and do our Preventative Maintenance and shake down
cruises.
The one thing I have not heard as a contingency is docking with the space
station and sending up rescue missions to retrieve the astronauts if they
had discovered there was a problem with the tiles on the left wing and
needed to send the shuttle spacemail to the sun.
If they had found a problem they could not repair it is the reason NASA is
saying they did not take more steps in checking out possible damage.
I sure hope the children and families of those lost astronauts are shielded
from all the speculation and news hounds.
One piece of the shuttle was on ebay and got to $21,000,000 before ebay
pulled it today I do not know what the seller was thinking and the
buyer......
The FBI was on the news warning against taking government property it is ill
gotten booty and they will take you away in bracelets.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Timothy Smith" <timothy.smith1@worldnet.att.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 02, 2003 11:12 PM
Subject: [MV] Columbia. Negligence there?
> Appears several list members are knowledgable in the field of aerospace,
so
> I have a question or at least an observation.
>
> Everyone was well aware that something had hit the left wing of Columbia
and
> the fellas on the ground with the slide rules and thick glasses had a
> pow-wow and came to the conclusion that all was well with Columbia after
> that mishap.
>
> HUH?! (having heard that, my antenna began to quiver)
>
> I heard an astronaut (who was a qualified and experienced shuttle
> crewmember) state in an interview that (at least in the case of Columbia)
> there was no way for the crew to make a visual examination of the exterior
> surfaces of the craft.
>
> EXCUSE ME!? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!
>
> Having heard all the commentary about the delicacies of reentry in a
> shuttle, it seems to me that under circumstances such as these, a visual
> examination of the exterior of Columbia would have been mandatory and
> failure to do so (assuming there was actually something to see that would
> indicate a problem) and failure to consider that such a need would arise
at
> some time and failing to plan for it would constitute negligence.
>
> I am not suggesting that they would have necessarily been able to fix the
> damage, but they sure as hell would be able to make an informed decision
as
> to what they felt they could and could not do with the shuttle afterwards.
>
> Personally, I wouldn't send another shuttle up without some type of EVA
> equipment or perhaps some remotely operated vehicle with cameras and a
> tether so that next time (and God forbid there WILL be a next time) they
can
> at least have a look.
>
> I liken this to one of us taking our HMV's across the desert without a
spare
> parts and a cel phone.....nuts, huh?
>
> Comments, anyone?
>
> Regards,
> TJ Smith
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:25:24 PDT