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Date:      Sun, 2 Feb 2003 23:30:56 -0800 (PST)
From:      "f.johan.beisser" <jan@caustic.org>
To:        Larry Sica <lomion@mac.com>
Cc:        Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>, John Martinez <rolnif@mac.com>, <barbish@a1poweruser.com>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: oh my god the nasa shuttle blewup
Message-ID:  <20030202231612.B63914-100000@pogo.caustic.org>
In-Reply-To: <A2B6C76C-371E-11D7-839A-000393A335A2@mac.com>

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On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, Larry Sica wrote:

> 1.  NASA was prepared to deal with an accident this time.  Challenger
> they were caught with their pants down.
> 2.  Everything points to a malfunction/failure not a design flaw.

everything so far.

Challenger was a design flaw, found to late.

the shuttles are past their original useful life expectancy. we'll see
more "minor" failures before another spectacular one.

> Wont happen, this is way to important to NASA, and the rest of the
> world.  This is not a US project, but a world project.

this project is more important to the US than anyone else. while ESA and
our Russian friends are involved, we're the ones that've invested the most
time and money in to it.

> Yes.  It wasn't a terrorist is my gut feeling.  To have it blow up on
> re-entry 200,000 feet up.  They couldnt do it with a missile - we'd
> have seen it.  As for a bomb, from todays conference it doesn't sound
> like that.

what stuns me is how many people WANT it to be a bomb or missle.

i don't know of a single SAM or AAM that can get to that altitude, it
would have been detected, and on radar well before hitting the shuttle.
the return flight is plotted out, and very heavily monitored by many
different agencies (FAA, NASA, USAF, etc) for anything that might be a
problem.

getting a bomb to the shuttle is what's left for an external cause. very
unlikely. NASA's launch facilities are well guarded, and the launch
vehicle is heavily protected and examined before even getting to the
launch pad. once there, it's under more guard, cameras, and key. NASA has
no qualms in stopping or delaying a launch for any reason, we've seen that
over the last 10 years.

this is a "simple" failure. something went horribly wrong, and there's
nothing that could have been done to prevent it.

-------/ f. johan beisser /--------------------------------------+
  http://caustic.org/~jan                      jan@caustic.org
	"Champagne for my real friends, real pain for
	  my sham friends." -- Tom Waits


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