more news on the Columbia...

Shaka[Zulu] · Post by **Shaka[Zulu]** » 2003-02-28 01:16am

no way... see my post above. 2 soyuz/progress could have got most of the crew off, but only the one for ISS resupply was RTL during the Columbia's mission. I seriously doubt that the russians could have gotten a second ready in that timeframe

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-02-28 01:29am

fuck, it may have been impossible, but when you cant rescue the astronauts you dont send them on to their doom without them knowing. thats criminally neglectful and heads will literally roll if thats what happened..

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-02-28 06:30am

Richer heads prevail yet again...it all comes down to money money money money money money money money money money money. Why spend the money, just take one more risk...and you risk and risk and risk, and when you think you have a royal flush the ace turns into a joker. And they're surprised?

Can't spend the money, the president needs a new yacht...

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-02-28 09:32am

kojikun wrote:fuck, it may have been impossible, but when you cant rescue the astronauts you dont send them on to their doom without them knowing. thats criminally neglectful and heads will literally roll if thats what happened..

They knew of the danger of a heat tile failure.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-02-28 10:10am

Just heard on the news- NASA is now using Russian Soyuz capsules in place of the shuttle fleet.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-02-28 11:00am

kojikun wrote:So I guess their only option was to knowingly let the astronauts die?

They didn't know death was assured. This is just like the situation with the heat shield on Apollo 13, there was no way to tell what would happen. The only option was to bring the space craft down.

Even if their efforts were bound to fail, they should have TRIED to save them.

They did try to land. That's better than doing nothing and having them die from lack of O2.

They should have TRIED before letting them begin reentry. The moment they heard the possibility of breakup they should have done everything they could to get the astronauts off the shuttle and into another vehicle.

For the last time, there was nothing that they could have tried that wouldn't have done more harm than good.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-28 11:01am

OK, OK, so I tried to post a few possibilities off the top of my head and people start flaming me as ignorant just because I didn't check a COUPLE of facts first.

So was there NO possible way the astronauts could check on the damage sustained during the launch? No EVA? Nothing? If so, then that IS incompetance on the part of NASA for not having such things in the first place.

But I see your point about not having another vehicle to rescue them, since I checked last night and found out that it won't be until April before the Russians can send a vehicle to retrieve the crew of the space station.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-02-28 11:21am

Darth Servo wrote:So was there NO possible way the astronauts could check on the damage sustained during the launch? No EVA? Nothing? If so, then that IS incompetance on the part of NASA for not having such things in the first place.

If it was another shuttle, then it could have met up with the ISS where they could have taken a look. Also, if it had it's arm attached, then it could have looked. But the arm wasn't taken on this mission as it wasn't required. As to the EVA, I'm not sure they had the equipment on board to do that. Even if they did, there is nothing that could have been done to fix the problem. The only thing that would have worked would have been an abort right after liftoff. The shuttle could have landed somwhere in Africa. But the problem just wasn't recognized in time for that to happen.