Why Fly at All?
- NASA postponed the return of Atlantis for at least a day and examined the shuttle for damage that could prevent it from making the journey home after a mysterious object apparently fell off the ship in orbit Tuesday.
Space agency officials wanted extra time to establish whether the object was a vital piece of the shuttle - such as the tiles that protect it from the blowtorch heat of re-entry - and whether it harmed the spacecraft when it fell away.
Officials were not optimistic they would be able to identify the object, since the possibilities were almost endless, ranging from harmless ice to crucial thermal protection tiles. But the leading candidate was a plastic space-filler placed between the thermal tiles.
Didn't we just lose a shuttle over crap like this? How long until someone wises up and figures out a better system than "tiles" that have about a million extraneous parts that might fall off and result in the deaths of numerous people? Can't we invent something just a wee little bit safer?
posted by SCC at 12:06 AM
22 Comments:
Whistle blowers on the first shuttle disaster testified they were ignored when they alerted the higher ups about the liklihood of disaster regarding the tiles. It would be a shame it happened again.
Aside from the space issue, just heard that the FOP State has endorsed Blagoivich. Lodge 7, which is probably bigger than the State FOP tallied individual endorsements for J.B. Topinka. THese were disregarded by State FOP in favor of Blago with no protest raised by Lodge 7.
Lodge 7 pulled this 4 years ago with Lisa Madigan. She was not endorsed by the members of Lodge 7 but FOP lied to State Lodge about the tally and Madigan was inturn endorsed by the state.
Why do we keep putting up with the liars and bullshit artist running any of the FOP lodges. They are selling us out at every turn.
SCC, I applaud you for how much time and effort and knowledge you have to have to run this blog but come on with this comment. Do you know how many brilliant people it takes to engineer these things? There is almost no budget crunch when it comes to NASA either. Don't you think that, literally, rocket scientists would come up with something better if they could? Don't you think that they have teams of incredibly intelligent engineers working their entire shift day after day to come up with the next best thing? And isn't there anything else you could've chosen which is more appropriate for a site practically dedicated to the Chicago Police than your percieved shortcomings of NASA engineers? Please remember I really appreciate your efforts concerning this blog but this topic and the question you pose is pompous at best.
How about trashing the whole space program costing hundreds of billions of dollars and lowering our taxes again.
"How about trashing the whole space program costing hundreds of billions of dollars and lowering our taxes again."
Hey, I don't care how much they spend....we got velcro out of it!
The space program at NASA was and is still valuable to our country. Many technologies we enjoy today came from engineers,scientists,and contractors for NASA. One good example is the computer technology we are using at this very moment. The problem with the shuttle is that it's been in service too long.(over 20yrs.)The Apollo and Gemini programs combined didn't last that long. It's now time for NASA to develop the next generation of spacecraft if we are going to continue to explore space. The prototypes have been on the drawing board for years. Our exploration of space is worth the investment. Just what we've gained in scientific knowledge in the last 40yrs justifies this.
We don't have enough money for health insurance, children and old people go hungry, no one can afford medications... need I say more? Space my ass - put these asswipe politicians up on space and if they come back....otherwise, let's take care of business here on earth.
Well, I don't know about you fellas, but I'm looking forward to NASA discovering new life forms. Hopefully a superior one to us, so we all be enslaved and cornholed on a daily basis...
Just voicing my opinion boys!
See you at paintball Saturday!
-023rd District Tact guy
Trashing the space program is incredibly short-sighted. So-called "pure research" I.E. scientific research aimed at a general "figuring things out" rather than solving specific current problems is actually responsible for the lions share of new technologies that make our lives and world better.
Our taxes are way too high because of all the nonsense and waste, not because of programs that matter.
damn liberals!
Partial story:
Authorities today announced the arrests of seven alleged gang members from the western suburbs who entered the United States illegally.
The illegal immigrants, all Mexican nationals and documented members of the Latin Kings and Insane Deuces street gangs, were arrested Tuesday night and face deportation, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
All seven have criminal histories, which include convictions for voluntary manslaughter, burglary, drunken driving and illegally possessing a firearm, ICE said. Five of the seven are being held today in ICE custody pending their deportation.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060920gangs,1,3650679.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Let's throw them back where they belong. They can gang bang back in their real barrio.
I like how Cook COunty Hospital "Police" have less that 80 "officers," yet they have a $3 million budget.
Time to fire all those patronage hacks before they beatdown any more senior citizens.
Shit, we could use that money!
We weren't advocating the disbanding of NASA of the stopping of the space program. Far from it. We just thought that with the brilliant minds we have throughout our engineering and scientific communities, there's got to be a better way than these goofy tiles and other crap that keeps falling off shuttles and damaging the craft to the point where lives are put into danger needlessly.
We're the United States of America for pete's sake
I say we scrap the space progam and use the money to reprogam all the shit for brains liberals.
Then we could invade Iran and Venezuela.
San Francisco PD's union leader responds to the media....
http://mfile.akamai.com/
12948/wmv/vod.ibsys.com/
2006/0728/
9591734.300k.asx
to; 06:18:43
We could use liquid nails to hold those tiles on.
To 7:36:47 or drywall screws and duct tape.
I'm for two-sided tape for the nasty tiles.
Duct Tape ROCKS
How about trashing the whole space program costing hundreds of billions of dollars and lowering our taxes again.
9/20/2006 05:58:46 AM
Or how about embracing capitalism like the Russians and charging $20 mil for a ride to space? The person taking the shotgun seat pays for the rocket and fuel. The 4th "space tourist" is up there now. Iranian born multi-millionaire woman from Texas.
I know a few retired coppers who can hang tiles for them anytime and give them a deal on the job too. Oh and remember everything is better if you caulk
Nix the 4th "space tourist...too many demands. Here's the scoop:
The Iranian lady from Texas demands to wear a burka in space and refuses to wear a space suit She cannot co-habitate with the males on the ship, especially Christians, thus she must have her own room. She also demands to return in a fully-loaded jet black convertible cadillac with bull horns on the hood of the car ala Texas style and not any type of space shuttle with cheap tiles.
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