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To: chimera
Maybe I just don't buy into this "private industry is God" that FReepers are seemingly prone to.

Neither do I. But if I was in charge, and an idea for a next generation space ship was brought to me, and I was told, "By the way, we can't launch in the rain.", I'd have laughed them right out the door!

54 posted on 09/28/2005 10:05:27 AM PDT by airborne (My hero - my nephew! Sean is home! Thank you God!)
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To: airborne
I'm old enough to remember the Mercury-Atlas launches in the early 1960s, when you couldn't fly if there were even clouds in the sky. But those were perfectly fine launchers for the purpose.

The first really bad-weather launch was the Apollo-Saturn used on Apollo 12. That one gave me the willies when it got hit by lightning on launch. You just don't light those candles in a thunderstorm.

This isn't atmospheric flight (although there are certainly weather restrictions there as well). The rules are different. The environment is a lot less forgiving. I'm not sure an all-weather launch vehicle with 100% guaranteed safety is in the cards, for NASA or private industry.

60 posted on 09/28/2005 10:11:43 AM PDT by chimera
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