Yet much hay is there to be made, and surely the Democrats will lampoon any mission undertaken soon, because it would be "a sign of wreckless abandon by the administration ... blah ... blah ... blah."
I would launch the next mission on schedule; and when it lands successfully, there will be cheering.
It's something we need right now; get back on the horse.
Unless ignorance has set in too well in the shop where the structure is supposed to be finessed instead of finessing the look of gay people, the look of the dis-enfranchised people, the look of political officers, and such Clintonistas about whom their feelings are more important than meticulous attention to mechanical and electrical details.
Meaning that Los Alamos is not a fluke; it just happens to be a more outspoken case revealing "the new paradigm" of being lost in extra-Constitutional space.
If the Democrats can see a way to let blood, they will ... they'll make this event a harbinger to strike a blow against Yankee Ingenuity, to "capitalize" on the chance to raise evermore doubts about, "Are we doing the right thing?"
At first, there will respective "shock;" but then, you watch, the campus minons of socialism will begin to oppose the scientific - military - industrial complex and its imposition "out there" as an attack upon "nature."
In short, "the left" will make this to be "symbolic" of our being rash.
It's "risky."
Boo!
Well, you know it is; and I know it is; and we've gone and done it anyway.
Because we dare to crawl out of the cave, or from the cave, or away from the cave ... that is the cavern which "the left" is always trying to steer the people into.
At the airlines, when that commuter plane was lost in your neck of the woods, the tech.'s "turned to" in greater attention; that is always the reaction. And it's true in the military.
But N.A.S.A. is the air wing of the Congress, as you know, and all direction, save the rash Yankee Ingenuity of men and women of the likes that you are, is inadvertently arrived at by reaction to committee flatulence, in a manner of speaking --- you are expected to read the vapors and do the politically correct thing.
That is often times juxtaposed with the mechanically correct thing.
I once wrote up a report on a little 19 cent "O"-ring which cost me my job but kept a piece of important hardware functioning; I was fired, "let go" for other "economic reasons" very early in 1980's.
The technology was everything, and it had to work. While everybody's politics, sex, religion, and esteem only registered in public.
I was fired for political reasons, however, "office politics;" and though I had a "get out of jail free card," and I was invited to use it, I declined because I'd rather try something new.
I could have nice and cosy inside the "gubmint contract" job, but I preferred to go where the action is.
I did the right thing, about that "O"-ring; and I did the right thing to go and not look back; because I struggle to maintain a standard, or improve it.
God knows that I'm a wreck at times, but I cannot see the point in making political, what is scientific.
There is truth to be found in the technical problem, and the scientific approach most rewarding for the faithful who work to solve things and make 'em work well.
People will fuss over "He said, she said, they said ... " because that is easier, when trying to get ahead in the bureaucratic mindset; but it is not for me.
I tend to stick with making things work, and the "interpersonal dynamic" I want to see, is the smiles on the surrounding faces, when they see both the why it works, as well as the relief, the victory.
The leader of such a shop knows the pride of workmanship and values it above all the other prides which "Goeth before the fall."
Unfortunately, that value was destroyed by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and I cannot tell you what remains of it to have now at our time of need.
You wrote a long essay. Not a word of it untrue. Every word of it deserving to be read by every American school child (not to mention his parents and teachers).
When I heard about the tragedy this morning, I had three reactions: immediate sorrow for those seven cream of the crop people whose lives were lost in this tragedy; sorrow for their families (both families by blood, and their NASA family); and a realistic bracing for what is to come.
What is to come is pretty much predictable, and unpalatable :
There will be the over-reporting by a ghoulish media, who want to leave no stone unturned and leave no question unasked in an effort to prolong a story which will keep them (as the omniscient interpreters) in the focus of the national consciousness.
In the leave no question unasked category, there will be three most offensive tactics undertaken:
(1) They will consult with hand-picked (by them, of course) ‘experts’ in order to tell us how we should best attempt to cope with this national tragedy. Leftist psycho babble will rule the day (week, month), and we will be treated as if we were unable to breathe in and out, or place one foot in front of the other, without their kind assistance.
(2) They will attempt to interview the families and friends of the deceased in order to prolong their (the interviewer’s) day in the sun. They will ask all manner of inane questions, certain to include, ‘How did it feel as you stood among the families at Cape Canaveral and began to suspect that something was wrong?’
(3) They (and their leftist accomplices in congress, and on campus) will begin to second-guess, and finger-point (at best) those who designed, built, and maintained the space shuttle. They may even be so arrogant as to dig into the history of the missions, and finger-point at past designers/builders/maintainers. And what will make this particular behavior especially obscene is the fact that most of them are probably intellectually incapable of comprehending the higher mathematics and science over which the people they will be accusing of incompetence have an expert grasp. Nor do they have any comprehension of the work ethic, dedication, honor and patriotism represented by the people they will be accusing of having a lack of such. People in glass houses shouldn’t sit in judgment of those who built them their houses.
When I worked as a fuel element designer at an atomic power lab in the early seventies, we were periodically besieged, on site, by hordes of useful, placard-carrying, idiots. I generally walked right by them into the lab. Once I stopped and talked with them, only to find that there was no talking with them. They knew nothing about that which they were protesting. All they knew was that it (the design of nuclear power plants) had to be discredited, and the plants had to be dismantled. Ignorance (especially ignorance which receives national attention, and national acceptance) is a very dangerous thing.
Now, thirty years later, the same kind of people will continue to attempt to destroy the space program. They will ghoulishly use every tragedy to their ideological, anti-American benefit.
I am not saying that there weren’t fatal errors made on this mission. Obviously there were. (A good FReeper friend e-mailed the following to me today, in part: Why [didn’t] someone step up and say these crafts will experience the same kind of fatigue as did the first jet liners during the early sixties when jet powered aircraft were a relatively new item? It's painfully obvious one or both of the bay doors or some other structure entry point failed on reentry due to fatigue.) He may well be right. I respect his opinion. It emanates from a mind that genuinely wants to know why – not one that wants to turn tragedy into fodder for globalist propaganda.
One needs only consider the fact that, in order to free itself from the earth’s atmosphere, the amount of power needed is mind-boggling (6.6 million pounds of thrust at lift-off alone). But, as was so eloquently pointed out by Jim Lovell today, the shuttle must deflect an equivalent amount of power upon re-entry. That, too, is mind-boggling. And the reality is that, just a minor error in one of millions of calculations or physical/mechanical elements, could account for today’s tragedy.
As has probably been said ad infinitum on this thread, the fact that there have been so few human tragedies in the shuttle program (or in the forty-year history of humans in space) is evidence of its incredible success. I know that the friends and families of those who died in Apollo I, Challenger, and Columbia surely find little personal solace in that fact (and understandably so), but I can’t help but wonder how many of them would like to see the space program slowed, or dismantled, as a result of their personal loss. My guess would be none of them.
Get back on the horse!
And soon. Your words need to reverberate among the scientific community, and the American public in general. It’s the only sane reaction to this tragedy. To allow the ghouls and second-guessers to call the shots would be a fatal mistake.
Your yankee ingenuity has been responsible for the greatest scientific/industrial progress (in the shortest amount of time) that humankind has ever known. And it has been fueled by courage, vision, and determination unparalleled in the history of mankind. Yet we have allowed it to be smothered by the leftists/globalists on so many fronts. And, to the degree that we continue to capitulate to them, we will find ourselves held hostage to a class of people who hold humanity, and human liberty, in contempt.
God knows that I'm a wreck at times, but I cannot see the point in making political, what is scientific. You don’t embrace the lying, power-hungry (at the expense of human industry and dignity) bureaucratic mindset. Thank you for that. :)
As evidence, I offer the predictable fact that NASA has ordered KSC to stop processing the fleet and sit on their collective hands for an indefinite period of time.
The obvious thing to do would be to continue to ready the remaining shuttles for launch. If it turned out that there is some generic problem that needs to be fixed, then destack if necessary and fix it. Otherwise, press on.
But since they are not doing that, there is the obvious implication that "We don't want you people touching flight hardware until we check you out." There is no doubt in my mind that NASA HQ will try and pin what was probably a well-known design problem on the tile technicians and/or mechanical techs at KSC. They are probably getting the rubber hose and cattle-prod treatment as we speak.
BTW, I have given some thought as to the (extremely remote, IMO) possibliity of sabotage by a crew member. Just "would it be possible" idle speculation. I think it might be.
If the DAP [Digital Auto Pilot] could have been disabled - by pulling a couple of circuit breakers at a critical point, that might have done it. Of course the S-Band communication system would have had to be disabled first, or Houston would have seen the DAP failure, which they didn't.
We had two foreign nationals on this flight (I think), one of whom had a "history" in space.
But considering that pieces appear to have been coming off the shuttle long before communication was lost, I discount the on-board sabotage theory. I'm still convinced the breakup was due to either a tile failure back by the elevon cove, and/or separation of part (or all) of an elevon . That could have been subsequent to a DAP failure were it not for the fact that Houston didn't see any anomalies.