[lavaroise]

The shuttle is and has always been an engineering disaster waiting to happen.

????? This is Jerry Springerish. It really does not add to the truth and discussion pot we need now.

I will agree however that NASA should be under military command and not politicized. THat is the disaster. If not, for other purposes, private companies should run the thing.

[The_Media_never_lie]

I will agree however that NASA should be under military command and not politicized.

I agree, and sending John Glenn back into space was the height of politicalization-no redeeming scientific/military value.

Why were there 7 on board? Surely all know after Challenger that these are extremely complex and dangerous craft? There is a place for pilots, but the space tourists?

[dep]

no, it's true. the shuttle program has been horribly mismanaged from the get-go, unfortunately in large measure due to nixon's insistence that the space program pay its own way. i did a long piece for the miami herald in 1989 in which a lot of nasa engineers told me that so many corners were cut that they cross their fingers whenever there's a launch.

that having been said, it would be useful to find out who was in the ground crew and what contractors had access to the shuttle before it flew this time. yeah, i'm talking ethnic profiling here. it wasn't shot down, but it could have been tampered with on the ground.

and that having been said, there's a long history of screwups in ground handling. had bill nelson's flight gone when it was supposed to, it would have been blown up because of a probe left in a fuel line.

dep

[Jim Noble]

Please read the rest of my post.

Now is not the time.

When the time comes, I expect our discussion here will be of very high quality. It isn't Jerry Springerish at all.