[meyer]

This seems to be some kind of mantra to absolve NASA and to place this accident in the category of the acceptable risks of space flight. To me it always begs the question, "Why are we sending up shuttles with no hope of survival for the crew if the tiles become damaged during launch?" This is the question that needs to be answered. There are various means of saving the crew, but they all require preparation before the launch, and, obviously, none of them were done on this mission. A rather sad way to treat such brave souls. May the Columbia crew RIP.

Many shuttles have gone up and lost tiles either on the way up or the way down. It isn't unusual, and it is expected.

Is "there was nothing they could do" the entire quote or is it taken out of the context of something kind of like "once we realized that communications were lost, there was nothing we could do." I suspect that there is some serious misquoting going here, especially given the very candid interview I saw yesterday.

Everybody wants this to not have happened. But for some reason, it did. It remains that space travel is inherently dangerous. There's a series of perfect events that must take place to get there. There's another series of perfect events that must occur to get back. Occasionally, something isn't perfect - that's the human side of this. That's why space travel is voluntary, not mandatory. If it weren't dangerous, we'd all be doing it.

[VRWC For Truth]

Apparently space travel is also hazardous on the ground. NASA was lucky no one on the ground was hurt with tons of shuttle pieces raining down. Safety is not just about the astronauts, it's about the rest of us too.

[Mr Fowl]

Did anyone see that video that (I'M sure you's all seen) when the camera gets a close-up of the shuttle on reentry just before the contrail starts and then the camera zooms back?

Anyway, when the camera zooms in at first it looks like the shuttle is going sideways with the rear of the shuttle facing camera and the left wing facing the direction of travel!

Hope someone on freerepublic can run across that video and post the beginning frames of that video to make sure I'M not seeing things!

[TheDon]

The crew was obviously willing to accept great risks, that is not the point here. It is NASA's job not to impose unneccessary risks on the crews. Just because the crew is willing to take the risk doesn't mean we should make them.