Posted on 02/09/2003 10:54:01 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:30:17 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Within hours of Columbia's fiery end, NASA leadership and Washington politicians were declaring in no uncertain terms that, yes, human exploration of space must continue.
It has often been in emotional and politically charged moments such as this one that NASA's course has been charted. From its start, NASA has been as much about patriotism and pride as science.
(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...
As we now know, the error was with the NASA (so-called)management, who overruled the Thiokol engineers who were alarmed that the O-rings might not function in 25degF temperatures.
I was at KSC at the time, working 60 hours per week and loving it. (I was on-console for the 51-L launch.) There was never any problem with quality.
But NASA did everything possible to blame their failures on us KSC people, but thanks to the late Richard Feynman, their little plan didn't work.
I have no doubt that NASA HQ and JSC are going to try the same thing again with Columbia.
It would be interesting if they could send up automated shuttles in midwinter; that could keep up the launch rate but might not risk human lives as much.
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