Welcome to the Ground

9 August 2005 4 Comments

I am very pleased, as I’m sure everyone is, that Discovery made it safely home this morning. It is always good to welcome our explorers home from the great wilderness in the sky. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I woke up this morning and had the breaking news alert in my email.

Now that everyone is safe on the ground, let me take a moment to say I told you so. Unfortunately, I can’t prove that “I told you so” because I failed to document the “I told you so” in this blog. But rest assured, even before launch, I didn’t buy into the safetly and readiness of this mission. On the date of the first shuttle scrub, I had the radio on in my car and the news came on that NASA had planned to launch that day and that the station would cover it live. At that point, I told myself that there was no way that the shuttle would launch that day. There would be something that would happen to prevent launch. Sure enough, there was a faulty sensor.

Let me say to all of the engineers working on the shuttle missions. You screwed up. Every single one of you. Yes the shuttle managers opted to scrub launch to check for problems. But then you proceeded with launch having not found the source of the problem! You screwed up. Every single one of you that allowed this launch to happen.

In America’s rush to get back into space and quell the public relations nightmare that was the first scrubbed launch following Columbia, you allowed an unsafe launch. Fortunately, you squeaked by without issue. At least not with the faulty fuel sensor.

Of course, the launch included another dread piece of foam that supposedly all of you safety engineers had marked off your list of concerns for this launch. May I ask why? What really made you think there wouldn’t be this problem? Was it just the fact that the rocket booster was redesigned? That should do it right? No testing? No documented evidence? Just assume it’s fixed?

I’m extremely thankful to God that those good folks made it home safely, despite NASA’s incompetence. At this point, I am fully behind the school of thought that says ground the shuttle indefinitely until a suitable safe method of getting into outer space is born and the Shuttle is replaced. They say 2010. My guess is more like 2015. Let’s face it folks, outer space will be there in 10 years. Is it so important that we go to space that we sacrifice our men and women every time we launch? I really doubt it.

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Tags: discovery, Op-Ed, rant, space

4 Responses to “Welcome to the Ground”

Stacie 10 August 2005 at 8:06 am #

We don’t sacrifice men and women every time we launch. There have been more successful launches than failures. And the astronauts know the risks involved, and like any other profession, there are risks. Heck, look at the risk we take with cars, airplanes, etc.

Now on to NASA – do they have a lessons learned meeting after every launch? First off, most tradegies happen in January. Lesson 1, don’t launch in January. Second, there is alot of politics and group think. Lesson 2, if there is something worng, the shuttle doesn’t fly. You are dealing with lives and alot of money for each launch – please stop with the groupthink and management changing minds. Lesson 3, learn from mistakes and stop making the same ones.
Stacie 10 August 2005 at 9:06 am #

We don’t sacrifice men and women every time we launch. There have been more successful launches than failures. And the astronauts know the risks involved, and like any other profession, there are risks. Heck, look at the risk we take with cars, airplanes, etc.

Now on to NASA – do they have a lessons learned meeting after every launch? First off, most tradegies happen in January. Lesson 1, don’t launch in January. Second, there is alot of politics and group think. Lesson 2, if there is something worng, the shuttle doesn’t fly. You are dealing with lives and alot of money for each launch – please stop with the groupthink and management changing minds. Lesson 3, learn from mistakes and stop making the same ones.
Aaron Brazell 10 August 2005 at 9:53 am #

Wel also don’t spend billions of dollars every time we get in a car, Stacie. Billions of dollars for what? To launch people into space to conduct some experiments? Is it worth the risk?

Now here’s a good percentage analogy. There have been approximately 115 Shuttle missions since the shuttle was first put into commission. Of those missions, two ended fatally (Challenger-1986; Columbia-2003). Doing the math, that is 1.7% (let’s say 2%) of all shuttle missions are doomed.

Now let’s assume for a minute that Americans get into the car to drive somewhere 10 billion times in a year. Using that same 2% fatality rate, 34 MILLION of those “trips” are doomed.

See where I’m going with this? a 2% safety risk is unacceptable in my book. If we can’t get into space safely and return safely, we have no business being there. Outer space will always be there. Let’s get this right before we go back.
Aaron Brazell 10 August 2005 at 10:53 am #

Wel also don’t spend billions of dollars every time we get in a car, Stacie. Billions of dollars for what? To launch people into space to conduct some experiments? Is it worth the risk?

Now here’s a good percentage analogy. There have been approximately 115 Shuttle missions since the shuttle was first put into commission. Of those missions, two ended fatally (Challenger-1986; Columbia-2003). Doing the math, that is 1.7% (let’s say 2%) of all shuttle missions are doomed.

Now let’s assume for a minute that Americans get into the car to drive somewhere 10 billion times in a year. Using that same 2% fatality rate, 34 MILLION of those “trips” are doomed.

See where I’m going with this? a 2% safety risk is unacceptable in my book. If we can’t get into space safely and return safely, we have no business being there. Outer space will always be there. Let’s get this right before we go back.