If At First You Don't Succeed...Fail Again
Am I the only person who finds it extremely disconcerting that NASA found a flaw in the new shuttle, Discovery, and still intend to launch it?
Keep in mind that this particular flaw isn't just anywhere...it's a crack in the insulation for one of the fuel tanks. Columbia blew up after damaged thermal insulation on it's left wing allowed superheated gases to penetrate and destroy the vehicle. I'm sure the experts there know what they're doing, but geez, it's a crack in the FUEL TANK!
Shuttle Discovery includes 286 modifications made to it since the Columbia tragedy.
Unfortunately none of those modifications included a fuel tank that would not explode upon ignition.
posted by neonangel at 8:40 PM
8 Comments:
I breezed through the story. My immediate reaction is that the press is having a field day because... well, because they're the press, and they can.
NASA has sent things up that blew up when they weren't expecting it, so nobody's perfect, but if the people with training & experience say the insulation crack isn't a problem, I'll take their word for it. They've got more to lose than the press.
12:28 PM
I gotta second Harvey on this one, and speaking as an engineer very familiar with risk-management. Discovering minor flaws like this is routine. Pre-Columbia-disaster, NASA wouldn't have even bothered to do a press release about such an acceptable flaw. They did it this time, thinking that MSM would run it with a "See? They are checking EVERYTHING now!" flavor. Bad thinking, but from a PR standpoint, not an engineering or mission command standpoint.
I saw the same thing happen after Three Mile Island. Routine nuke plant shutdowns for possible saftey issues were, and still are, well... routine. At first, in an attempt at showing openness and honesty, every plant in the nation that shut down quickly because of a possible safety problem issued a press release. After getting their PR brains smashed in for trying to be open and honest, they went back to being quiet about it. Somewhere, right now in the US, a nuke plant is down because they thought there might be a problem. You won't hear about it in the news, though - they learned the hard way.
3:05 PM
Neon - pretty quiet over here... should I start worrying, or just keep nagging? :-)
12:20 PM
Keep nagging, I'll eventually come around. =)
6:38 PM
That does it... I'm releasing the hounds...
1:50 PM
Oh crap.
The hounds ate him.
I'll see if I can find some Ipecac.
10:53 AM
NAG! NAG! NAG! :-P
12:04 PM
Heh! I see the hounds finally coughed him up... and in pretty sad shape, too! ;)
Don't worry, neonangel... when your Sarah gets back, you'll have a fresh perspective. Being without her is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. It just feels SO damn good when you stop!
9:47 PM
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