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The hypothetical rescue of the Columbia - and its effects on NASA's future missions

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Historyical footnote only (Score: 5, Insightful)

by caseih@pipedot.org on 2014-02-27 03:37 (#7B)

I'm not sure why this is actually making such a splash right now. The investigating committee went over this, and while it was always a possibility, for whatever reason (probably good reasons at the time), no rescue was ever mounted, so it's a bit pointless to take this theoretical rescue plan and make anything of it. Maybe in hindsight the engineering committee's decisions were wrong, but we can only know that now in hindsight. And it's not at all clear that a rescue would have been feasible. So at most it's an interesting footnote to history. Nothing more.

It's sad that the shuttle program ended; it was a fantastic machine. But I'm excited to see companies like SpaceX fill the gap, and probably do things that NASA needs better and cheaper.

Re: Historyical footnote only (Score: 3, Interesting)

by paddym@pipedot.org on 2014-02-27 05:02 (#7D)

Those were my thoughts as well. The Columbia crash was a tragedy, but there really wasn't enough information at the time to predict that outcome. It would have been very difficult to remedy had they known for sure. I feel like if they had attempted the rescue with so many corners cut for expediency, they would have most likely lost 2 shuttles instead of one.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2014-03-02 09:03 Underrated +1 maxim@pipedot.org
2014-03-01 23:29 Interesting +1 zenbi@pipedot.org

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