Quote:
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Originally Posted by JackTheTripper
Paul,
(snip)
I respect the work NASA and others do and understand that not every mission is going to be successful.
So if you happen to know, how accurate were they with the entry/capture point? How far off were they? If the parachutes had opened would they have been able to retrieve it?
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A few thinks:
NASA engineers are
not idiots. In fact some are extremely bright and warned BEFOREHAND about booster rocket O-rings prior to the Challenger explosion, and warned BEFOREHAND about the styrofoam being a potential risk, and with that chunk that hit the Columbia during takeoff, that it very likely did damage the wing. Nasa
management deemed the risks to be negligible and actually doing something proactive to be
too expensive and
too risky.
Too expensive? In my humble opinion, the Columbia should have been flown from airshow to airshow on the 747, showing off the ground-breaking reusable spacecraft, and then showcased in the Smithsonian. It's a shame that such a historical aircraft was doomed by knuckleheads in
management when engineers were blowing whistles and getting fired for their efforts, for being troublemakers. The total loss cost more than any attempt at repair or the extremely minor payload capacity for the kit would have cost. It is disgusting. NASA's engineers could have designed a way, extremely rapidly, to rescue the damaged shuttle, if given the green light; I am convinced of it.
I'd love to see a real engineer with a real vision run NASA.