If you were a NASA engineer and you were polled on launch day-
Go
or
No Go?
Go
No go
other
Established Member
If you were a NASA engineer and you were polled on launch day-
Go
or
No Go?
Established Member
Vulcan Administrator
Boy, that's a confusing link.
The default action should be "no go" until it's proven to all responsible parties that it's safe (within reasonable limits) to fly. But what's stated on the link is that those objecting to the flight aren't really "no go" on it, they just have misgivings.
Not being a NASA (hardware) engineer, I'm not going to try to judge the specific situation in their place because I don't have all the necessary information and experience.
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
Administrator
I answered go, but that assumes that nothing else bad happens. As has been pointed out in many threads, space travel in dangerous; it is a risk/benefit analysis, it will never be "safe".
Vulcan Administrator
NASA’s Chief Engineer, Safety Officer Weigh in on STS-121 Launch Decision
Two senior NASA officials who voted not to proceed with a July 1 launch of the space shuttle Discovery said Monday that astronaut safety is foremost in their minds, and that the upcoming spaceflight holds no threat to the STS-121 crew’s safe return.
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
Established Member
could it be that those 2 engineers are practicing CYA? (cover yer butt?)....so that if (God forbid) something happens, they can say "well we told you so..."
Order of Kilopi
No they don't. They stated that they believe the mission is safe (enough) for the crew, though not necessarily for the orbiter. So if the crew is killed, they can't say "we told you so". They gave a go for the crew, and a warning for the orbiter. NASA decided to go ahead, judging the risk of losing the orbiter is small enough to allow launching.
Established Member
Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory, but this almost seems too obvious to believe. It must be Mike's dream scenario: put a million cameras on the orbiter and fly it with the good old ET. Big pieces of foam wil be flying all over the place and Mike is praying that a nice big one hits the wing just spot on! Bingo! The orbiter is parked for ever at the ISS, the astronautes will be safed by the Russians, the Shuttle program is canceled immediately (he already announced doing so!) and on to the Moon Mike goes!
Order of Kilopi
If the only person involved is Mike, it ain't a "conspiracy" of course
and btw, the plan is to rescue the astronauts with another shuttle, because the Russians can't really get 7 people surplus back...
Now in a rescue shuttle mission things would get cramped too. 8 has been done, though it would be like 10 people in the return of the rescue mission.
But let's assume a normal launch, which still has more than 98 chance to happen.
Established Member
Isn't that a sort of catch-22?
I mean if you just deemed shuttle A unfit for landing, why would shuttle B (exactly the same machine) make it through launch unharmed?
You would probably end up with 14 stranded astronautes instead of 7.
(Or at least 9 if for some miraculous reason a rescue mission can be flown with only 2 astronautes...)
Besides, the Russians will be quite happy to provide a complete flotilla of rescue ships, if that's what it takes. There is a soyuz docked right now, capable of saving 3 so it would only take another soyuz to safe the other 3 non-ISS astronautes. (I think.)
Can the soyuz fly and dock to ISS unmanned? I don't know, but Progress can do it, so maybe?
Established Member
based on the silliness of NASA's logic....think I'll change my vote to no....
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