Contact with Columbia Lost!

[Master Zen]

Ned:

Your home must emit a powerful electo-magnetic pulse which instantly shoots down flying objects passing directly above your airspace. Are you sure your alarm clock is FCC compliant?

[DanS]

I agree, surely the US should step up the NASA budget from $3,000,000. That's nothing.

Haven't you read this thread? NASA funding is $15,000,000,000.

[DanS]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Willie McCool was a friend of mine and neighbor years back before he got accepted by NASA for training. Flying in space is what he wanted to do more than anything, and he knew the risks. Knowing those risks, he wouldn't (and didn't) hesitate for a moment to pursue selection for astronaut training, and he worked his ass off and applied his great talents to do it.

He was funny, low-key but wound up at the same time, a great guy, not-so-great chess player, but super talented, smart as all hell, and he knew what he wanted in life and he went for it, and he made it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DanS

Haven't you read this thread? NASA funding is $15,000,000,000.

It's still not enough. We landed on the moon years ago, and we still don't have a permanent colony there yet! And the space station plans have been reduced to a shadow of what they once were. But of course the military has no problem coming up with $25 billion for a missile shield with dubious benefits.

[DanS]

It's still not enough.

How does it compare to Canada's funding for space?

[Willem]

Originally posted by DanS
It's still not enough.

How does it compare to Canada's funding for space?

No argument there. IMO all the countries in the world don't spend enough on space exploration. I'd like to see a man walk on Mars in life, maybe even a colony. It's not going to happen if we keep nickel and dimeing our way through. Space costs a lot of money, but in the long run every penny will have been worth it.

And so will every life that's been lost so far, and the ones still to come.

[Dis]

guess everyone is here posting in this thread.

Don't forget more than lives were lost. Many science experiments were lost including rats, ants, and roses.

I'm guilty. Call me a nationalist, call me what you will. I fully admit I'm more affected by these 7 deaths than the 7 deaths in Canada yesterday. I can't fully explain why, but I'm just being honest. Although I don't think I'm that nationalistic. I feel for the Israli and The Indian/american. It doesn't matter they werent american- well the Indian chick was a citizen. It's just that astonauts represent some of the bravest best people around.

Astronauts represent some of the bravest people on the face of the planet. They represent the best of the best. Not all lives are equal. and if you expect me to behave that way you won't get it from me. These 7 people stood to do more for our world than any other 7 people I can think of at the moment. So I do feel their loss is very significant.

Anyways I'll take a lot of flames for this view. Apparantly some people expect me not to feel bad this happened because people are dying in africa.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Re: Bravery. On reentry, you get rock and rolled in far stronger turbulence than the worst anyone's every felt on any airliner, and you for a good period of time, you do it in the middle of a bubble of sorts, of superheated gasses that are 2-3000 degrees.

There are a lot of possible scenarios and conditions which can occur to the spacecraft, from which there is simply no possibility of recovery. You try to avoid those by engineering, but know nothing is ever 100% certain. The problems you can recover from, you train your ass off.

Willie McCool was a friend of mine and neighbor years back before he got accepted by NASA for training. Flying in space is what he wanted to do more than anything, and he knew the risks. Knowing those risks, he wouldn't (and didn't) hesitate for a moment to pursue selection for astronaut training, and he worked his ass off and applied his great talents to do it.

He was funny, low-key but wound up at the same time, a great guy, not-so-great chess player, but super talented, smart as all hell, and he knew what he wanted in life and he went for it, and he made it.

Ned - no surprise, the guy briefing the press is may not likely be privy to NASA requests to intel agencies operating classified equipment. NASA and the shuttle program run a lot of military missions with classified payloads, so there's pretty definite partitioning between classified and non-classified activity and personnel. I wouldn't be surprised at all by any apparent discrepancy like that.

I am so sorry.

[Dis]

I need to vent more here. I am angry. I'm angry because people say I can't feel bad.

I don't like people telling me how to feel.

This is also more about lives. I feel for the lives and family. But more is at stake here. This is a symbol. Not the lives- they aren't the symbol. But the space shuttle. Sure it isn't the best design out there. But the space shuttle represents the best the U.S. (and the world now we have astronauts and engineers from other countries) has to offer. It shows what is possible if the best and the brightest get together. And not even the best and brightest. It also represents americans from the president/congress on down to the talented fighter pilot, down to the blue collar guy in steel toe boots assembling shuttle parts.

In essence this shuttle represents the entire country. Even I feel a part of it. My tax dollars go to paying for this thing. We as voters support the space program. We give our contribution not by science or piloting skills, but our money. So our contribution to the space program is also lost.

[The Mad Monk]

Diss, I agree.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Dissident
I need to vent more here. I am angry. I'm angry because people say I can't feel bad.

I don't like people telling me how to feel.

This is also more about lives. I feel for the lives and family. But more is at stake here. This is a symbol. Not the lives- they aren't the symbol. But the space shuttle. Sure it isn't the best design out there. But the space shuttle represents the best the U.S. (and the world now we have astronauts and engineers from other countries) has to offer. It shows what is possible if the best and the brightest get together. And not even the best and brightest. It also represents americans from the president/congress on down to the talented fighter pilot, down to the blue collar guy in steel toe boots assembling shuttle parts.

In essence this shuttle represents the entire country. Even I feel a part of it. My tax dollars go to paying for this thing. We as voters support the space program. We give our contribution not by science or piloting skills, but our money. So our contribution to the space program is also lost.

Good on you for speaking honestly. Of course it was a tragedy in the loss of human life, but the big thing that died today was an American icon. The sad conversation of this event centres around "what happened to the shuttle/ could it have been prevented/ are they looking into new shuttle designs?"

For the most part, it has nothing to do with the astronauts themseleves - "did they have children/ what were their lives like/ were their deaths repayed with the worth of their missions?"

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by ColdWizard

they reviewed the video of the launch, and with their various experts determined that the debris incident wasn't a safety concern. other incidents with the foam impacting parts of the orbiter and boosters apparently only caused superficial damage

But they are already beginning to rethink the impact that insulating foam may have had on the left wing. And think about it- a ground video review from miles away? That's not going to be conclusive IMO, no matter how many engineers they have analysing it.

Did they even try checking for critical damage when Columbia was still in space? They use sattelites and planes for that when necessary, and now I wonder if they even bothered.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Agathon
Anyway, even if we believe that all lives have equal status we will be forced by that logic to assume that some are more valuable than others.

Sound odd?

Well it isn't. Imagine that in a war you have the option of saving an injured infantryman or an injured medic. If you save the medic he will be more likely to save other lives than the infantryman will. So if you care about minimizing the number of deaths, the survival of the medic is more important. QED

edit: damn, i should read first


it was my dream job as a young lad to be astronaut, as was it their's. they knew the risk and were unlucky enough to have to face the consequences.
you can build your house in a region with heavy storms or right next to the highway. you can eat blowfish. you can fück around with the russian mafia... but you know the risk and were ready to risk your life for fun or money, so you shouldn't complain if something happens. QED

[Lancer]

Zylka, ask this instead...did they go knowing they might not come back? They were willing to lay down their lives for the mission. These people knew it might come to that. Also, Americans have a way of rebuilding stuff we like, and care about, but building better. This space shuttle was a very big, expensive, and special piece of hardware. We will have a bigger, more expensive and better piece of hardware to be proud of. This day has seen to that, and so has the lives of the heroic spacefarers.

[Zoid]

Damn, huge thread I´d just like to extend my condolences to the bereaved families. It just goes to show that space exploration is far from safe. Also the underfunding of NASA doesn´t excactly help.

Also I´m not at all surprised that some bozos tries to make this an arab/jew question. Sad, but not surprised No wonder the world is going to hell with all this mistrust and idiocy flying around. Poly is after all a pretty accurate cross-section of western "civilized" world...

FFS, grow up and can the troll food guys

paiktis, excellent post re: partying on the West Bank Exactly my point of view as well...