Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!delta.eecs.nwu.edu!phil From: phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Why 3 SSME's? Message-ID: <1260@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 12 Oct 89 15:50:45 GMT References: <538.252A3A3B@mamab.FIDONET.ORG> <2430@hydra.gatech.EDU> Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA Lines: 30 In article <2430@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccsupos@prism.gatech.EDU (SCHREIBER, O. A.) writes: >In article shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes: > >>As Gene Miya says, if you have a great idea to make the Shuttle >>better, someone probably already thought of it. >...and didn't do anything about it you could add. No, I wouldn't add that. >>flights, and don't want to wait around for the Shuttle to be perfectly >>safe. > >I think this type of vehicle, without an escape system can never >be safe enough. I'd venture to say that more people die in a typical commercial airline disaster than died in the Shuttle accident. What exactly do you mean by "safe enough"? Safe enough for paying tourists? No. Safe enough for scientific experimentation (which is all it was intended for)? I think it is. And I think that over 100 employees who are in the astronaut program at NASA/JSC think so too. That's why they're still in it. If prior to 1986 they didn't understand or realize just how dangerous it was, then Challenger demonstrated it to them. But they're still there. I think that it is "safe enough" for *the intended purpose*. William LeFebvre Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Northwestern University