Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Blowing up the Shuttle
Message-ID: <1990Apr7.054303.52@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Apr6.234715.22061@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 90 05:43:03 GMT

In article <1990Apr6.234715.22061@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) writes:
>The RSO waited until it was clear what was happening.  In particular, when the 
>SRB's were determined to be headed back towards land [quite a bit after the 
>intial explosion] the RSO detonated the charges. 

One reason why he wasn't in a hurry was that it had originally been thought
that loose SRBs would tumble, which would largely eliminate the threat of
them running wild.  Oops; didn't happen that way.

In fact, 20-20 hindsight later determined that the SRBs probably were not
a threat and nothing dire would have happened if the RSO had kept his
finger off the button... but the man gets paid to make a decision without
waiting for the benefit of hindsight.
-- 
Apollo @ 8yrs: one small step.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Space station @ 8yrs:        .| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu