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From: mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Re Fuel-line door questions...
Message-ID: <3330036@hpindda.cup.hp.com>
Date: 11 Mar 91 01:37:13 GMT
References: <7792@crash.cts.com>
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 21

Here's a hypothetical.  (I'm actually somewhat hesitant to even bring
up the subject, as I neither want to jinx anything, nor do I want
people to think of me as morbid and write me nasty letters.)

What if ...  Something were to happen and a shuttle were stranded in
orbit.  For some reason it can't land.  NASA feels that there are
two things they could try.  One has a very slight chance of saving
the crew, but is likely to lose both crew and ship.  The other is
reasonably guaranteed of saving the ship until some sort of service
mission could repair it, but the crew can not survive.

What would NASA do?  I highly suspect that they would have to try
to rescue the crew just because of PR, even if they didn't feel
confident.  But what should NASA do?  What would the crew want NASA
to do?  What would you want NASA to do?

David B. Mears
Hewlett-Packard
Cupertino CA
hplabs!hpda!mears
mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com