Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!igor!rutabaga!wab
From: wab@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Bill Baker)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: MANY QUESTIONS (Shuttle cabin survival)
Message-ID: <953@igor.Rational.COM>
Date: 25 Mar 91 22:47:02 GMT
References: <8097@crash.cts.com> <940@igor.Rational.COM> <1991Mar23.094700.14237@cimage.com>
Sender: news@Rational.COM
Organization: Joan Vollmer Womens Academy
Lines: 37

In article <1991Mar23.094700.14237@cimage.com> gregc@dgsi.UUCP (Greg Cronau/10000) writes:
>In article <940@igor.Rational.COM> wab@eclipse.Rational.COM (Bill Baker) writes:
>>I'm sure that on the first shuttle launch Truly was thinking to
>>himself, "The hell with the ejection seats.  If the shit hits the fan,
>>I'm shutting down the computers and putting this baby down by the seat
>>of my pants."  So instead of thinking of the crew cabin as a
>
>I've got 2 little problems with this:
>1.) If Truly was on the first shuttle mission, he was hiding somewhere in
>the equipment bay. The first mission was Young/Crippen.

I post two long pieces on the shuttle survival system and almost the only response
is, "It wasn't Truly it was Crippen."  Alright, it was Crippen!  Jeez....

>2.) If you shut down the computers, then you had better eject, because you
>are flying a *rock* at that point! Without the computers, there's no way
>to get the signals from the pilots controls to the control surfaces!
>
>gregc@cimage.com

Same thing.  If it makes the nitpickers happy, substitute the word "overriding" for
the phrase "shutting down."  The intent was perfectly clear.  For God's sake, I
hope the future of the net isn't typical of this useless pedantery.

I still say that NASA is shooting itself in the foot with no real crew survival
system.  Their rationale, and this applies to a lot of other shuttle systems as
well, is that the likelihood of failure over time isn't worth the trouble.  Yet
this argument assumes a low number of flights annually.  Fewer flights=less risk of
failure over the lifetime of the shuttle program.  More flights=greater risk.  So
essentially NASA is betting that shuttle use *won't* increase; it's betting against
its own favorite launch system and predicating a lot of design features on that
assumption.  Isn't NASA supposed to be ambitious?  Even with a new heavy lifter,
construction and maintenance of the Space Station, a Mars mission, shuttle
repair/retrieval of satellites, launching probes, various science missions, all add
up to more than ten flights a year over the next 30 years.  Either NASA's being
pessimitic about how often the shuttle will fly or else cavalier with the lives of
astronauts.