Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!titan!heskett From: heskett@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Donald Heskett) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Skeptical Shuttle Enquirer Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 20:44:09 GMT References: <910@idacrd.UUCP> <1991Apr9.172200.13427@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: news@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu Organization: Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin. Lines: 21 In-reply-to: kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu's message of 9 Apr 91 17:22:00 GMT Kieran A. Carroll (kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu) says: >heskett@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Donald Heskett) writes: >>If you were a truly cynical person, and you were extremely worried >>about the manned space budgets during these times, and if you needed a >>GOLDEN opportunity to demonstrate why man needs to be launching >>satellites ... >> . . . . I hate to be such a cynic and a skeptic but it is just too >>much like a choreographed melodrama for me. Actually, I didn't say that: someone else did. Be careful with your quotes! It does seem to me, however, that a significantly higher percentage of failures have occured among satellites lofted by the Shuttle, compared with those lofted by expendable boosters. Unfortunately, I haven't kept records good enough to verify the conjecture. Nor have I ever come up with a good hypothesis for a cause. Does anybody have comparative figures at hand?