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From: rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Losing a shuttle
Message-ID: <259@noscvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 17:41:37 EST
Article-I.D.: noscvax.259
Posted: Wed Mar 12 17:41:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 08:15:41 EST
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 45
Keywords: shuttle,hindsight

Much has been said about the loss of Challenger and what it means to
the future of the space program and even the human race.  Perhaps the
most telling message is the sudden realization that too many of us
really did not understand what the loss of one of the shuttles would
mean.  It is one thing to say that the astronauts, NASA officials, etc.,
knew what the risk was.  They probably did sense the personal dangers to
crew and even launch area personnel.  It is another matter to weigh the
greater consequences of a loss of one quarter of the shuttle fleet.

It now seems clear (to me anyway), that it was unbelievably foolish to
rely totally on the shuttles to launch our coming space satellites.  It
was a gamble, a huge one.  Didn't somebody every ask the question, "If
a shuttle goes down, for whatever reason, how will we launch satellites?"
If a 747 crashes, you can ground all the remaining 747's and still have 
plenty of jet planes left to carry the load.  Not so with a tiny fleet
of shuttles of a single design.

It is this incredible gamble which worries me more than the fact of loss
of life, as tragic as that is.  Accidents will always happen from time to
time; people will be lost.  We cannot foresee all the circumstances which
might lead to those disasters.  Those risks are accepted by those persons
bold enough to do the exploring.  You prepare as well as you can (in the
case of the Challenger, apparently the preparation was not what it should have been, but that is another matter) and hope for the best.

What should have been given greater consideration was the fact that the
consequences of a catastrophic accident would probably ground our whole space
program for months, even years.  I was frankly astonished to learn that we
have only a handful of expendable rocket boosters and none in production.
Those responsible for putting all our space eggs in the shuttle basket made
an error in judgement which is inexcusable.  I don't count funding as an
excuse, since any amount of compromise in shuttle development and launch
schedule would have been better than what we have now.  What we have now
is the worst of both worlds; seven people killed and the shuttle program on
indefinite hold on one hand, and no backup rocket boosters to take up the
slack on the other.

(One last point.  I am very disturbed by what appears to be critical mistakes
in judgement on the part of NASA.  We are now in a situation where one more
loss of a shuttle could change the history of this country.  That's quite
a lot of pressure to work under.  We all knew that someday there would be
an accident.  Well, that accident has not yet happened!  A sudden change
in cross winds during re-entry, a computer malfunction, that sort of thing
will one day occur.  The verdict in that type of situation will be     
"Unavoidable accident".  It's a shame that we have lost one which, apparently,
was lost due to an avoidable error of judgement.)