Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!decwrl!jumbo!stolfi
From: stolfi@jumbo.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: What does a shuttle pilot do?
Message-ID: <13066@jumbo.dec.com>
Date: 17 May 88 16:56:15 GMT
Reply-To: stolfi@src.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi)
Followup-To: sci.space.shuttle
Organization: DEC Systems Research Center, Palo Alto
Lines: 24

Pardon my ignorance, but ...

 ...does the shuttle pilot actually _drive_ the shuttle?

I.e., does he at some point actually control thrust and ailerons and
whatnots continuously with his hands?  Or does he only have to twiddle
a joystick so as to keep the dot centered on the cross?  Or does he
have only to push button A when light B goes on, and otherwise watch
the computers do the driving?  

National Enquirer mind wants to know...

    --Jorge Stolfi
    stolfi@src.dec.com, {..decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!stolfi
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  `No recrimination,' said Michel.  `I do not complain; the trip has
pleased me, the projectile agrees with me; but let us do all that is
humanly possible to do to fall somewhere, even if only on the moon.' 
  `We ask no better, my worthy Michel,' replied Barbicane, `but
means fail us.'' 
  `We cannot alter the motion of our projectile?'
  `No.'
           --Verne, _Round the Moon_ (1870) 
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