Xref: utzoo sci.space:6447 sci.space.shuttle:990
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!mike
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
Message-ID: <13021@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 8 Aug 88 16:02:23 GMT
References: <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> <2087@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> <3659@drivax.UUCP> <1704@eneevax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 27

In article <1704@eneevax.UUCP> kerog@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Keith Rogers) writes:
>
>I just don't see why they have to spend more than 
>two years without a single flight, missing many important launch windows
>for various projects, just to have an all temperature space shuttle,
>when they could have just flown it on a warm day in almost perfect safety.
>
>Keith Rogers

Right after the event, NASA did announce that they intended to go ahead
with Crippin's Vandenburg launch in June of '86 since the SRBs were of
a different design and so couldn't suffer the same failure. Plus, the 
warmer West coast weather would also ease problems. But we all know
what happened to those plans, don't we. . .

Remember though, that the Accident Review Board came up with a list
of "Criticality 1" problems which were fixable during the downtime. So,
I imagine that they simply decided that it wouldn't be wise to risk another
failure from another problem which could be repaired.



-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is
 temporarily cancelled".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]