Xref: utzoo sci.space:6682 sci.space.shuttle:1100
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
Message-ID: <1988Aug26.180743.24085@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> <2087@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> <1704@eneevax.UUCP> <646@a.lanl.gov> <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> <579@proxftl.UUCP> <1988Aug19.182401.20602@utzoo.uucp> <1366@eos.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 88 18:07:43 GMT

In article <1366@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
>Yaw vol, mein herr, vhere do you vant us to line up?  Das thou plan to
>pull the trigger, thein self?

Line up in vront of der nozzle of der next SRB tezt.  I schall push der
button myzelf iff nezezzary.  If du canst not liff honorably, putting der
interests ovf your profession and your country -- not to mention a zertain
zeven aztronauts -- ahead of zose of your company und your career, at leazt
you can die honorably vhen your venality und cowvardice cauze disaster!

>No one has brought up loss of a second craft if the first problem had not
>be isolated...

If one evaluates the loss of another orbiter as absolutely unacceptable,
then one must ground the entire fleet permanently.

>... Also what ever happened to making making space safe
>for every one [i.e., eventually doing away with astronaut requirements]
>which everyone was interested for such a time?

I'd be willing to settle for making space only mildly dangerous for everyone.
You don't need to meet astronaut requirements to be able to look at the risk
and say "yes, this is worth taking".

>Oh!  Am I on the wrong side of the Pacific?

Well, the way the US space program is going lately, it's starting to look
like all of us in North America are on the wrong side of some ocean or other...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu