Space Forum / Shuttle / November 2003

Ever since the Columbia disaster occured a cacophony of voices has been
calling for the end of the shuttle program.  They say its dumb to put wings
on a spacecraft and that we need something simpler to put people in space.
Unfortunately we have had to learn the same lesson twice ...

.........any idea whats happened to this newsgroup?   There seems little
point coming here now.

Did anyone see Horizon tonight about the space shuttle disaster? Well i
haven't been on this group for a while. ((but i was right up until the
disaster circa February)
That guy on there (forget his name) suggested they could of easily inspected

I would like to redesign structuraly as well as mechanically those areas of the
Space Shuttle including wing and fuselage that today doesn't look too safe.
I do serious engineering proyects faster than a group of 30 engineers working
together on a similar project. I will start from ...

Check out this Challenger Space Shuttle model made from 200,000
matchsticks:
http://www.workbenchmagazine.com/main/matchstick-challenger.html
http://www.workbenchmagazine.com/main/268-craftsman.html

I whipped up an UNIX shell script (to download all the CAIB vol. 2 through
6 PDF files) in a few minutes -- none of this 50 point-n-click junk for me!
If you've got an UNIX system and want to fetch the CAIB pdf files over your
internet connection, you can use this script. Read ...

Would the far side of the Moon be a better place to establish a listening
station for E.T. radio or laser signals than Earth?  Its a zero radio-noise
environment.
Also, the Moon's vacuum would be transparent to radio and light waves,

Missed last week's ep, turned yesterday's (title: Night Of The Living
Vulcans) off ten minutes into it. Will not be going back.
Now have another evening free each week, woohoo!

"Do we do a good job of asking for minority dissenting opinions?  Does
everybody have a voice?  Can you voice your opinion, even if it's not
a popular opinion, without fear of retribution?  If not, what changes
do you think would make a difference?"

Finally got my copy of Jenkins' book.  On page 138, an artists concept has a
caption with the line "the missing segment from the lower payload bay door was
not explained".  There's also a picture on page 179 (bottom right) which shows
the missing segment on the other side door.  My ...

A Google search didn't seem to provide the answer for this question, so
I'll ask it here.
I was looking through a set of photos that I took on a 1991 trip to
Florida, and in the photos taken near the visitors center at the Cape

Those who are [He who is] being harassed on s.s.s. might want to
consider reporting the harassment here:
http://www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm
Even if the harasser ["it"] lives in another country, perhaps "it" can

Its not a new idea and its not my idea.  But, there have been those who
have suggested a trip to Mars should and must be a one-way trip.
Highlights of the argument:
A trip to Mars is dangerous. Multiply it several-fold if a return is

Reading the CAIB report, Volume 2, part 19 on the MADS data... it notes
that all orbiters has MADS installed, but OV-102's (Columbia) MADS system
had more instrumentation sensors configured [due to its historical
trail-blazing nature].