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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Astronaut questions shuttle safety in book - "It's the most dangerous manned spacecraft ever flown"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Astronaut Mike Mullane has flown on the shuttle three times and would go again in a heartbeat, but in a new memoir he called this ship the most dangerous spacecraft humans have ever ridden.

The shuttle never lived up to its billing as a reliable space workhorse, and the fleet has been grounded since the Columbia crash, except for one shakedown flight to the International Space Station last summer.

NASA's bureaucracy helped make it that way, he said, by discouraging questions about safety and other matters. Astronauts deserve some share of responsibility too, Mullane said in a Reuters interview about his book "Riding Rockets," published this month

"It's the most dangerous manned spacecraft ever flown, by anybody," said 60-year-old Mullane, who retired from NASA in 1990. "And I say that because it has no powered-flight escape system ... Basically the bailout system we have on the shuttle is the same bailout system a B-17 bomber pilot had in World War Two."

A powered-flight escape system that would have blasted shuttle astronauts from the doomed craft might have saved the Challenger crew when that shuttle exploded seconds after launch on January 28, 1986, Mullane said.

It probably would not have been able to keep the Columbia crew alive as their ship disintegrated on re-entry on February 1, 2003. These two disasters claimed 14 lives.

"That was the true tragedy of Challenger: Nothing was learned. Columbia was a repeat of Challenger, where people had a known design problem" and launched anyway, Mullane said.

Full CNN story here: www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/01/17/shuttle.astronaut.reut/index.html

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I'm certain that is what the present astronauts think...all of them.

Now it's said...put them in a museum.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Comments From Former NASA Astronaut Mike Mullane About Being Misquoted

Date Released: Sunday, January 29, 2006
Source: Mike Mullane


To the space community:

I have recently learned that a London newspaper, The Guardian, ran an article which attributed this quote to me, "The space shuttle is a deathtrap." I suspect the article was a result of the recent media interviews surrounding the release of my new book, "Riding Rockets, The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut". Please know that I have never interviewed with anybody from that paper and have never said those words.

When I have been asked about the Challenger, the shuttle design, etc., my replies have mimicked the current NASA Administrator's Congressional testimony. Administrator Michael Griffin has said something along the line, "The shuttle is a flawed design. It has no crew escape system." (As someone who is editorializing about being misquoted, I should emphasize what I have in quotes above is an approximate quote by Administrator Michael Griffin.

I also sent a letter to the Guardian editor explaining I never made a "deathtrap" statement (fat chance that letter got published). I also sent an email to the current astronaut corps and NASA Public Affairs saying the Guardian headline was bogus. Finally, I have posted a rebuttal on a Space.com blog.

I have said in my interviews I would fly the shuttle today, if given the chance. It is a marvelous machine, with incredible capability and redundancy, supported by a dedicated NASA team and I'm honored to have been given the opportunity to fly it three times."

Full story here: www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18875

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Pressure, error or bad journalism?

[Maddad]

Third is most likely.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Now...I do not think it's unpatriotic to question and criticize the Shuttle program, and having the astronauts sing praises about it is just towing the company line...either that or just be left behind in any manned space launch...as some have found out.

The astronauts of the early 60's demanded pilot design and control over their flights, including windows, escape provisions... and got it. No astronauts...no space program. They knew best and stuck together, not the white shirts in the bunkhouses or the politicians.

The same gumption could have been designed for the shuttles, with the ability of the crew cabin to jettison itself away, and parachute safely down. I have read where the shuttle crews knew of the inherent flaws and failed to get them corrected. But not wanting to rock the boat and seem like a trouble maker, they go along anyway...and lost lives as a result.

The Shuttle is a poorly designed spacecraft, not efficient and goes no where. It will be the next generation of the CEV that will put us back on true space exploration.

[Rocketman]

You never cease to amaze me Joe.

I personally get the drift, you don't like the shuttle, "it's a flawed design". I myself prefer to think about the successes rather than the failures, and that sure as hell outweighs the bad "in number".

Don't be miffed at me, but it appears to me that there is some counting going on here. Two very fatal, out of many. Yes, when it's bad, it's very bad, and that's to be expected.

I love the brute power of the rockets carrying the shuttle to space. I myself do not see it as a flawed design, just an old worn out one "with it's share of
problems" (yes severe), but NASA is not a murderer, period.

What if you were driving down the road at night, and some suicidal lunatic runs out in front of your car? Smacko! Well I guess that makes you a murderer too right?

NASA didn't have to launch Challenger that day, but they did!

You didn't have to drive your car at night, but you did!

NASA should've done something about the tank debris a long time ago.

You should have figured that one night while passing by the nuthouse that some mental would walk out in the road, but did you? No, it wasn't a problem!

Is your car a bad design because it kills someone if you run over them? I guess so...

Joe you are top notch, but you know your shuttle hating really agitates me

[Centaur]

rocketman2 said:

I love the brute power of the rockets carrying the shuttle to space.

Joe you are top notch, but you know your shuttle hating really agitates me

Forgive me, but some people’s love of brute rocket power really agitates me. Not only did the shuttle cost precious human lives, it was ridiculously inefficient and ineffective - wasting a quarter-century and billions of dollars that could have been used more productively regarding space exploration or countless other options. Nevertheless, it was appeals to emotion rather than logic that led to the shuttle program which made the contractors wealthy as others paid with their money or their lives.

[Rocketman]

Inefficient, and ineffective to do what exactly? You make it sound as if a better job can be done with a pushmower motor, and a box fan blade...

Oh yeah my bad, forgive me too. I forgot that the shuttle program was the only thing NASA wasted money on.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Grady,

You never cease to amaze me Joe

I'm here to amaze and awe!...

I enjoy a good spirited discussion and entertain the pros and cons of the Shuttle program...so let's continue. But let's please keep in mind, attempting to belittle and put down other people views just ain't cool.

Now...

Shuttle hating is putting it a bit too harsh...but I can recognize a pie-in-the-sky endeavor.

I am quite the manned space flight supporter, brave men and women pushing the envelope, exploring the unknown and making significant contributions to real space travel. I have followed it from the beginning, even have newspaper clippings from the 70's when the Shuttle concept was approved by President Nixon. I was quite excited about it, but again...I was a kid.

The Shuttle was intended to be a space truck with a quick turn around - launching once a month, and was supposed to be a cheaper way to put payloads in orbit. The mere name itself "Shuttle" tells the story. But with great cost over runs, shoddy design and effort trying to meet unrealistic political goals, it put the safety of the astronauts second, and as a result the shuttle remains "dry docked" now, instead of flying. When it does fly and visits the ISS, it takes out the trash and becomes an expensive space garbage scowl.

Driving at night and running into someone does not cause everyone to cease driving, maybe just cause a minor inconvenience to others...and a thrill to gawkers. The Shuttle's flaws have kept the whole U.S. manned space program at a stand still. And when it does fly right, it still keeps us tethered close to Earth. And we feel good about it. The billions spent might have re-landed men on the Moon now, or even to Mars.

Bolting the Shuttle to the side of propellant tanks is quite a poor design and rather daft. I am really amazed that we haven't had a major disaster with the total weight of the craft pulling and tugging at the straps holding it into place...fighting gravity instead of working with it. At every single shuttle mission, heat tiles have been damaged, cracks in the windshield have occured and other life threatening incidents recorded. My god...they launch in jumpsuits...jumpsuits!!... Their fragile bodies not even contained in a pressure suit in case of a cabin breech! Hell...not even the option to bail out manually, (slim chance), but it should be left to the crew to decide. We are back again to "Spam-in-a-can policy...and the present crews and American public accept it. And we applaud it...

It was an experiment that failed it's own goals and primary objectives. Mothball the fleet, and concentrate on real rocket powered space crafts...ala the Apollo's Saturn V. Human error caused a tragedy and almost in another, but the principal was sound.

Now...there's a machine that delivered!...

I like being Top-notch!...