Re: Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: "Al" <tiggyboo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 8 Aug 2005 09:56:28 -0700
Martin Smith wrote:
[...]
> Way back in the mists of time, I applied to be an astronaut with the
> first group to become shuttle astronauts. I actually made the first
> two cuts, but eventually lost out, I suppose because I didn't have a
> PhD, and I was still working on an MS. Also, I was younger than the
> typical astronaut.
>
> I was disappointed at first, but several months later they offered me
> a job at the Johnson Space Center. The idea was that people who came
> to work for them as scientists and engineers would have a better
> chance of being selected in later rounds. But by that point, I had
> read a lot more about the shuttle design. It wouldn't be able to leave
> earth orbit, and it would be covered with foam tiles that would be
> glued on.
>
> Those discoveries disappointed me more than not being selected. After
> sending people to the moon and getting them back safely, we were
> pissing it all away to take a giant step backwards. That's the way I
> saw it anyway. I lost interest in the program, and nothing has
> happened since to rekindle it. I am far more interested in the
> unmanned missions to mars and the others.
>
> Some of these engineering feats just strike me as being, I don't know,
> not silly, dumb, I guess. Like the recent private flight into "space"
> that won its team $10 million aftern they spent about twice that
> building the ship. And what is the goal? To put a hotel in orbit and
> let rich tourists spend the night there. And this huge, Airbus A380.
> Why should I want to fly on an airplane that has a McDonalds on it?
> Tha's another tragedy in the making.
>
> The space shuttle program and the space station feel like a waste of
> time to me.
I grew up in the immediate vicinity of Cape Canaveral, and most of the
folks in my family worked for the space program at one point or
another. One of my brothers worked on shuttle administrative stuff one
summer, and I was thus made aware of some pretty troubling
circumstances related to the shuttle construction. Most of the folks
doing the actual 'grunt' work of glueing on the tiles were kids just
out of high school, many of whom were working for the first time. Of
course, in that era, the thing to do was buy a black Trans Am as soon
as your credit rating would permit. As it turns out, these particular
tile jobs were temporary gigs, so when the end of the contract loomed,
these kids were worried about paying off their cars (among other
financial concerns, I'm sure.) What ensued was some really nasty
vandalism on the tiles, to include sticking pens/pencils in them,
urinating on them, etc. Bear in mind, some of these tiles cost on the
order of 8k apiece. You might recall that one shuttle 747 piggyback
flight from San Diego where large quantities of tiles actually came off
in flight... I guess maybe they had the same problem at the southern
California facility.
- Al
.
- References:
- Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: runnswim@xxxxxxx (Larry Weisenthal)
- Re: Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: ekurth
- Re: Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: runnswim@xxxxxxx (Larry Weisenthal)
- Re: Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: rtk
- Re: Salute to the Royal Navy
- From: Martin Smith
- Salute to the Royal Navy
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