Shuttle Columbia

[Chris]

Very little in life revolves around loss of life. Because i dont know the people who died, my life wont really change. If you know them, its different, of course, and my condolonces go out to those people.
However, a delay in space exploration affects us all. I feel that this incident will set it back. Which is unfortunate, because space exploration is absolutely criticial in my opinion. We need to explore other planets, and eventually, travel to distant solar systems, colonize planets, and meet some aliens (hopefully friendlier than us).

Im glad they still have the space station, now, they must go to space still.

Oh, the found human remains: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/0...bia/index.html

[Scott 02]

Its just sad thinking about all the family members who just couldn't sleep friday night b/c of being excited to see their loved ones return and it all ends with this unexpected tragic event. Its hard for me to imagine what could be going through their minds.....

[taranaki]

'Columbia' first flew in 1981.Statistically speaking,if it were a car or truck,it would most likely have been scrapped by now.Of the original 5 shuttles,only 'Discovery' has flown more missions.[challenger was lost in 1986].This latest loss will put more pressure on the remaining 3 shuttles,all of which are over ten years old.This tragic failure raises the question,just how re-usable is a space shuttle?Unquestionably they get a full overhaul after every mission,but still -was it a failure caused by poor maintainance or by old age?We shall probably never know.

Space flights remain one of the most hazardous journeys known to man.out of 113 shuttle missions,15 people have lost their lives.And yet,until this morning,we had learned to take it for granted.

[Damien]

Originally posted by taranaki
Space flights remain one of the most hazardous journeys known to man.out of 113 shuttle missions,15 people have lost their lives.And yet,until this morning,we had learned to take it for granted.

I believe the last sentence speaks for a lot of...kind of recent events. I don't know, but I have this really creepy feeling about everything.

[taranaki]

correction,14 dead.News reports are still contradicting each other.

[Graphik Styles]

Originally posted by taranaki
correction,14 dead.News reports are still contradicting each other.

how are 14 dead......i thought there were only 7 on board.......

[NSX]

[taranaki]

Originally posted by De$i Gank$ta



how are 14 dead......i thought there were only 7 on board.......

read my post again.The figure includes 7 dead from the 'challenger' in 1986

editUp to 40 civilians on the ground have been taken to hospital as a precaution after handling debris from the shuttle.A spokesman has stated that there has been no radioactive material located.

[Suislide]

the facts about the age of the shuttles is a good point. Columbia was the very first shuttle flown, in 1981. but be that as it may, when it crashed, it was only on it's 28th mission out of the 100 that it was designed to withstand. plus, the ship received a 1 year long, $90 million refurbish in 2000-2001. if the ship was designed to last 100 mission, why did it need such a large update after only a quarter of it's life-span? facts like these definitley raise issues about the dependability of the remaining 3, and maybe NASA should look into refurbishing those or, if money permits, introducing a new shuttle to the fleet. if the remaining 3 are ten years old, then some advancements in shuttle design must have been made in the last 10 years and the new one would most likely be spades better.

[taranaki]

from the official sites I have been using for data...

Discovery - 30 missions since 1984

Atlantis - 26 missions since 1985

Endeavour - 19 missions since 1992


I find the '100 missions' lifespan a bit optimistic,where did that figure come from?

[Suislide]

well this is great. CNN keeps updating their stories and moving out info that was previousley there. in one of the stories about the shuttle, i swear to you i read that they were designed to withstand 100 missions. but now i can't seem to find it anywhere on the site.

*edit* i just found it. if you go to cnn.com and clock on any of the Columbia related articles, there'll be a bar along the right side listing all of the interactive galleries about the disaster. if you click on the one marked "Columbia Specs", it opens up a new window with specs on the vehicle. in the second paragraph, one of the points states that the outer materials of the ship are designed to perform a minimum of 100 missions. so i'm NOT crazy!

[taranaki]

Screw CNN, they can't be trusted.Found it at NASA.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/

[Moppie]

Originally posted by Chris
Very little in life revolves around loss of life. Because i dont know the people who died, my life wont really change. If you know them, its different, of course, and my condolonces go out to those people.
However, a delay in space exploration affects us all. I feel that this incident will set it back. Which is unfortunate, because space exploration is absolutely criticial in my opinion. We need to explore other planets, and eventually, travel to distant solar systems, colonize planets, and meet some aliens (hopefully friendlier than us).

Im glad they still have the space station, now, they must go to space still.
[/url]

You just expressed my thoughts pretty damn well.

Its a sad day for all of civilisation.

[sparq]

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about space can tell you that the Space Shuttle is the most expensive and worthless pile of crap to ever go into space. This is nothing like the Challenger explosion - the world and Americans do not live / eat / sleep the shuttle anymore, infact most people could care less.

NASA hasnt been doing its job ever since they put men on the moon, everything they do is over budget, delayed, or... well, fails. The space shuttle has always been the epitome of "ghetto rigging" - and up until recently it had the computing power of a 286/386 computer - yeah glad to know the most expensive machine in the world is run on something we havent used in like 10 years!

Cost? $50,000 a pound to put cargo into space... a 2000lb satellite would cost $100,000,000 to launch into space - for something that if commercialized in a broader scale would cost more like $2,000,000... Its sad that it takes tragadies to open up peoples eyes... 9/11 - this, if only Americans would open up their eyes and think for themselves instead of always relying on what other people tell them.

Checkout the X-Prize, im sure alot of you dont have a clue whats going on in the space world...

http://www.xprize.org/

[hondacivic4drlx]

with all the missions we make to space, what are we really learning? what kind of experiments are doing up there why are we still goin up there. and the media has covered this story like CRAP! they bring in the most unqualyfied people to speack on this issue. i just think they should report it to death. but only when they have new information.