One modest, serious observation about the Columbia disaster

From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)
Newsgroups: alt.slack,alt.discordia,alt.journalism.gonzo
Date: Sat, Feb 1, 2003 11:48 PM

6 of the 7 dead astronauts were MARRIED. 5 had CHILDREN. The Columbia,
like all of the shuttles, has/had a PURE CARBON NOSE so as to
withstand up to 3000 degrees upon reentry. Let's not get into flying
something whose structural integrity relies on a huge number of
ceramic tiles glued to the underside as its means of resisting the
only slighty lesser heat not deflected by the nose and angle of
reentry, no matter how precisely they are created, nor how amazing the
adhesive used to affix them to the fuselage. If you are single and
want to throw those dice for the sake of an aerospace career, okay,
that's your call. Still, it gives me pause.

Dennis Miller once said that he respected astronauts enormously,
because to sit on top of giant tanks of liquid hydrogen, light the
fuse and let them shoot your ass up to where there's NO AIR took more
balls than a 24-hour Tokyo driving range. Clever, but also sobering.

I respect their intelligence and courage, too. But just as with
mission specialist Ron McNair of the Challenger, whose death left a
small son and daughter behind who only have pictures by which to
remember him, I have to wonder how people so theoretically sharp and
dedicated can run that level of risk when their spouses and children
have to run one that can be far longer than a week or so of mission.
How that can stack up against growing zero-g soybeans, doing exotic
mapping and performing electrophoresis experiments in a bid to
generate fancier medicines is beyond me. Call me sentimental, but dead
is dead. Science may not remove the terror of the gods, but how it can
remove your foresight relative to your love for your family, I don't
need to know.

--

HellPope Huey® hellpopehuey@subgenius©.com
I'm about as fair as I CAN be without putting on a truss first.

"If they told me I was gonna see 72 virgins when I died,
I'd be out in the desert with a bullseye taped to my nuts."
- Nick DiPaolo

"My evil SELF is at that door!"
- "Forbidden Planet"

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From: iDRMRSR <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>

HPH:
>>Science may not remove the terror of the gods, but how it can
remove your foresight relative to your love for your family, I don't
need to know.<<

You silly papal person! It's always the OTHER guy that gets killed.
That's why there will be more. Oh yeah, that and "absence makes the
heart grow fonder".

[*]
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From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>

On Sun, 02 Feb 2003 07:21:16 GMT, JJ <jakubj@parkin.ca> wrote:

>> Science
>> may not remove the terror of the gods, but how it can remove your
>> foresight relative to your love for your family, I don't need to know.
>
>Manned space programme has little to do with science. Scientists like
>Robert Park (author of "Voodoo Science") had opposed the construction of
>the international space station. In his book, he states that he prefers
>robotic and remote controlled -based space exploration. There has never
>been any significant science coming out of the shuttle programme (at least
>according to Park). He also gives many examples of how robotic/remote
>controlled space missions actually helped with scientific understanding
>of the solar system (i.e.: Voyager, the recent mission to Mars). Apparently,
>manned space station mostly taught us that astronauts get physically
>weak over time while in low gravity.

One of the reports I was watching mentioned velcro as coming from the
space programme. I bet there's also a whole host of little things like
that that came from space travel.

In fact I just did a search on this subject:

LCDs, velcro tapes, pace makers, firefighting equipment, radiation
blocking, software-management systems, hazardous-gas detectors,
cordless tools, water filters, portable X-rays ...

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From: Joe Cosby <joecosby@SPAMBLOCKmindspring.com>

Well, not really.

Logically, we should be taking the money that is going into space
exploration and investing it in promoting sex and doughnut research.

And far fewer people get blown to bits in either of those endeavors.

> T.

--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

I had a co-worker pestering me today, asking me if I was going
to wear something green for St. Patty's day. I finally told 'em,
"Yeah. I'm not going to brush my teeth tonight or tomorrow."
-- Artemia Salina

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From: John Starrett <jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu>

> And far fewer people get blown to bits in either of those endeavors.
<snip>

Well, yeah, **now**. Before the federal regulations, though,
exploding doughnuts, which were then called donuts, were a
major source of penile angulation.

--
John Starrett

"Guns don't kill people. Hiram Claymore kills people"

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