Re: Wow

[John Paul Davis <johnd at antioch-college_edu>]

Christian Lindemer wrote:
> Mark van Hornsveld wrote:
> 
>> Don wrote about:
>>
>>> those risks [of being in aspace shuttle].  And besides, driving your 
>>> car to the store is more risky, in a
>>> statistical sense, than flying in the shuttle, and yet many people 
>>> don't think
>>> twice about popping back to the supermarket to get that pint of milk they
>>> forgot.
>>
>>
>> That depends how and what you count, Don. Me thinks 2 accidents in 113 
>> voyages is a worse percentage than most people driving to the stores.... 
> 
> 

Then, too you have to count the actual shuttle itself - it's a death 
trap. Space flight might not be statistically likely to kill people, but 
filight in the shuttle is definitely a lethal business.

Here's an article by a guy written 23 years ago in which he argued that 
the technology being used for the shuttle was outdated (a decade old) 
and likely to fail (he describes a scenario in which some of the heat 
refracting tiles might come off the shuttle, and the result he describes 
sounds very like  the most recent accident): 
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook.html

  And here is one by him written recently, suggesting that the 
technology is now 30 years old and that it's time for the shuttle to be 
replaced with something current: 
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030210-418518,00.html

- John

np: "Show Me How to Live" - Audioslave


-- 
John Paul Davis
Center for Community Learning
Antioch College
http://www.antioch-college.edu/ccl

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ned Flanders: Let's just agree to disagree
Principal Skinner: I don't agree to that
Mrs. Krabapple: Me neither
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http://www.johnpauldavis.org


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