NASA plans for the unthinkable

[PinkTiger]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/03/19/astronaut.rescue.ap/index.html
Snip

"When Discovery is launched in a few months, a four-man rescue squad will be standing by.

It's a plan for the unthinkable.

"It's a place where we don't want to go. We're training for a mission we never want to fly," says the team's commander, Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey.

A rescue mission -- which might require the president's approval -- is fraught with complexities:"

My comment: Do you think * will have to convene Congress to approve saving the lives of the astronauts? (A snide statement re:Schiavo)

[mhr]

1. No, The Astronauts Do Not Have A Right To Life Because They

Volunteered for danger, just like soldiers in Iraq.

The rescue mission would never be approved by the Bushco empire.

/sarcasm off/

[DS1]

2. It's either that or starve to death. Besides, this is obviously quite

a 'thinkable' event :eyes:

[Ready4Change]

3. Not having a robust rescue strategy...

Not having a robust rescue strategy shows the thinness of our national commitment to space.

Getting stuff into space isn't a new problem, nor is getting stuff back. It IS rocket science, but it's a well established science at this point. A 12 person rescue vehicle is well within our technical grasp, and only fails to exist because penny-pinchers don't see it as being important.

Well, is it important NOW? Let me know when it is. Because it would sure be nice to have a 12 person space bus docked at the International Space Station (ISS) all the time, for just a scenario as this. And it will become even more vital should actual WORK be done on Bush's Mars project.

But no, I guess the families of astronauts will just have to cross their fingers and pray. That's ok, because those measures have served SO well in the past.

[Chovexani]

5. What are you, some kind of commie?

Don't come around with that devil science talk...the LAWD will provide. Except if the astronauts are gay.

</sarcasm>

[Straight Shooter]

4. The melodramatic tone of CNN, "a plan for the unthinkable."

It's called "being prepared," you dipwads. :eyes:

[Coastie for Truth]

6. Saint Florian (Patron Saint of Firefighters, EMT's) Protect them

as they go in harm's way to rescue those in peril.

Saint Florian protects those who go out and rescue - but not necessarily come back.

<>

[Occulus]

7. The President and the Congress SHOULD NOT be involved,

except to provide funding. A permenant earmark for a rescue mission should be allocated to each scheduled mission, like clockwork.

Now that we're starting to have enough people in space on a regular, long-term basis (enough, anyway, that we can mount a resuce), I think NASA should make plans to deal with a worst-case scenario.

[Harlequin]

8. Having read all prior posts to this story, I regret to inform everyone...

that this event is merely a gesture to help the astronauts overcome the general sense of abandonment.

NASA will have to push an "abort-blow the thing up" button well before any of this chicanery will move into effect, except, perhaps, positioning the astronauts. Reason being:

The rescue shuttle has much more risk than the first shuttle. A failed primary mission vessel, and failed secondary rescue mission vessel, would be a disaster for NASA.

I will submit the following example of government-in-action: Military funerals. Is it for the dead guy? No - he's dead. Is it for the family? Not really. It's more for all the people participating in it, beyond the family. It's for the other soldiers present, for the public, to say to themselves, "wow, if I die, look at all the cool stuff that happens." If the military wonders why enrollment is down, stupid fuckers, they'd do well to broadcast at least one spectacular, mass military funeral per month. It would basically amount to advertising heroism. They could get Scarlett Johannsen to shed a tear at the podium. Enrollment would be up. The vapid sentimentalists that blow continual sunshine up George Washington Bridge's ass would have something to weep about. George could show his face in a way that would make him look like a preacher, and re-galvanize the right just in time for the '06 elections.

Not to mention, this government does not give TWO SHITS about lives donated for its stinking lies. I can't see how it would make an exemption for the lives of scientists -- whom I personally revere -- who would stand against anything Mr. "I Am the Gatekeeper to Armageddon" Bush has in mind.

It's just a play they're putting on to put the astronauts at ease, probably due to concerns that came up during psychological profiling before the mission.

If things fail, they're goners in the conventional, shuttle-spectacular way.

Kind of like the rest of us in this stinking country.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

10. Close. Propaganda for the public. Like 'life vests for water landing' on

planes. There's no such thing as a water landing of a commercial jet that you quietly float away from. "To activate the light beacon..." and attract sharks, push the button.

NASA=the weaponization of space and is SOLD as a combination of 'Mr. Science' and the US government as 'God's Noble Princes on Earth.'

Last years State of the Union announcement of a 'mission to Mars' failed to invoke the Kennedy-esque optimism and awe in an American public horrified by what is happening here on Earth.

Public opinion sometimes affects budgets and the death of the school teacher in front of everyone's eyes in the Challenger disaster was an impediment to the Star Wars/SDI/Dr. Strangelove projects.

But you are correct, it is also important to reassure the military-industrial culture that is doing the weapon research to cause OTHER people to die horribly, not them!

[Harlequin]

12. Mission to Mars was impossible to believe

under the careless stewardship of Captain Bush.

You cracked me up!

[Harlequin]

9. NASA should have designed the voting machines!

[katty]

11. Congress doesn't care for Science, only Evangel-cults

gotta save the Christians-for those votes

[proud_dem]

16. That's not true, if NASA said there was oil on Mars, Bush ...

would have them leaving tomorrow!

[he lied us into war]

13. Has the shuttle program accomplished anything?

Seems like a 25 year boondoggle. Meanshile, the unmanned probes have told us a lot.

[punpirate]

15. Well, that ignores...

... the Hubble, and the Hubble repair missions and the launches of some of those unmanned probes.

The real problem with the shuttle program is that it was intended to be a space truck, and a lot of the features to insure crew safety were abandoned early in the design stage to increase the freight capacity. I suspect some of that was done at the insistence of the Air Force, because of the size of some the spy satellites they intended to launch and because of the size of some proposed SDI equipment. The Air Force has always had roughly a 20% budget interest in NASA, and considerable mission interest as a result. It's no accident that mission commanders are military.

[Norquist Nemesis]

14. I thought this was about sending B/C to Mars.

Silly me! :shrug:

[Enraged_Ape]

17. Unless these guys are wearing blue tights and red capes...

just what do they think they're going to accomplish in the split seconds in which these disasters tend to happen?

[raifield]

18. Simple. A net!

They will dispatch a 20mi by 20mi net capable of stopping and holding a shuttle traveling at something like 12,500mph.

Geez, it's almost as if you didn't even think of that. :crazy: