The dismal failure of the Shuttle RTF effort should signal the end of NASA's suicidal love affair with this fundamentally unworkable spacecraft.
"By any measure of 'safe,' this[program] is not safe… It remains dangerous. We have got to replace this vehicle as soon as possible." — CAIB Chairman Harold Gehman
"The Shuttle is fundamentally flawed." – NASA Administrator Mike Griffin
These distinguished experts were completely vindicated by the STS-114 launch. Others were not so lucky (even with the advantage of speaking after the launch):
"Today's launch was clean compared to past launches. I feel very good about where we are in this mission so far." — John Shannon, manager of space shuttle operations.
"After the Columbia Tragedy, NASA improved its safety protocols and changed its assumptions about how to prepare for human space flight. The NASA culture has been reinvigorated and has regained some of the focus it had lost. America can be proud that we continue to lead the world in space exploration." — Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
"This tireless team of NASA engineers, scientists and support staff deserve our congratulations." — Rep. Bert Gordon (D-TN)
"Our brave NASA team has returned the United States to flight and led us into a new era of space exploration and research. This NASA crew worked with a steadfast commitment to new safety thresholds and risk reduction." – Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
"The successful launch of the Discovery Space Shuttle is an event NASA and the American people should feel proud of… I congratulate all those who have worked to return Americans to space." — Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO).
NASA has spent 2.5 years and an estimated $14B maintaining the overall Shuttle program while trying to 'fix' a backlog of faults.
And now despite spending billions in federal space funding we are right back where we started, with another Shuttle crew having narrowly escaped another shower of foam fragments. Several of these fragments even came off in almost exactly the same place as that which doomed Columbia.
Today, the dwindling army of Shuttle cheerleaders are talking about yet more studies, yet more safety upgrades, yet more money and time dumped into this gaping black hole. We should ignore them.
There simply is no modification or upgrade that can make the Shuttle system acceptably safe from debris strikes. The original design decision to place a fragile heatshield alongside a foam-covered cryogenic tank and fly them at supersonic speeds was wrong. The whole history of aerospace craft tells us that this kind of basic design error can never be fixed by retrospective band-aid modifications.
And why bother? The only thing we can get in return for the $25-30B now budgeted for Shuttle operations between now and 2010 is more heartache and more delays in the new space initiative. Every day that Shuttle cancellation is put off, another $15,000,000 is wasted and the return of humans to the moon is delayed by another day.
