Re: doing it again (was Re: STS51L Accident Questions)

From: Pat Flannery (flanner_at_daktel.com)
Date: 03/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:09:38 -0600

Derek Lyons wrote:

>An even more interesting problem is to restrict the solutions to
>something realistic. I.E. that would have survived in the fiscal and
>political environment prevalent at the time of the Shuttle's
>gestation.
>
>

If that were the case, then NASA should have come clean and just said:
"We can't do this in a way that is going to be safe and reduce cost to
orbit on the budget you have given us.... so either up the amount so we
can do it right, or just skip it."
Of course that was never going to happen, so we ended up with what we have.
Assuming we had just skipped it, it's interesting to consider where
future NASA funding (probably a lot less than came to be) would have
gone- a new manned spacecraft on a new expendable booster? More Apollo
derived vehicles and boosters? More unmanned exploration of the solar
system?

Pat

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