Re: Space Access Update #112 9/19/05

On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:38:33 GMT, simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

>On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 19:42:35 -0400, in a place far, far away, Josh
>Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
>such a way as to indicate that:
>
>
>>>So a rocket blows up and takes its payload with it. *So what*? It
>>>was a hundred-megabuck rocket carrying a twenty-ton tank of liquid
>>>oxygen that wasn't going to be needed for six months *anyway*, and
>>>you think that's going to be the catastrophic end to mankind's
>>>efforts to explore Mars?
>>>
>>>If so, then there never was any hope of reaching Mars in the first
>>>place and it's best we be clear on that up front.
>>
>>That's a non-sequitur if I ever saw one. The high probability of the
>>rocket's blowing up means that you have to have available a complete
>>set of spares as well as sufficient vehicles, launch facilities, and
>>personnel to launch a replacement, and that increases costs.
>
>Ignoring all the rest of your responses to John's post, which I don't
>have time to deal with, and which he will deal with quite readily when
>he gest the time, this is an absurd statement.
>
>Are you proposing that NASA have no backups, and that by choosing to
>launch *everything* on a single flight (throwing the dice for that
>mission), that they have no need for one, isn't insane from a risk
>standpoint?

Why would it be? In the unlikely chance that the HLV fails, the
mission gets scrubbed and you mount a new one.

--
Josh

"It was amazing I won. I was running against peace and prosperity
and incumbency." - George W. Bush
.

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