🚀 go-pugleaf

>     The only qualified people (the current members of the Astronaut Corps)
> say they will be happy to fly it - as soon as the SRBs are understood,
> fixed, and tested (at least, this is what Sally Ride said in a talk she
> gave at Caltech last night). Since these are the people who have been putting
> their lives on the line all along, I tend to trust their judgement. By the 
> time any of the well-meaning volunteers could be trained, the joint redesign 
> and testing program will hopefully be completed anyway.

When I said "qualified volunteers", I meant from the current astronauts.
Sally Ride is not the whole astronaut corps.  The astronauts have an obvious
vested interest in pushing the safety issue as hard as they can; this should
be seen as what it is, a political maneuver to encourage badly-needed changes.
If there was a top-level decision to the effect that there *will* be launches
at once but that the safety cleanup will continue, I don't think there would
be any problem getting astronauts for the flights.  Also, as I have observed
before, a good fraction of the astronauts are military officers, who are
sworn to risk their lives for their country on request anyway.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry