🚀 go-pugleaf

> 
{ You should all be familiar with this argument by now... }

Some observations on the whole controversy:

1.  Political considerations being what they are, *nothing* is going
to get shuttles flying before '88.  A widespread lobbying effort would
be needed to change NASA's policy, and I really doubt that any such 
effort could be effective before 1988 anyway.  Still, lobbying for a
clear *policy* concerning flying/grounding the shuttle over known,
potentially-fatal bugs would be useful, because this situation will 
occur again some day.

2.  On the policy issue, perhaps what NASA needs to do is equip only the
replacement shuttle with an escape system.  Then, when hazardous conditions
are discovered (for example, the O-ring erosion on flights beore 51-L),
there would still be one vehicle which could be flown for missions considered
essential.  Note that this escape system need only be sufficient for a
skeleton crew.

3.  On the escape issue, I wonder:  would Young and Crippen (?) have survived
if the SRB failure had occurred on the first flight of Columbia?  Consider,
somebody stayed conscious long enough to turn on two air packs, and the 
official "cause of death" is now said to be impact with the Atlantic Ocean.
This seems to imply that there is at least some chance that ejection seats
could have been used before impact.  

4.  On the chance of failure of the first shuttle flight, it is worth noting
that NASA had taken precautions against the "most likely" failures.  The
ejection seats were based around the idea that the most likely catastrophic
failure was SSME explosion during or shortly (<20 seconds) after ignition.
This was, at least, where they tended to blow up in tests.

5.  Back to the subject of resuming flights immediately: where would the
payloads come from?  Given that the government has decided to ban commercial
payloads in order to promote an expendable booster industry, and that even
the most enthusiastic supporters of the "launch now" point of view have
identified a lot of scientific payloads (indeed, nearly all of them) that
shouldn't be risked, what's left?  Even spysats are doubtful--given the cost
and lead time for replacing a Big Bird (or equivalent), is the Air Force
really going to be that enthusiastic about launching before this known bug
is fixed?  Probably not, unless the satellites we have in orbit now degrade
severely.  

6.  On a related topic:  I see that Hughes has redesigned the "Jarvis"
proposal to use shuttle parts--ET, one SSME and two SRBs.  I see a problem
here in that, because they use the same technology, a shuttle failure will
(at least temporarily) ground Jarvis, and vice versa.  I thought that one
of the motivations for a new MLV was to provide launch capability when the
shuttle is grounded by technical problems; this proposal certainly doesn't
seem to do that.  The shuttle-based Jarvis is a nice addition to the shuttle
family, but if it's built we'll still need an alternative vehicle.

Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed do not represent those of my employer,
and may not represent my views by this time tomorrow.