Re: Challenger

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 11:47:50 -0700, john larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote:

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 17:29:13 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
<cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:
>

On Sun, 09 Jun 2024 08:08:26 -0700, john larkin wrote:
>

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 08:21:52 +0100, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:
 

On 09/06/2024 03:42, john larkin wrote:

https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Space/dp/

198217661X

 
This is a very well researched and written book, and a sad, ghastly
story.
 
It reminds me that humans have no purpose in space but to die.

>
That's a very jaundiced and negative view. Firstly, they weren't in
space when they died; they were at 46000 feet, which was below the
operational height of Concorde.

 
Dead is dead. Optimistically, they died instantly but probably not.

>
I would guess it must have been very much like being exposed to a nuclear
blast. So basically frazzled to death over several seconds. Not nice.

>
The crew may have been alive when the cabin hit the water. The
recovery of the remains and the forensics was grim. I'm shocked that
NASA ever flew another shuttle.
>
The tiles and the SRBs and the external tanks and the engines were all
known hazards. Columbia was the nail in the coffin.
>
Two shuttles out of five were lost. NASA estimated that the loss rate
would be 1 in 100,000 flights.

Hmm.  I recall estimates of one in four from the days of Feynman and
the investigation into the Challenger loss.  Maybe that was the post
crash estimate, but I don't think even NASA would think that one in
10^5 was realistic, as that rate is more like civil aviation in the
1950s and 1960s (with accidents like the Electra).

.<chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf>

Joe Gwinn