logo Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
2024-12-04 21:28:05 CoV Wiki
Learn more about the Church of Virus
Home Help Search Login Register
News: Open for business: The CoV Store!

  Church of Virus BBS
  Mailing List
  Virus 2003

  virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« previous next »
Pages: [1] Reply Notify of replies Send the topic Print 
   Author  Topic: virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia  (Read 739 times)
JD
Adept
****

Gender: Male
Posts: 542
Reputation: 7.01
Rate JD





View Profile
virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« on: 2003-02-01 16:42:02 »
Reply with quote

Dear American Virians,

Sorry to hear about Columbia. A loss to science and humanity.

Regards

Jonathan
---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

Report to moderator   Logged
Walter Watts
Archon
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 1571
Reputation: 8.61
Rate Walter Watts



Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in

View Profile WWW E-Mail
Re: virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #1 on: 2003-02-01 17:22:10 »
Reply with quote

Amen, Jonathan.

Walter

Jonathan Davis wrote:

> Dear American Virians,
>
> Sorry to hear about Columbia. A loss to science and humanity.
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan
> ---
> To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

--

Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.

"No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!"


---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

Report to moderator   Logged

Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.


No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
sun tzu
Neophyte
**

Posts: 51
Reputation: 0.00



I have never logged in.

View Profile E-Mail
Re: virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #2 on: 2003-02-01 18:23:18 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (0.00) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

Report to moderator   Logged
DrSebby
Archon
***

Gender: Male
Posts: 456
Reputation: 8.07
Rate DrSebby



...Oh, you smell of lambs!
18680476 18680476    dr_sebby drsebby
View Profile WWW E-Mail
Re: virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #3 on: 2003-02-02 01:46:11 »
Reply with quote

...i am a bit pleased however to hear the positive pro-risk rhetoric.  last
time, it was like a small death to the space program (the worlds space
program for all intents and purposes).  now, after 20 years and 130 odd
missions without a problem, people seem to realize that this sort of
exploration and advanced technology development is the most risky and
challenging thing mankind has facing him.  i give a fond farewell, a
non-military salute and a thankyou to the astronaughts lost.  and shortly
after, i say, "lets get goin'...who's next?"  finally we have a healthy
outlook on such things...i just thank Dog that we had all those successful
missions in the past 20 yrs as goodluck would have it, so that people arent
totally freaked out again.  i'd love to hear the stats on 17th century
sailors and their life expectancies.  so far we have about a 1.7% casualty
rate on something that is pretty fucking amazing.  if i could be an
astronaught, fly 20 missions and have a death risk of .6% i'd be pretty
fucking pleased at that life:)

DrSebby.


.
DrSebby.
"Courage...and shuffle the cards".



...

----Original Message Follows----
From: Walter Watts <wlwatts@cox.net>
Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re: virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 16:22:10 -0600

Amen, Jonathan.

Walter

Jonathan Davis wrote:

> Dear American Virians,
>
> Sorry to hear about Columbia. A loss to science and humanity.
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan
> ---
> To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to
<http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

--

Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.

"No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!"


---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to
<http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
.

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>

Report to moderator   Logged

"courage and shuffle the cards..."
Hermit
Archon
*****

Posts: 4289
Reputation: 8.78
Rate Hermit



Prime example of a practically perfect person

View Profile WWW
Re:virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #4 on: 2003-02-02 04:36:33 »
Reply with quote

Shuttle disaster 'God's vengeance'

Dated: 2003-02-01
Source: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/0,6119,10_1314920,00.html

Baghdad - Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the US space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew - including the first Israeli in space - was that its was God's retribution on Americans.

"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.

"God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us," he said.

Car mechanic Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini noted Israeli air force Colonel Ilan Ramon was among the dead when the shuttle broke up shortly before its return to earth.

"Israel launched an aggression on us when it raided our nuclear reactor without any reason (in 1981), now time has come and God has retaliated to their aggression," Tamini said.

Hermit Comments:

Not everybody loves a hero. Perhaps we should ask the "JingoUSA" supporters in our midst why, in this particular case, why? Then again, maybe we need not. The US has decided - "Officially" - that if they can't be loved, that they might as well be feared. The 84% of the world's population which considers that the US is the greatest threat to world peace in 2003 validates the success of the smirking chimp's program - and many of this vast pool of concerned and frightened people might well resonate with feelings like those reflected above. I would imagine that the presence of a "Hindu" and an "Israeli" only makes the event even more suited to purposes of the authors of the preceding sentiments.

Naturally, those more invested in "Amerika, Right or More Right" will scream how wrong they are, how the "magnificent" programs have achieved so much and will achieve so much more. Flag waving to the chorus of trumpets will drown out voices such as the above, and many other objections and comments, no matter the source. And yet, are those suggesting the above entirely wrong? There are no "gods" - so no godly vengeance is possible. Even so, I'd suggest it was, if not vengeance, then still an entirely predictable consequence of choices made - with a vengeance. But by whom, for whom and how?

All the head-burying, sobs, tears, breast-beating, adulation and jingoism du jour, cannot, even for a moment, disguise the fact that we deliberately put astronaut's lives on the line every time we fly one of the 20 year old shuttles - in order to save money and faces. The shuttles were supposedly designed for 100 flights - and a lifespan of around 10 years. In reality, plans go wrong, and Challenger was on her 28th flight in twenty years.  Or an average of just over 1 flight a year. The estimated odds of a catastrophic anomaly during any take-off is put at a little over 400:1. In other words, for each 400 or so take-offs, we expect to lose a shuttle and crew.

The reason is simple, the space program is dramatically underfunded - and the amount it receives is continuously reducing in real world terms. Research and development on advanced programs takes decades. Unfortunately funding happens in 4 yearly cycles - and usually comes with strings attached. Strings which tend to be pulled by different puppet masters every few years - destroyng many programs that have taken thousands of man hours and hundreds of millions of dollars to satisfy political whimsey.  The result. NASA is as much a political football as a research organization - hobbled by antediluvian mindsets and interdepartment rivalry reminiscent of the cold war, lacking enthusiasm, lacking visionaries - and placing astronauts at far greater risk than should be necessary.

The shuttles were the Airforce's way of shutting down the (Navy's) Saturn program. In order to get the funding they wanted, the Airforce cut up the irreplaceable (no funding to replace them) assembly gantry (Vertical Assembly Building) for the safe, cheap, reliable, heavy lift Saturn which, in the Saturn V successors was intended to launch 140,000kg into LEO at a cost (in 1997 $) of around $4,300/kg. Compare this to the Shuttle, which manages to launch only 23,000kg - at an average cost (for all missions flown to date - in 1997 $) of $22,000/kg. Or a cost 5 times higher than the Saturn for a payload 4 times smaller. Today, 20 years later, we still don't even have a draft for a high volume heavy lift program offering us a similar capacity to the Saturn* - at any price.  Due to short-sighted budgetary in-fighting, and with around 70% of NASA's budget going to keeping the shuttles limping back and forth into LEO (and some of that cost attributable to the international space station) there isn't a lot of money left for anything else. Like shuttle replacements. In any form. Which is why we don't have any replacement for the insanely expensive, horribly complex, completely unreliable and very dangerous shuttles. Due to the reluctance to pour good money after bad, or to admit that the shuttles are expensive white elephants (and have been since the first buget overruns in the 1970s), we are left with only three shuttles in flying condition - whenever, if ever, they are allowed back into the air again. So all American non-military space programs - and some military programs - will  be impacted for at least the next 15 years (given that it took a decade longer than expected to bring the shuttle online, this is probably a realistic timeframe to bring the STS or other replacement technologies off the drawing board and into use and the air - even if budget appropriations were made on Monday - and they won't be)... Which means that the future of civilian programs is bleak, as military needs take priority - and in any case, huge sums that could be better spent on replacements will now be spent attempting to figure out what went wrong and who is liable - or not.

So, to answer my questions above, I'd suggest that the vengeance was statistical reality, acting to remind all of us - and particularly the congresscritters and Shitehouse - that we can't expect to fly historic artefacts forever without cost. And perhaps to highlight the fact that if we won't pay for development with money, we can to an extent pay for it in lives. A lesson which the next war is likely to attempt to teach us about transport aircraft too.

Unfortunately, no matter how willing astronauts are to die, it seems to me that the only way to lubricate the hinges on the now rusty gate to space, at least sufficiently to stop it from seizing up completely, and maintaining a pretense that we are interested in space-access, will be to pump money at the problem. Much as was done during the programs in the 1960s which culminated in the relics which we are flying today. And which, if we were to continue to fly missions - and fund replaceements - at the same glacial rate as we have to date, will probably still be flying with years of life in them in 2080 or so. That is, if they haven't all crashed from old age or as yet undiagnosed problems. After all, when you only fly one and a bit missions per year, it is very difficult to develop good statistics on failure modalities.


*Performance data confirmed at http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:1UHWcDlNlhoC:silver.neep.wisc.edu/~neep533/lecture33.pdf+heavy+lift+titan+saturn&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 and at http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/saturnv.htm
Report to moderator   Logged

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Casey
admin
Adept
***

Gender: Male
Posts: 343
Reputation: 7.48
Rate Casey



Revere the skeptic.

View Profile E-Mail
Re:virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #5 on: 2003-02-02 10:34:44 »
Reply with quote

My thoughts go out to the families of these 7 brave men and women.

But, we must remember that this is only 1 of many obstacles that will inevitably be found on the road of space exploration;  a road that must be traversed in order for space exploration to thrive. 

I only hope for one thing to come from all of this--the notion that space exploration is a necessity for humanity.  Exploration and discovering has played a pivotal role in the development of mankind...indeed, it has played a vital role in the development of civilizations.  May we continue to grab at the reins of our steeds and ride into the unknown. 

Kind regards,
Casey

Report to moderator   Logged
BillRoh
Guest

E-Mail
Re:virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #6 on: 2003-02-04 10:30:13 »
Reply with quote

To Jonathan and others that expressed their sympathy.

I think I can speak for many Americans when I say "thanks". Saturday was like waking up to a punch in the gut. It's been a difficult couple of days, but it will pass and perhaps the situation that led to the deaths of our best and brightest will be avoided in the future.

For once I actually think that tragedy will lead to an improved program. The general attitutide I have come across is one of optimistic defiance. People seems willing to say "Spend more on NASA" for the first time in a long time.

Anyways, thanks Jonathan. And to the rest of you American's feeling like I am, we all grieve together.
Report to moderator   Logged
Joe Dees
Heretic
*****

Posts: 5428
Reputation: 1.77
Rate Joe Dees



I love YaBB SE!

View Profile WWW
Re:virus: Sorry to hear about Columbia
« Reply #7 on: 2003-02-04 14:12:29 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (1.77) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

Report to moderator   Logged
Pages: [1] Reply Notify of replies Send the topic Print 
Jump to:


Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Church of Virus BBS | Powered by YaBB SE
© 2001-2002, YaBB SE Dev Team. All Rights Reserved.

Please support the CoV.
Valid HTML 4.01! Valid CSS! RSS feed