Space Shuttle

[tater03]

They had to scrap the launching of the space shuttle again today. I don't know about you guys but, me personally, i would be afraid to go up in one of these to begin with. And them having so many issues lately would make me twice as afraid. but i would rather see them be over catious then not catious at all.

 

[dong]

I believe one of the engineers remarked that there are more issues now primarily because of awareness of them, and that most likely the probability of malfunction is still very low. However, now that we have a precedent, the principle "once bitten twice shy" holds.

 

[Plumley]

I agree, I'd rather see over cautious than not cautious enough. Even so, I'm glad I don't have any astronauts in the family. I'm sure it's just because we're more aware of shuttle problems but I find them scary.

 

[ninikins]

I wonder how the astronauts feel about all the stalling and the problems themselves.

 

[dong]

That's a question I've had on my mind and I suspect others have too. Now that the launch has been completed without mishap, I still wonder what they're feeling.

I doubt that projection here is going to be of much use at all. We receive a very different impression of space travel/exploration/work than astronauts probably do. You could put these kinds of things into a little perspective by saying that if we were briefed on the risks of doing every activity (like driving a car to the office) we'd be affected all the same, I guess. The speculation comes from the fact that being blasted off in a space shuttle is...well...not the most common experience in the world.

 

[palefrost]

What i wonder is, why the need to explore space at the present time?

We have wars on all fronts and our political system is not working as intended. Is this some type of distraction for the American people to watch over then concentrating on world politics? The timing is suspect.

 

[DJDizzy1]

I for one like to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

I think space explorations has its benefits though. A lot of inventions we have today came about as a result of space exploration plus I think by nature man are explorers we have already explored so much of our own world by exploring our solar system and the galaxy who knows what we might discover.