"Don't fly more humans than you have to"
The solution to the unreliability of the space shuttle?
Simple -- try to minimize casualties by keeping people off that godforsaken deathtrap.
This is not just my snarky observation, but the recommendation of the former commander of the space division of the Air Force Systems Command to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
NASA may have to live with a risk factor of two catastrophes for every 113 shuttle flights, so it should limit its crew size and use robots and unmanned rockets whenever possible, a missile and rocket expert [Aloysius Casey] said Tuesday....
Steven Wallace, a board member in charge of accident investigations for the Federal Aviation Administration, suggested that a reliability level of 98 percent would not suffice for commercial airlines.
"In 2000, we operated 11 million flights, 32,000 a day and without a single fatality," Wallace said. "Operating on this level of reliability, we would lose 640 of those airplanes every day."
Simple -- try to minimize casualties by keeping people off that godforsaken deathtrap.
This is not just my snarky observation, but the recommendation of the former commander of the space division of the Air Force Systems Command to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
NASA may have to live with a risk factor of two catastrophes for every 113 shuttle flights, so it should limit its crew size and use robots and unmanned rockets whenever possible, a missile and rocket expert [Aloysius Casey] said Tuesday....
Steven Wallace, a board member in charge of accident investigations for the Federal Aviation Administration, suggested that a reliability level of 98 percent would not suffice for commercial airlines.
"In 2000, we operated 11 million flights, 32,000 a day and without a single fatality," Wallace said. "Operating on this level of reliability, we would lose 640 of those airplanes every day."