“It is a horrible, senseless crime that shouldn’t happen in a free and democratic society”

Right, but undoubtedly, as in the case of Tim McVeigh, the folks in Quantico will finally end up finding that Insanity has a logic all it own. This most likely will not make any sense to any of you now, but based on what has been reported about the shooter, my estimate is that most likely either the trail or the trial will lead to Cottonwood, Arizona.

Let us hope that this event does not end up discouraging good people from public service.

But I’d like to say this: Don’t let fear, or anger, rule you.

It is a horrible, senseless crime that shouldn’t happen in a free and democratic society, yet it did, in your country and mine before, and it probably will happen again because there is no way to prevent it without becoming something else than a free, democratic society.

You can’t live in fear.

Totally agreed. And I wish the best for the others who were injured and the families of those killed.

It’ll be weeks before we know if it’s possible and months before she’s recovered enough to work if she will at all. The bullet passed through her speech centers and motor control centers for half of her body. She may be entirely alright, as sometimes happens, but she may also be unable to speak or be impared and she may be paralyzed on one side. Additionally, it passed through a portion of her frontal lobe, so there’s a change of personality potential. People with similar injuries have occasionally had changes, sometimes dramatic, to their personality. It’s telling that she’s being treated by a former combat medic using techniques from the front lines. It’s just a waiting game now.

here is the link to Nelson’s comments, the link is also up at NASAWatch as well as a statement from an earlier time by Wayne Hale.

Hale’s statement is entertaining but not very useful in my view.

The big issue that needs to be resolved before any flight, is how did the “process” fail which resulted in metal that some claim is 1/3 not as strong as expected being put into the tank…

That is a serious problem and indicates either a breakdown in the process at NASA or the more likely reality that the process was never really that solid anyway.

Until one knows how the process failed then one doesnt have any assurance that there are not other process failures, including the one that is in theory “fixing” the ET.

Clearly yet again this is an instant where the same forces that destroyed Challenger and Columbia are well “at work” in the agency…and yet another reason why NASA HSF is not a very good source of credibility when talking about safety. They just got lucky that they found the cracks.

Its that simple

Robert G. Oler

It will be interesting (to me) to see if they can get the current mission off the pad. There is a real process problem at NASA…what you wonder is if the rest of the tanks have the same problem (not necessarily) and even if they do not, one wonders what it says about the process control at NASA.

My suggestion would be to simply give up and call it even and just start shutting the program down. NOthing that is going up in the next two flights is critical…for the dollars it will take to fix the system and maintain the workforce the payloads could likely transition to an expendable…

and what would the explanation be if the tank goes “bang” and we lose the vehicle? “We didnt mean to” (a la Linda H)…It is hard to see how one has confidence riding the tank when they are talking about metal 1/3 less strong then expected.

Robert G. Oler