Do you remember what you were doing...

[ivan]

I was hiking the coast from Hoh to Third Beach with a group of ten juvenile delinquents from Maple Lane. One kid stole the tobacco stash and we had Kangaroo Court at Scott Creek. It was a HUGE deal and (to us) much more serious than any rocket ship deal. Had our inquest identified the culprit, he would have wished he was on that rocket.

that's awesome - it sounds like the culprit was never caught? did the trip end more quickly w/ nothign to smoke? joshk and i increased our pace through the p-traverse by 5000% after our cigs ran out

[sobo]

I was hiking the coast from Hoh to Third Beach with a group of ten juvenile delinquents from Maple Lane. One kid stole the tobacco stash and we had Kangaroo Court at Scott Creek. It was a HUGE deal and (to us) much more serious than any rocket ship deal. Had our inquest identified the culprit, he would have wished he was on that rocket.

that's awesome - it sounds like the culprit was never caught? did the trip end more quickly w/ nothign to smoke? joshk and i increased our pace through the p-traverse by 5000% after our cigs ran out

I was gonna say, Matt, WTF was this kid thinking? Since he had the entire stash, as soon as he lit up, everyone would know he was the culprit and the jig would be up. Clearly not thinking...

[denalidave]

I was hiking the coast from Hoh to Third Beach with a group of ten juvenile delinquents from Maple Lane. One kid stole the tobacco stash and we had Kangaroo Court at Scott Creek. It was a HUGE deal and (to us) much more serious than any rocket ship deal. Had our inquest identified the culprit, he would have wished he was on that rocket.

that's awesome - it sounds like the culprit was never caught? did the trip end more quickly w/ nothign to smoke? joshk and i increased our pace through the p-traverse by 5000% after our cigs ran out

I was gonna say, Matt, WTF was this kid thinking? Since he had the entire stash, as soon as he lit up, everyone would know he was the culprit and the jig would be up. Clearly not thinking...

I bet the kid was thinking of helping out the trip leaders by removing the stash. I'm sure he/she only had the leaders health in mind when he/she did such a caring gesture.

[mattp]

Yup. The guy had really given of his heart and we got a great "teachable moment" out of it. Those "kids" (some were 19 and 20 years old) were a lot of fun.

[ivan]

did you suspect it was a non-smoker (and did such people even exist in the wild and heady days of the reagan administration?)

[mattp]

Nope. We were pretty sure we knew who did it but even in those days we didn't use water boarding so we never found out for sure.

 

After the beach hike, we took that group for an overnight on Mt. Zion and then completed a ski-hike from the Cle Elum River to Icicle Creek. And all of that with no smokes.

[wayne]

I was in a hospital bed for all of January after surviving a 500 foot fall

[mattp]

Damn! That was one of your nine lives, for sure.

[Mtguide]

I was actually watching the launch on live coverage from CNN.I'll never forget hearing the Mission Control flight controller calling out the airspeed and altitude as the rocket rose, and then, when the rocket exploded, pausing for a moment, then saying in a completely flat,almost robotic, utterly emotionless monotone, "Obviously a major malfunction...".

 

It was appalling; in the next few moments, the camera showing the open air spectator gallery focused on Christa McCauliffe's mother in the stands, looking up at the sky with her hands trembling at her face, in utter shock and disbelief. Mercifully, they turned the camera away as she turned towards her husband and broke down.

 

The camera then went back to the explosion cloud, with the auxiliary twin fuel tank rockets spiraling crazily out of control, until they too were detonated by Mission Control while they were still over the ocean. Then the camera began to track pieces of debris falling out of the sky, trailing smoke, until they struck the water.

 

It reminded me immediately of the terrible tragedy that occurred on the launch pad in the 60's when Gus Grissom and two other astronauts were killed in a fire inside the space capsule when an oxygen tank sprung a leak. Space travel is indeed extremely dangerous; while astronauts don't necessarily have to have the same kinds of skills required of fighter pilots, they are nonetheless literally "riding fire" into space, and things that go wrong can transpire in split seconds, irretrievably. Their chances are very,very slim, in any kind of problem. So, they definitely do have to have "The right stuff", like the test pilots and fighter jockeys in Tom Wolfe's book of the same name. They face instant incineration as a part of their job.

[ivan]

I was in a hospital bed for all of January after surviving a 500 foot fall

ah, now here's a story i havent' heard....

 

i don't understand the deal w/ my 9 lives - i've used several up all ready, including a bunch of huge unroped falls, and have yet to get anything like a real injury?

 

i knocked on my whole house just then, btw...

[j_b]

I heard it first on my car radio as well. The typical media orgy of hyperboles followed on for weeks as if captain america had been castrated.

 

Jeeeeeeez, man. You are one bitter fucking tool. It doesn't always have to be about the evil empire.

 

Noting the role of space exploration in propaganda makes one a "bitter fucking tool"? You clearly can't open your mouth without revealing your cluelessness. Jackass.

[ivan]

Noting the role of space exploration in propaganda makes one a "bitter fucking tool"? You clearly can't open your mouth without revealing your cluelessness. Jackass.

funny...insinuating that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns mostly makes me think you're a jackass

 

space exploration is frig'n awesome, manned or not, and i'll gladly pay tax money to support it

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I heard it first on my car radio as well. The typical media orgy of hyperboles followed on for weeks as if captain america had been castrated.

 

Jeeeeeeez, man. You are one bitter fucking tool. It doesn't always have to be about the evil empire.

 

Noting the role of space exploration in propaganda makes one a "bitter fucking tool"? You clearly can't open your mouth without revealing your cluelessness. Jackass.

 

GO LICK SACK, PINKO GOON

[j_b]

Noting the role of space exploration in propaganda makes one a "bitter fucking tool"? You clearly can't open your mouth without revealing your cluelessness. Jackass.

funny...insinuating that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns mostly makes me thing you're a jackass

 

space exploration is frig'n awesome, manned or not, and i'll gladly pay tax money to support it

 

where did I insinuate "that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns"? I expect better reading comprehension from a teacher.

[ivan]

where did I insinuate "that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns"? I expect better reading comprehension from a teacher.

i rarely "read" anything in spray - it's not exactly the magna carta, is it?

 

"noting the role of space exploration in propaganda" did lead me to that hasty and it would appear erroneous conclusion, good sir - i assume you do/did see some value to NASA beyond fighting the godless reds?

 

that said, regarding the castrated captain america on the news comment, is there ANYTHING the news doesn't get all atwitter about? firkrisakes', they shit themselves when some guy offs his wife, which is the most common kinda news-item ever - that sets the bar pretty high when a challenger type accident occurs

[j_b]

Of course I see value in space exploration but I am also well aware that it had a unique role in projecting an image of America to americans and abroad. If you look at context, the Challenger disaster occurred just after the euro space program started getting results launching commercial satellites and great expectations were placed on the shuttle to show once and for all that it was the better program. It turned out that following the accident, Europe dominated that market for the next decade.

[rocky_joe]

I don't even think I was a thought in my parent's minds yet.

[ivan]

i think its sad that nasa has lost the luster it once had in the apollo-hey-day - there seems to be a lot less money and a lot less focus, though i suppose that was inevitable after apollo 11 - regretably it seems the time for manned space-flight has passed, barring the advent of much faster engines - the robotic probes and telescopes have been crazy badass though and should get a boat-load of money to keep them moving forward

[sobo]

man - chick on the right was totally rocking the 80's doo!

Judy Resnik - may she rest in pieces...

[tvashtarkatena]

The Shuttle program has many aspects, some good, some not so, depending on your outlook. Half of all it's missions have been military in nature. At over $10,000 per pound put into orbit, it's an expensive launch platform. It has had some obvious reliability problems. Many would argue that it has sucked the lion's share of money from more worthy, unmanned science missions.

 

On the other hand, the Shuttle has proven to be an effective satellite transport and maintenance platform...the Hubble repair and all that.

 

On the other hand again, the Shuttle helped build the ISS; arguably the most expensive and purposeless piece of space junk ever conceived.

 

In the end, the credit or blame for the Shuttle should probably go to Stanley Kubrick, Harry Lange, and Arthur C. Clarke.

Edited January 30, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[j_b]

From the horse's mouth:

 

This reliance on the Space Shuttle, instead of a private launch industry, was an attempt to compete with Arianespace. Created in March 1980 as a private stock company by European aerospace firms, banks, and the French space agency, Arianespace took over operation of the multinational European Space Agency's Ariane rocket, including managing and financing of Ariane production, organizing worldwide marketing of launch services, and managing launch operations at Kourou, French Guyana.

Ariane launches began in December 1979, and the initial series of missions was conducted under ESA responsibility. Figure 2 The first full commercial mission under Arianespace control was the launcher's ninth flight in May 1984, when an Ariane I successfully lifted the U.S. GTE Spacenet 1 satellite into orbit. By the spring of 1985, Arianespace held firm orders for orbiting thirty satellites and had options for launching twelve more--representing a combined order book value of about $750 million. Of those orders, half were from satellite customers outside the European home market. Arianespace marketing combined the best of both worlds: the marketing freedom of a private company, plus the direct support of government agencies.

 

[..]

 

Then came the Challenger accident. National Security Decision Directive 254, released shortly after the Challenger accident, took NASA and the Shuttle out of competition with U.S. commercial launch providers for commercial and foreign spacecraft payloads.

 

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/x-33/facts_1.htm

[Choada_Boy]

The camera then went back to the explosion cloud, with the auxiliary twin fuel tank rockets spiraling crazily out of control

 

You might as well have called them "thingamabobbers" as that is a much more accurate description than what you provided. They are actually "Solid Rocket Boosters" that burn a solid mixture of ammonium perchlorate and aluminum, essentially a 1 million pound Roman Candle. Once they are lit, by flares fired downward through a hollow center, after the main engines, there is no throttling them back. The entire shuttle is bolted to the launch platform by 4 3.5" dia bolts at the base of each SRBs and at launch, with all three SMEs and both SRBs running at 100%, redundant explosive charges on each of eight frangible nuts fire and of she goes.

[tvashtarkatena]

Tot choadness.

[tvashtarkatena]

Choaduapan.

[tvashtarkatena]

Le Choadette