Oh, and while we're talking about STS .. why is it, exactly, that NASA
has been dropping all of those ET's back into the atmosphere to burn
up, after spending the $10k/pound to get them up there, and not saving
them on-orbit as construction material? I know they've considered
keeping them on-orbit, purging out the remaining propellant traces
(which are hydrogen and oxygen, nothing toxic like hypergolics or
anything like that), sealing and pressurizing them, and using them as
space station components?
I've never really seen the logic in carrying something that large into
orbit, *getting* it into orbit (albeit with a fairly low perigee and a
fairly rapid decay), and then just throwing it away .. you got it out
of the gravity well, and could use it as structural material, and you
just abandon it? Doesn't make sense, unless I'm really missing
something important ..
_______________________________________________
http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
