At 01:06 AM 2/2/2003, you wrote:
I had a relatively pleasant conversation with him in SF (back when Sharon and I were on the organizing committee for a conference there) until he found out we were part of "The Rocket Ranch". That's when he started his vendetta to get us shut down. Seems he has a reputation from back in his White Sands days of making up his mind quickly there's a danger and not listening to any more data after that. Caused quite a stir with NAR doing a letter writing campaign to Congress. The only reason we didn't get shut down was he was telling everyone that we were building and launching the Bay Area...he'd missed the part about where the Ranch is or that we launched in Nevada.The rest of the day after returning home has been spent reading "Lee Corry's" Shuttle down. I last read this 17 years ago. As many know this book was actually written by G Harry Stein. (with whom I had many pleasant email conversations.)
Other than that, I always read his articles in Analog (or was it Galaxy?).
The book became a NASA reference manual after some higher officials read it and realized that NASA really didn't have any way to recover from a landing like that. They now carry rope ladders and such.While somewhat dated (No CCN, no internet and based on a Vandenburg launch.) the book was based on the fact that NASA at the time (1981) had no contigency plans. Why I wanted to read the book again was from the press release that was quoted here. Reminded me of a thread in that book.
It's the way to keep people from stealing all of it. The news here said "If you touch it, it can kill you." This way they get all the police and other public officials out there guarding it for free.> Please > avoid contact with any debris, because it > may be hazardous as a result of toxic > propellants aboard the Shuttle. > Harry gives these as OMS Hypergolics. Primarally nitrogen tetroxide. Also mentioned monomenthlyhydroazine. In the book, he has print reporters who do metion this in the press breifings.What I heard on TV tho called it "Witches' brew." Why do they not call things what the are. It seems that this only feeds the paranoia and "Rokets are evil" or "rokets are bad" mentalities.
WE know that a volatile fuel wouldn't stick around after the breakup and fall and any tanks should have exploded from the heat (or at least leaked out from damage).
Funny, they also mentioned that parts were still falling after 10 hours and that farmers would be finding bits for decades. Errr...when do they tell these people that they're not really all going to die from being in the fallout zone?
So, can all the people in the fallout path (it clearly showed up on weather radar for the rest of the day) claim permanent injury and start getting their settlement check from NASA? You thought they had no budget before, after these settlements they won't have enough money to fly a model. :(This makes me sick. That there will be more restrictions placed onto our overprotective society and further separate the haves from the have nots.
Especially when tell people that all this stuff falling out of the air can kill on "if you touch it". You will probably see a lot more "no overflight" rules and the insurance companies won't touch any flight that can cause any potential harm to anyone.While I regret the loss of life. I regret more that the NIMBYs will become more restrictive and bacwards now that peices have actually landed in the back yard?
It won't matter that nobody actually dies or even gets sick from touching debris, there will be plenty of claims that it actually happened.
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Jerry Durand
Durand Interstellar, Inc.
219 Oak Wood Way
Los Gatos, California 95032-2523 USA
tel: +1 408 356-3886
fax: +1 408 356-4659
web: www.interstellar.com
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