http://www.wesh.com/news/9436020/detail.html
Risk is part of the astronaut business, but NASA thinks the people who live on the Space Coast should not have to bear part of that risk. That's why there's a little-known safety office at Cape Canaveral with a space shuttle destruct switch and two officers who have an awesome responsibility, WESH 2 News space specialist Dan Billow reported. The astronauts said they know that could be their fate. "There's nothing inherently safe about sitting on 4 1/2 million pounds of explosives," said astronaut Mike Fossum. Few places are as dramatic as the Range Safety display area. For the officers seated at the stations, the job is as dramatic as the setting. They ran through a practice run on Tuesday for the space shuttle's planned Saturday liftoff. The shuttle has to stay within certain lines on the officers' screens. If its debris footprint crosses one of the red lines, that would mean that it is wildly out of control and someplace such as Cocoa Beach or Titusville could be threatened. The space shuttle crashing into an area like that could cause devastation on the ground. John Bond, of St. Cloud, said he knows if that happens he has a couple of buttons he has to press. Those switches go to the shuttle's booster rockets, and the booster rockets would explode. Everything and everyone on board would go down. Bond has been through a lot of launches and missions, and he said he knows every one could be the one where he has to throw the switch. "I've probably got 1,000 training runs in that we've done and it will be done by instinct," Bond said. "You kind of make peace with that in your mind?" Billow asked. "Yes. We're pretty much, it's just part of the job, much like the astronauts know what their job is and part of the job is if they endanger the public, that's going to happen," Bond said. The space shuttle has emergency systems and procedures that might or might not work if the shuttle were out of control and off course. But the astronauts wouldn't get to try them because the safety of the public takes priority over the safety of the astronauts. Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
