From Thomas Malloy
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Then there's the matter of heat shield. Richard says that the plan is to glue a blanket over it. I'm wondering how the hell the vehicle's heat shield got a four foot gash in it? It isn't often that Dr. Parksie and I agree on anything, but the space shuttle, and the space station, are two of them. IMHO, the guy who designed a bell shaped capsule, with a one piece heat shield had the right idea, ditto for the rocket pack used to slow down the Mars lander, just before touch down. IMHO, if I set out to design the worst possible vehicle, I'd end up with the shuttle.
The space shuttle suffered the fate of dwindling budgetary constraints during the design phase. I believe one of the original shuttle designs placed the reusable vehicle on top of multistage rockets. What was known to be a well-proven design concept probably would have saved us two space shuttles and 14 astronaut lives. Too expensive, ergo, we paid the price in other ways. -- Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
