Is a shuttle rescue mission worth it?

Why waste money on a rescue? Let's just watch them slowly die on TV. Good Morning America can cover it live - "Tell, me Astronaut Jones, how does it feel knowing that you'll never see your family again? We have your daughter here in the studio - is there anything you'd like to say to her? We'll be right back after this word from our friends at AFLAC."

Hmmmmmm.......

Is that how the Appollo 13 mission was viewed over there (note that BBC1 and BBC2 carry no commercial advertising)? The whole country (and maybe much of the rest of the World) held its breath and hoped for the best.

That's American sarcasm he was using.

That was in the good old days of three TV networks, before the 24/7 news cycle and the internet.

Americans have never had to sit and watch our heroes die the slow death of asphyxiation. So far, when our astronauts have died, it's been in an instant. The closest we've come is some of our mine accidents - the difference being there's no communication with dying miners communication.

Ironically, when news reports of the Apollo 13 explosion broke into American TV broadcasts, the networks were inundated with complaints. People resented missing their shows. The show most people were upset about missing? - Lost in Space.

Grissom, White, and Chaffee didn't die in an instant. Being consumed by fire isn't pleasant.

Well, technically neither did either of the other crews. But they died instantly in terms of news cycle time. There was no agonizing days long process of dying in the public eye.

I don't recall the event as i was a little kid.

Unfortunately the description of what they died in, was an "Oxygen Bomb".

Whistles were about to be blown by some astronauts on the recent NASA scams, and this was an easy way out, to get rid of the troublemakers.

Kind Regards....

Ironically, when news reports of the Apollo 13 explosion broke into American TV broadcasts, the networks were inundated with complaints. People resented missing their shows. The show most people were upset about missing? - Lost in Space.

Personally, the only time I was infuriated with new coverage of a major event was during the "chase scene" for O. J. Simpson.

Do you have a daughter? Would you be willing to gamble on 400 to 1 odds on her life?

From a $ / life perspective - who knows? Plus there's a certain amount of acceptable risk that crewmembers & their families must be well aware of.

But from a NASA Public Relations perspective - of course! The whole world would stop and watch. You just can't buy that kind of global human attention-grabbing (the Iraq war excepted, of course!). NASA is still wallowing around gleefully in the whole Apollo 13 miricle mission hype. And the drama would kind of detract from the unpleasant "the sucky ship design broke again" aspect - even if the rescue mission was a failure.

Hello Philo

from me

Kind Regards....

Thank you for an extremely good answer. Wish I could vote more than once.

Considering the size of NASA's budget compared to say, the defence budget (not a fair comparison maybe) it's not strange that some would be counting beans. That doesn't mean we should ever pinch pennies when it comes to saving lives.

That does, however, bring up the issue of why we are being so tight fisted with an agency that has helped bring so much technology racing forward. There is much more to be gained by puting money into space exploration than can be counted by all the bean counters in Washington DC. Technological advances have helped to spur the longest period of sustained economic growth this country, and perhaps the world, has yet experienced.

So why is NASA so poorly funded that they have to worry whether they can rescue the people that go into harm's way for the advancement of science and mankind. Was money at the root of the decision not to abort the shuttle mission with the broken tile, when it was safe to do so, but instead take a chance with the lives of that crew? Oh it makes me so mad to think where my tax dollars are really spent and where they're not.

I favor a "one percent for space" budget (we're currently at about .78% of the national budget IIRC). One that's not open to the vagaries of politics, where NASA can actually plan more than one year ahead, and not come to a funding crisis every September the way we do now.

We're approaching the end of the fiscal year (October). There is usually not a new budget through Congress until December, which means a few months of every year are spent in limbo. We can't spend, because we don't know how much there is to spend. Some projects don't know if they are going to be renewed, so development goes on hold.

It's a mess.

Ummm... NASA usually has another shuttle near-ready (if not fully ready) to go for most missions. "Launch-on-Need". We've been spending this money for a long time now.

1 Human life > the world's budget any way you slice it. Period.

Only since the Columbia disaster has NASA had "another shuttle near-ready". I'm not sure why the LON (launch on need) flight for the Hubble mission is being abandoned, or whether in fact it has.

If we stop caring for others, we would get our just rewards: extinction.

That's the sermon for today, folks - Short and sweet.

Kind Regards....