Good news and bad news greet the astronauts as they open the doors of the 60-foot-long payload bay, where future flights will stow up to 32.5 tons of cargo. The huge doors open right on cue, but they also reveal the loss of one complete thermal tile and pieces of 15 others that were insufficiently bonded to the orbiter's engine pods.From: National Geographic, Vol. 160 No. 4, October 1981 - page 488
Neither of us could sightsee, however. In less than 4 minutes we had to jettison the external tank. Pieces of white insulation from the tank drifted by our windows. They looked spectacular, like chunks of ice.From: National Geographic, Vol. 160 No. 4, October 1981 - page 486
-Robert L. Crippen, Pilot, Columbia, STS-1, April 12-14, 1981
What the hell happened?
Way back in the olden days, the media used to support the space program. They used to actually TRY to understand even if most of them were know-nothing tools who had no clue and had stumbled into careers in broadcasting after dropping out of high school or college.
Today? Oh no, we don't believe in our astronauts. We don't believe in NASA. We are all SMARTER than that - just because we are still dropouts or might as well be dropouts (a.k.a. "degree" in Journalism) doesn't mean we don't know just as much as anyone else about everything. We are all a bunch of Cliff Clavins here at {insert broadcast news outlet name here}.
So, the shuttle goes up. NASA says things are going fine. NASA... you know, the rocket scientists. The guys who got the world to the MOON. Mars. Laid the groundwork for us to have satellites for things like, oh, television broadcasts of extended cable news stations. And what does the "news" coverage say? What do they report? What questions do they ask?
What are you going to do about all these PROBLEMS on the flight? What are you going to do about that piece of foam that came nowhere near hitting any goddamn thing? How will you RESCUE the astronauts? Eek, the sky is falling! The shuttle's gonna crash! The shuttle fleet is too old, it needs ot be retired. NASA is spending too much money.
WTF? Who said ANYTHING about astronauts needing to be rescued? They surveyed the shuttle and discovered it had less tile damage, dings or marks than ANY previous shuttle flight. NO one needed any rescuing. They removed some gap fillers which had slipped and it became some kind of repair on the order of Obi Wan shutting down the goddamned Death Star tractor beam to allow the shuttle to escape (sorry I mean Millenium Falcon)... Just a clue, IDIOTS - they had observed these things before. They had observed that there was "tile slumping or shifting" in past missions which had no ill effects but meant more repair time between flights. They hypothesized that the gap fillers may have been the cause so decided, hey, we can stop that from happening. Send a guy out to use all this fancy-schmanzy new stuff just to see if we ever had to make a more serious repair, it could be done. Perfect opportunity for a TEST during a TEST FLIGHT. It proved that they could use the equipment to get to the belly and work on it, but it was NOT the first repair of a spacecraft in space (Uhh Apollo 13 was a true story, retards). Hubble was repaired. They just finished fixing the goddamned SPACE STATION before they picked off the shuttle's wee tiny booboo, a far greater accomplishment but what are they focussed on? A guy picked something barely more than LINT off the shuttle. Stop the presses! It's time to rewrite the history books!
I am not trying to minimize the work done by the Discovery Flight Engineer Steve Robinson, it takes serious guts to go out there and do what he did risking becoming a barely-noticed flare in the afternoon sky over Malaysia if something goes wrong, or being smeared like roadkill over the orbiter belly if the robotic arm or its operator frigs up. He proved that given the right materials and tools (the opposable thumb, in this case) they could patch up a serious problem so they don't lose any crew and another costly spacecraft. That's good news! But that's not what the mediots focus on.
Newsflash for you, media dipshitz. The shuttle has flown with more damage, worse rockets & tanks, fewer tiles, less computer power and safety features and has made it back to earth over 100 times. It has carried 703 crew or passengers, deployed 61 satellites, made over 16000 orbits and spent the equivalent of more than 2.8 YEARS in orbit. It has flown nearly 700 MILLION miles. For most of these flights, I could not find more than the barest minimum of coverage or information and I learned everything I could by reading books, studying web sites, getting all the info from NASA and other sources that I could. From childhood I have studied the development, building and flight of this fantastic machine, going back 30-odd years. I'd think I know most everything there is to know about the shuttle short of being a flight engineer working on one, and I don't feel that I am qualified to even hold the clipboard of the folks who built and fly the things. You, with your 10 minute review and brief skimming of the NASA front page are not qualified to even ASK the questions you ask which you can't understand the answers to, let alone provide any analysis of value. Most of you can't even fathom how to change (let alone CHECK) the oil in your Chevy Impalas, so STOP TRYING TO FUCKING TELL THE WORLD THE SHUTTLE IS "BAD".
Discovery and the STS-114 crew were never in danger (should I say unexpected danger), at least not any more than the guys on the space station or anyone else venturing into and returning from an environment like space. SpaceShipOne was likely just as risky but we didn't hear the media sheep bleating about the dangers those guys were engaging in. NASA knows what they are doing, and they know what they are talking about. In over 40 years they have had only 3 serious mishaps (Apollo 1, Challenger STS-51L, Columbia STS-107), and although it is not quite as safe as driving on the freeway to go to space in a shuttle, it certainly is not going over Niagara Falls in an Oak Wine Barrel carrying a snorkel.
So, until you know what you are talking about, media, you need to (to use the current 'net vernacular) STFU. Just because you would like to get a "scoop" by "predicting" the death(s) of our valiant spacefarers does not give you the right to apply a standard of idiocy to reporting that exceeds that of the current holder of the office of POTUS. Your job is to REPORT what you are TOLD, not to MAKE SHIT UP as you go along to make your role seem important.
One side note - I used to think that out of all the people in the media out there, Miles O'Brien of CNN - although not the towering intellect he thinks he is - was one of the few "good guys", who genuinely tried to understand and honestly and accurately report on the space program. Then I watched him STEAL a quote (I was watching NASA TV's post-landing press conference/briefing on the 'net and CNN on TV at the same time) directly from the head of NASA. While smirking and acting like he thought it up himself, used it when asking an interviewee (a former astronaut) a question. I don't mean PARAPHRASED, I mean word-for-word used it as an "insightful" comment from his "witty" self.
Mr. O'Brien, for this act you are stripped of your rank of Chief and summarily dismissed from your position on DS9. Report to the nearest airlock for spacing.
