A better title would have been “what a jaded ex-academic with no relevant domain knowledge thinks happened at NASA during the last Columbia mission.”
Yes, they didn’t launch Atlantis on short notice, which was probably in hindsight a mistake. But Greg’s not even wrong when he asserts that “(the combined Atlantis/Columbia crew) could have sat on the (expletive) floor and been alright.” The shuttle went through a complicated sequence of re-entry maneuvers to land safely. It’s not just 3g in one direction until touchdown.
The NASA honchos decided that even if there was damage (caused by a chuck of foam breaking off the external tank during launch and hitting the wing) nothing could be done, so decided not to check for damage (which could have been done with an EVA, or sophisticated ground-based imaging systems, or recon sats).
A better title would have been “what a jaded ex-academic with no relevant domain knowledge thinks happened at NASA during the last Columbia mission.”
Yes, they didn’t launch Atlantis on short notice, which was probably in hindsight a mistake. But Greg’s not even wrong when he asserts that “(the combined Atlantis/Columbia crew) could have sat on the (expletive) floor and been alright.” The shuttle went through a complicated sequence of re-entry maneuvers to land safely. It’s not just 3g in one direction until touchdown.
Is Greg’s core point true?
Sure. But almost everything else is a fractal of tripe.
OK, but doesn’t that make NASA’s actions evil, as in the people in charge deserved to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Legally? No. They were not negligent. The Atlantis rescue mission would have been a heroic measure that could have easily killed yet more astronauts.
Morally? It depends on all this background evidence that we ourselves don’t know and Greg merely speculated toward.
Greg’s core point, which you agreed was true, seems sufficient to morally dam them.