Shuttle is Safe---Jeffs

Read all these papers, this one, The Case to Save Shuttle, Nonsensical Retirement of shuttle, and you will conclude the shuttle is safe. Bolden,Garver,Dyer, Gehman and other high level NASA officials and those who have served on panels/accident boards who have stated that the shuttle is unsafe should resign. Congress should re-review shuttle safety and continue to fly shuttle. This is a tragic situation of massive proportions. The American taxpayer should demand a reversal of the decision to retire shuttle.



On the Early Retirement of the Space Shuttle

File image.
by George W. Jeffs
for Launchspace
Bethesda MD (SPX) May 17, 2011
A Symbol: An in-space ballerina and hypersonic flying marvel, the Space Shuttle Orbiter is almost impossible for others to duplicate and continues to generate international admiration and respect for U.S. technical capabilities.
Full Potential Not Yet Realized: The multi-functional Orbiter has performed “as designed” on all assignments including reentry and a key role in the International Space Station (ISS) assembly. Like any new manned system, as crews and engineers become more familiar (like a helicopter) performance “in the box” improves and extending-the-box opportunities are identified. So far the Orbiter has operated generally within the box.

Too Young For Retirement: Each remaining Orbiter has many missions and years of life remaining. The Orbiter was designed for a one hundred mission life with a factor of four (i.e. 400 flight potential). It has experienced low flight rates and has not been structurally overloaded (maximum loads occur during the boost phase and high wind shear situations have been avoided through pre-flight meteorological observations) and receives a complete examination and any necessary refurbishment between each flight.

The System is Safe for Continued Man Flights: No critical failures have originated from within the triply redundant Orbiter itself but like any spacecraft designed for light-weight, it is vulnerable to abuse (e.g. SRB O rings, ET insulation debris); these are now known and addressable problems. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME)s were my principal safety concern through the development years but their flight record has been excellent and it may be that the integrity of recovered, refurbished rocket engines is as good as or even better than new ones. Some rocket engine incipient failures may lie undetected in ocean graves.