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by Sean McCormack.
Original Post: NASA's Rocket Scientists
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Yesterday morning I was listening to the news on NPR. One of the big items was
the decision to delay the space shuttle launch. This was done due to a faulty
fuel gauge...although the shuttle had a full gas tank, the fuel gage was showing it
as empty. What cracked me up was the NASA spokesman who proudly pronounced that
their “safety system caught this error”. WOW! I'm impressed!
That means the shuttle is almost as good as my Toyota Avalon?? Imagine that...$50+
million dollars and they managed to build in the technology to check the fuel level.
Amazing.
What wasn't so amazing though is how their safety system failed to catch the fact
that some large window coverings had fallen 200+ feet and smashed a bunch of heat-resilient
tiles...the same issue that caused the last shuttle incident. It wasn't until
some individuals did a ground patrol and found the cover that they realized there
might be an issue, checked the shuttle over and found the smashed tiles.
So, good day for faulty fuel gauges, bad day for smashed shuttle tiles. Glad
to know that their safety systems caught the FIRST one...it's obviously much more
dangerous, right??
They don't call them rocket scientists for nothing. ;-)
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