:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Monday, February 03, 2003

Final Thoughts

You know, having done some more thinking, I really have to talk about one thing in particular that upsets me. Why isn't there someone aboard the ISS whose job it is to inspect the shuttle while it's in space? I mean, isn't that a great job for the ISS? The shuttle pulls in, they rotate the tires, fill 'em with air, wash the windshield and CHECK THE DAMNED THING FOR STRUCTURAL DEFECTS THAT COULD HAVE OCCURRED DURING TAKE OFF!!!

It's easy to say this sort of thing in hindsight, I know. But this is something that I would have thought they would have prepared for and had in place. Stupid me, I thought that every shuttle that goes up there is inspected in space while they're docked. I figured that was part of the whole preparation for return. Looks like I was wrong. I mean, if we have pictures of this thing before they even left the atmosphere, one would have to believe that this sort of thing would have shown up in an inspection done in space.

No one can take blame for this, if it truly is an accident. And, by the way, given time I can't really give credence to my original feelings that this could have been terrorism. Obviously it wasn't. It was a simple accident. An accident that just shouldn't have happened. I hope that the powers that be at NASA and the Government take proper steps to insure that this doesn't happen again.
:: J 8:53 AM [+] ::
...