EDITORIAL SHUTTLE STUNNER.IMAGINE you're one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. Discovery. Yours is the first shuttle to launch in more than 2 1/2 years. The last to try ended in tragedy. Your launch was not without a problem, but successful, and now you sit in a 20-year-old spacecraft spacecraft Vehicle designed to operate, with or without a crew, in a controlled flight pattern above Earth's lower atmosphere. Since streamlining is not needed in the high vacuum of this environment, a spacecraft's shape is designed according to its mission (see , floating above Earth. And word comes in: The shuttle isn't safe. The very craft on which your life now depends will be grounded as soon as it returns. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? Not for the astronauts, or for the rest of us (abuse) for The Rest Of Us - (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. . NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. spent $1 billion ``fixing'' the shuttle, and the fix, we're told, didn't do the job. Space travel is bold, daring and dangerous. We expect problems. But we also expect a solid return on our investment, and to minimize the mistakes than can cost lives. For now, NASA must focus on the mission at hand and bring Discovery's brave crew home. But then it will be time to seriously re-examine re·ex·am·ine also re-ex·am·ine tr.v. re·ex·am·ined, re·ex·am·in·ing, re·ex·am·ines 1. To examine again or anew; review. 2. Law To question (a witness) again after cross-examination. the agency, the shuttle program and the future of both. |
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