Actually, I don’t think he was criticizing the engineer. This was another jab at NASA, specifically the initial “screw up” with the Hubble Space Telescope, which at the time was the butt of all late-night talk show jokes.
"… Two months after the telescope was placed in orbit, scientists announced that its 94.5-inch primary mirror, polished to incredible smoothness, was flawed, resulting in blurred images. Ironically, the telescope was myopic. Investigation showed that engineers easily could have detected this problem prior to launch. Scientists had to delay or cancel experiments.
In December 1993 the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour fitted the telescope with corrective optics and made other repairs. After this $629 million outer-space repair job, the telescope worked perfectly…"
If I remember correctly, the problem with the primary mirror originated with a mess up on the English to metric unit conversion when the specs were sent to Japan for the mirror grinding and polishing. Let he who is without fault cast the first stone…
The fix, installing some corrective optics, reduced some of the light sensitivity that the original optics were intended to have. But at least the telescope was functional, and because of being in space, could/can do things no earth-bound telescope can.
Imperfect humans produce imperfect results. The thing that’s great about model railroading is that my ventures into [#oops] land and klutzdom are not known or seen by others unless I choose to tell on myself. The same can be said for the money it costs me to fix my mis-adventures. It’s all a matter of perspective and scale.
Telling tales of misadventures is standard practice in military pilot ready rooms. The point of the chat is not to see who was more stupid than the other, but to see if there are lessons to be learned and cautions to be gleaned, lest I end up in the same position - out of gas, airspeed, altitude, and ideas - all at the same time.
You are the “jack hole” loather is talking about. Give the guy some slack. He thought he was forwarding on some interesting information. Its not his fault the links were bad.
The Hubble mirror was ground wrong by GE. They knew it and didn’t say anything to NASA. NASA didn’t double check it. (a double screw up)
The English/metric screw up was on a Mars orbitor that was lost because of it.
I’m sorry I even posted this. I didn’t think everyone was going to get all upset about it. I made a mistake and I apologise to all the rocket scientists among us.[:(!](I said I was having a problem with the links.)
A couple of additional facts, which, hopefully, will put the cork in this jug:
The locos were UP, but the railroad wasn’t. It’s still the same route that booster sections have been traveling from Utah to Florida for several decades.
The injuries occurred when the rider car (occupied by railroad and contractor employees) made a rather rapid descent to ground level when the bridge went down.
At least one car loaded with a booster section ended up on its side.
The sections will be returned to Utah, thoroughly inspected and repaired as necessary before being returned to Florida for use.
As has been noted, NASA is not the responsible party. They are the consignee of cargo involved in a purely railroad-related incident.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - when not writing science fiction)
The Hubble space telescope mirror was ground just down the street here in Danbury Connecticut. Despite many checks, it was delivered with an imperfection due to the checking gauge being assembled incorrectly (a washer was reportedly put in on the wrong side of a flange). The mirror was made by Perkin Elmer. The optical division was sold to Hughes, then became part of B.F.Goodrich Aerospace. After the screwup was found the same people were able to come up with a fix ( a corrective lense installed by the shuttle crew) so now we have gone full circle except for the collapsing bridge which Nasa, Perkin Elmer nor flaming gas tankers had anything to do with. J.R.
Those people who don’t check the facts are just following the approach of the new journalism. Get the “news” out before anyone else does and check the facts later. The priority is getting the “scoop”, facts to follow(maybe). JMHO
I actually have a question. Well, two, but for one, were the rocket segments actually loaded? I can’t find that it actually says yes or no. It hints at yes, but not definietly. And what G&W line was it on?
The booster segments are shipped loaded - with rocket fuel the consistency of truck tire rubber that can only be ignited by very high temperature. In a derailment, the stuff is about as dangerous as coal.
The original news item mentioned that, “No toxic material was spilled.” Laughed myself silly over that one! How do you spill solid material cast in one piece?
You guys ought to be glad they were just solid rocket booster parts and not nukes! By the way, if they were nukes, you would not hear about the story unless one went off! and they only ship those by military transport in component form!
One more for ya: did anybody see the picture that shows the locomotives tipped over on the trestle? At the bottom of that picture is a 50’ boxcar with three yellow ‘hoops’ around the entire car. It looks like the door has a steel plate over it (maybe just the picture). Is this a clearance car? Wouldn’t it be a little too late if something fouled the tracks for it to stop, or does the train move slow enough to stop immediately?