(no subject)

[lovingboth]

It was 2:45 pm in the UK when there was a news flash on the radio to say that NASA had lost contact with the shuttle. When they said at what point in the mission it was, I immediately thought 'heat shield failure'.

I was slightly surprised it wasn't bigger news on the regular programmes, but I suppose there aren't any pictures like those of the Challenger disaster.

I am trying to remember where I read that the probability of a catastrophic failure in a shuttle mission is around 1%.

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Well, if the statistic was just taken on the basis of the history of the Shuttle missions, up until yesterday the record was 1 catastrophic incident in 106 launches... The BBC report yesterday had a comment about what a statistic of 2 in 107 would mean if applied to car journeys (they concluded that anyone who drives to work would be lucky to survive a month, IIRC).

[lovingboth]

I'm still trying to remember where it was - New Scientist?? - but it was five to ten years ago when the issue of a replacement came up (again).

Memory is telling me it was based on NASA information: the chances of something going wrong during launch, in flight and during landing.