French astronaut says Columbia should no longer have been used

[oracle]

He's just upset that NASA required him to bathe while on our shuttle...

French astronaut says Columbia should no longer have been used (http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030201221302.dwiwy6hf.html)
<font size=1>PARIS (AFP) Feb 01, 2003</font>
A French astronaut who took part in an earlier US shuttle mission and has criticised current space programmes said Saturday the shuttle Columbia which disintegrated should have been out of use long ago.

Patrick Baudry said on French television he was "up in arms" over the disaster.

"I think the shuttle should have been taken out of use long ago," Baudry said: "

It's a magnificent machine that the Americans developed. But extremely dangerous."
The Frenchman charged that the Columbia was limited in its capacity, and yet had to serve the International Space Station (ISS) "about which nobody knows exactly what it's for and which I personally don't think really serves much purpose."

Baudry, a former fighter pilot, was a cosmonaut with a Soviet team aboard a Soviet spacecraft in the first French venture into space in 1982.

He later undertook a mission aboard the American space shuttle Discovery in

There should have a long time ago been "higher-performance spacecraft in operation for more ambitious missions, with a more constructive scientific aim....and above all bearers of human dreams," Baudry suggested.

...


Click here to read more (http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030201221302.dwiwy6hf.html)

[DesertFox]

Nice of you to come forward at this moment, Frenchie.

[Warlady]

"There should have a long time ago been "higher-performance spacecraft in operation for more ambitious missions, with a more constructive scientific aim....and above all bearers of human dreams," Baudry suggested."

Bearers of human dreams? A bit poetic isn't he?

[Suzie]

Well Clinton's watch did cut the budget again, didn't they? Maybe we would be further along with newer things by now?

[The_RANDy_Corporation]

Are the French just genetically obnoxious or what?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I don't think it's actually genetic....more like partho-genetic.

[Chris]

[ QUOTE ]
Fromthe article:
There should have a long time ago been "higher-performance spacecraft in operation for more ambitious missions, with a more constructive scientific aim....

[/ QUOTE ]

Then get your country to build it themselves, you toad!

[tacitus]

When did the frogs get a space program?? Are they shooting them into space with gigantic slingshots?? Geezzzz damn frogs should stick to making wine and cooking real fattening sauces.

[Warlady]

RANDy got it right. Obnoxious!

[2nd_Amendment]

I'd agree that we should have moved on from ther 60's/70's technology of the space shuttle years ago. Amazing, when you think about it. There was, what, 6, 7 years between JFK's challenge and our first man on the moon? And yet now the shuttles will be pushing the current age of the B-52 by the time a replacement comes online. IF a replacement comes on line.

Still, only a cheese eating surrender monkey could manage to pick such a wrong time to say one of the rare correct things any has ever said.

[Warlady]

2nd, a Congressman from Florida (R) was on earlier who is heavily involved in the shuttle program. He said that the Columbia may have been 28 years old but there was very little on it that was original.

You would think this insensitive asshole could have at least waited until after the funerals to start blasting our country. God I'm sick of the French.

[2nd_Amendment]

You have to understand, I am all for using our vehicles to their fullest extent. I've never understood retiring battleships and carriers when their hulls and structure are still sound. If they can no longer fight on the open sea then use them for coastal defense. Likewise if the shuttles are no longer strong enough for re-entry they'll still be good for station to station use. But that's only viable if their replacement is being considered as soon as they themselves are completed.

Instead we've decided we must over-engineer the plumbing and wait two decades before we even get started. What in the hell has happened to our pioneer spirit and our wild faith based leaps of technology?

But like I said, only a Frenchman could be right at such a wrong time.

[aresian]

Actually 2nd do a little research on the Delta Clipper project. It was cheaper to operate than the shuttle and could have taken off and landed at virtually any airport. Originally it was outside NASA's perview, but when interest started picking up they got their hands on it. During one of the test missions the landing gear failed and it fell over and exploded. The program was immediately canceled. Afterwards it was determined that the reason the landing gear failed was because a NASA employee failed to hook up a line to the gear after fueling. If NASA had the same attitude about the shuttle program (which carried less tonnage than a Saturn V booster) the program would have been canceled in February 1986.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Well one big problem is that after the walk on the moon, the thought was we did it. So There was not a lot of emphasis to do it again, support for it shrunk and support for Bullsh*t social programs pushed it way back.
I have always supported funding for NASA. It is crucial scientific experiments that can seriously impact humanity in a positive way. But liberals would rather your $$$ go to some piece of sh*t sleeping in his/her own drug induced vomit.
LIBERALS /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon120.gif

[Hawki46]

Baudry, a former fighter pilot, was a cosmonaut with a Soviet team aboard a Soviet spacecraft in the first French venture into space in 1982.

A former FRENCH FIGHTER (oxymoron) pilot...there is no such animal. The french don't fight, they surrender.

[aresian]

Trashing the French....I can't believe it. I can't resist it is what I mean.

What was that line Dennis Miller had about the French being the last to surrender to their allies, but the first to surrender to their enemies?

You have to love the cheese eating surrender monkeys. They've made anti-Americanism a full time job.

[Beowulf]

You will find a post I started somewhere, "The UN Security Council Nations, Lest They Forget.."

I targeted the French but had some choice words about many of the others.
I do hope that if there's a war that France is on the OTHER side. It'll be fun to see who liberates them this time. Oh wait, they wouldn't, we would own them.

[TSawyer2112]

"French astronaut says Columbia should no longer have been used. "

What...you mean like the Maginot Line? Next time why don't you bum a ride on someone else's space vehicle!!!

There are many things I resent my tax dollars being spent on. The space program is not one of them. They say in every cloud there is a silver lining (and don't ask me who "they" are. I am still trying to figure that one out). I hope the silver lining is that this tragedy will serve to further, not stifle, our space program. I believe there would be no better way to honor the sacrifices of the 7 than to reinvigorate the space program as well as interest in it and start designing the next generation of human space vehicle.

ON TO MARS!

[Warlady]

I agree TS. We have so much technology to be thankful for thanks to NASA.

[Rhino]

It occurs to me that a french cosmonaut is about as qualified on the servicability of the space shuttle as a Yugo driver in Poland is qualified to judge the servicability of the exhaust system on my Chevy Suburban. A talking head and nothing more. Was he with the democrats in Florida?

The Delta Clipper was supposed to be cheaper to operate than the shuttle if a certain number were produced, if a certain ops tempo was maintained, and a thousand other ifs. And all of this was after it was developed, which would have cost something like fifteen times the existing NASA budget at the time. It also could not take off and land at any airport because it required a minimum runway length that excluded most runways other than major airports and military bases. That would have been easy to accomodate though. The shuttle does indeed carry less than the Saturn 5, and it's also much cheaper, and it's reusable. Reusability was the major selling point, and a smaller payload was not an issue because shuttles were intend to deploy space equipment in a modular fashion rather than with one massive launch. Indeed, reusability allows the shuttle to build space stations far beyond anything the Saturn 5 could carry.

Don't get me wrong. I wish they had developed the Delta Clipper too. But it just wasn't as simple as was hinted here. Telling the country that you're going to scrap this program you've already spent many billions of dollars on so you can spend many multiples more of dollars on this program that hasn't even been successfully proven yet is a tough sell no matter how good it sounds. The bottom line isn't that NASA didn't want the Delta Clipper. It was simply that the higher development costs and much longer development time made it immensely more likely that a Delta Clipper program would get cancelled before a shuttle program would. And they were proved right, because the shuttle program came very close to being cancelled on at least two occasions after that decision was made.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

This frenchie guy just wanted to emphasize to the world how much the French hate us. They will use every opportunity they find to put down America and American dreams. They are jealous of our country's successes because they don't have anything to contribute to mankind. They are irrelevant.