Shuttle launch to go ahead despite risk of ‘catastrophe’

NASA managers have rejected last-ditch pleas from their top safety officer and chief engineer to scrap next month’s shuttle launch, saying that they will press ahead despite potentially catastrophic risks.

The head of the US space agency, Dr Michael Griffin, overruled warnings that there was a “relatively high” chance the shuttle’s external fuel tank could shed some of its solid foam coating when it launches on 1 July, carrying seven crew including Briton Piers Sellers, an Edinburgh University graduate.

But it gets better. Rove Griffin is going to carry on! Well, the soon to be dead astronauts are anyway. Money quote:

Dr Griffin said: “I do not see the situation we’re in as being a crew-loss situation. If we are unlucky and we have a debris event on ascent, it will not impede the ascent. The crew will arrive safely in orbit, and then we will begin to look at our options.”

Crew-loss == they all die
debris event == they all die on reentry
options once in orbit: 0

I don’t want these sociopaths to be able to add another 8 lives to their ledger. Politics is not worth sending a 25-year old deathtrap up into space.

Just remember: Mars, bitches!

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