Sally Ride, RIP

[CuteOldGuy]

This is sad. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, passed away today at 61, after battling pancreatic cancer.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/us/sal...html?hpt=hp_c1

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee

[I B Hankering]

"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by . . . .

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967).

[theaustinescorts]

She was just horrible.

After the Challenger fiasco in 1986 she was on the "Board" looking into how it happened, and was always spinning things in her "circle the wagons" mentality to find NASA blameless. The Board, or Commission, was finally able to get to the bottom of what happened inspite of her.

She was not an adventurer.

She was a lying, pathetic government bureaucrat.

[CuteOldGuy]

You really are a piece of work, AE.

[nwarounder]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You really are a piece of work, AE.

Can you imagine working for that?...I bet there is a lot of pimp slapping the ho ho's in that stable.

[Guest040616]

Ride, Sally Ride!

Rest in peace, m' lady.

[JD Barleycorn]

Actually I would like to see some evidence.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

She was just horrible.

After the Challenger fiasco in 1986 she was on the "Board" looking into how it happened, and was always spinning things in her "circle the wagons" mentality to find NASA blameless. The Board, or Commission, was finally able to get to the bottom of what happened inspite of her.

She was not an adventurer.

She was a lying, pathetic government bureaucrat.

the commission was created to protect NASA's managers as much as possible. it was only after a lot of pressure was brought to bear on them that they eventually did their job.

[Sidewinder]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

After the Challenger fiasco in 1986 she was on the "Board" looking into how it happened, and was always spinning things in her "circle the wagons" mentality to find NASA blameless. The Board, or Commission, was finally able to get to the bottom of what happened inspite of her.

Factually incorrect.

It was Richard Feynman who went rogue, and dug out what actually happened. Credit must be given to Gen. Kutyna (sp?) who fed the original idea to Feynman in a weekend private telephone call, ostensibly as the result of a car repair job (in a day when some people still routinely did their own minor automobile maintenance), but was actually something that had been bubbling up on the military side of the Shuttle program for some time.

Almost the entire commission was in the "Whitewash NASA" mode. For that matter, so was almost everyone in NASA who testified to the Commission. Feynman mentioned that he saw several cases where NASA denied having some data, Feynman asked point-blank "What about xxx?", which he'd heard about privately, from his own inquiries to lower-level people, and the NASA guys would say "Oh, that, we have it right here" and hand it over... RIGHT AFTER DENYING THEY HAD IT AT ALL.

Feynman wrote the Minority Report appendix to the Challenger commission report, in which he disagreed vehemently with the main report and its conclusions.

I think it was the second volume of Feynman's memoirs that detail his experience on the Challenger commission. Amazon is your friend. (Oh, and if you get the wrong book, don't worry. ALL of his books are outstanding reading.)

[Whirlaway]

So the historical record is pretty clear; Sally Ride, who was part of the NASA review of Challenger, played her role in protecting NASA ?

After her first mission; she never seperated herself from NASA...she soaked that ride for everything it was worth....as did NASA promote Ride for it's worth.