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> And NASA doesn't have any reason to accept a risk that doesn't benefit its operations. Goodwill in the space community and helping to defray costs of future
by meepmorp 14y ago
> And NASA doesn't have any reason to accept a risk that doesn't benefit its operations.
Goodwill in the space community and helping to defray costs of future launches by making commercial launches more successful (and thus less expensive, if only for insurance purposes) seem like things that benefit their operations. Perhaps this is a naive opinion, though.
- ramidarigaz 14y agoI agree, and I think NASA does too. They're just really conservative about the safety of the ISS (understandably so).
- ktizo 14y agoIn risk terms, the satellite that was ditched is worth absolutely nothing compared to the ISS. The ISS is the single most important thing humans have in space at the moment. Purely on the basis that the new trajectory can't be gone over with a pin, even if all the maths comes out saying that everything is lovely, you do not refire an ISS delivery rocket that is not where you expected it to be, especially one that has already sustained damage, just to test a new robot.
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoAnd that was why they accepted 99% instead of 99.9% or 99.99%.