Who is to blame ??

[inam]

My question is about the heart wrenching incident of S.S Coloumbia that Who is to blame for its disaster ?? NASA or its Short budget ??

[K6-III]

I'd blame it on an inherently flawed concept of side-by-side takeoff.

A reusable capsule, along the lines of what Energia was developing with Zarya, would not run into those issues...

[inam]

Hi K6
Sry ur argument i think cannot be satisfied bcz as u know NASA had used its reusable-capsules before the disaster also and they done tht almost well.
so blaming this would not be well !!

thanks, :)
Inam

[K6-III]

No reusable capsule has ever been built and flown.

The Energia Zarya, also known as "Super Soyuz", only existed on paper and was the closest thing to a flying reusable capsule design.

According to Energia (I was at their corporate museum recently in Russia) the Zarya could be built should funding be made avaiable, as all the designs are ready.

The Zarya was commissioned in 1988 and cancelled in 1994 due to lack of funding.

Effectively, it was a larger, modular Soyuz with a replacable one-peice heatsheild with retrorockets for soft landing.

I wouldn't be surprized to see the Chinese Shenzhou evolve into something similar given its present parameters.