More foam falls of the shuttle
This morning saw the launch of the U.S. shuttle “Discovery”, despite high winds and objections from the chief engineer. The biggest concern has been foam falling of the outside of the shuttle and possibly damaging the tiles which protect against the heat generated during re-entry, which was responsible for the Columbia disaster in 2003. Unfortunately, several pieces of foam were observed falling off the shuttle during take-off, although it seems this occurred after the riskiest period of the launch. Actually, apparently a piece of foam actually fell off before the launch, but it was decided that the damage would not pose a significant safety risk, and there was no need to repair it before launch.
Even if the foam did cause damage, it would not affect the the take-off - only during reentry, like with Columbia, would it cause a problem. This is part of why the decision to go ahead with the launch was made - the astronauts can always stay at the International Space Station (ISS) (their destination anyway) until a rescue mission can be launched. A more cynical person, however, might argue that the ISS was responsible in another way - the shuttles will be retired in 2010-ish, and there’s a lot of pressure to have the ISS completed by then.
I guess when it comes down to it, astronauts do have risky jobs, and must be expected to take some risks - after all, they’ve signed up to explore the frontiers (sort of) and there’s no shortage of men and women willing and eager to go into space whatever the risks. Still, Wikipedia says that, statistically, there’s about a 2% fatality rate, per astronaut per flight (based on the Challenger and Columbia disasters). That’s disturbingly high in some ways, perhaps surprisingly low in others. Either way, I think I’ll wait until Virgin Galactic has some cheap internet fares…