NASA sets date for Space Shuttle launch

After losing 16 astronauts in fiery Shuttle disasters, NASA is going to give the Space Shuttle another shot:

NASA set May 15 for the first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster two years ago. While considerable work remains before Discovery's test flight, ''this date feels real good to me,'' launch director Mike Leinbach said.

"Feels real good"?! Well, that's a relief. As long as it "feels real good," we shouldn't worry about little things like the shuttle's miserable safety record and lack of an escape mechanism.

NASA's top space flight official, former astronaut Bill Readdy, said the biggest challenge is to complete all the paperwork not only for Discovery but also for Atlantis, the shuttle that would attempt a rescue mission in mid-June if there were serious launch damage to Discovery.

Shouldn't the biggest challenge be, oh I don't know, not incinerating our astronauts? Let's compare the Shuttle to its predecessor, the Saturn V rocket. Safety: Shuttle crew members have no way of evacuating the vehicle in case of an emergency. NASA's only plan to bring the astronauts back from a damaged shuttle is to launch a rescue mission a month later. The Saturn V had a launch escape subsystem, allowing the crew to ditch the rocket during or after launch if something went wrong. Catastrophic failures killed 16 astronauts on Challenger and Columbia. Three astronauts were killed when their capsule caught fire during a pre-flight test for the Apollo 1 mission. Cost: The shuttle program has cost $112 billion since its first flight. The Apollo missions cost a total of about $70 billion in today's dollars. Results: The Apollo missions put a dozen men on the moon and returned them safely to earth. And while they were up there, they did fun, manly things, like play golf, drive cars, and plant Old Glory. The crew of Columbia died after lugging a mirror and a can of dirt into the heavens. They also brought an ant farm, to study how ants behave in zero gravity. (Answer: they float.) We can do better than the Space Shuttle. We used to.