Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;CamaroDMD, post: 4586580, member: 5233&quot;]That may have been the perception but it wasn&#039;t reality.&nbsp; NASA was never gonna fly people just for fun...they had to have a purpose.&nbsp; McAuliffe was the most public of those...but she wasn&#039;t the first.&nbsp; A number of Payload Specialists has flown shuttle missions before her.&nbsp; Most were company engineers from various aerospace firms who were deploying satellites on missions or had contracted with NASA to perform experiments.&nbsp; But, they were not true astronauts and there was a very divided Astronaut Corps over whether it was safe to fly with them or not.</p><p><br /></p><p>McAuliffe was a publicity stunt, nothing more.&nbsp; Would there have been more after her had the mission not ended in a disaster...sure until the disaster came.&nbsp; And one was coming sooner or later.</p><p><br /></p><p>Lets also not forget, she wasn&#039;t the only non-astronaut on the shuttle that day.&nbsp; There was a Hughes Engineer who was a payload specialist as well.&nbsp; His name was Gregory Jarvis.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in