On Apr 5, 3:13*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Jeff Thies" wrote in message

...
stuff snipped

* *Yes. * Hell, I'd happily take a ride
on that Wright Flyer, if offered.

* *A very dangerous proposition, in it's day all the early flyers were
hazardous and had more that their share of deaths. Orville escaped when
his passenger was killed and that was the improved model.

Not only that, but the materials are a century old. *Bad things happen to
stress-bearing materials if they aren't stored just right. *The Flyer was
made of "big spruce" and over time, original parts were loaned and never
returned. *It was restored in 1985, which is expected to last 75 years, but
that's restoration to museum quality and not necessarily flight readiness..
Maybe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer

A nuclear reactor is not a plane.

No, but they have a remarkable similarity. *They are man-made objects that
have caused some of the most spectacular disasters in human history. *Both
are the object of intense scrutiny by the public when there is a disaster..
You can no more stop that process than you can stop Charlie Sheen's Ego,
interest in Michael Jackson's death or Lindsay Lohan's probation. *(-:

The question seems to be "is it legitimate to "armchair analyze" either type
of disaster?

The answer is of course "yes." *It's never a bad thing to analyze what it
known AND unknown about a disaster serious enough to kill hundreds or
thousands of people in a single incident. *People learn by discussing things
and trying to determine what needs to change to insure a better, safer
world. *Even if it's to make sure that if there's an Airbus crash that you
select other types of plane when traveling. *The French have filed
preliminary manslaughter charges agains Airbus and Air France:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/wo....html?ref=toda....

"Searchers are carrying out a fourth effort to find wreckage of the plane -
and especially its flight recorders - in hopes of determining the cause of
the crash, which has taken on a new urgency after a French judge filed
preliminary manslaughter charges last month against Air France and the plane
's maker, Airbus. Experts say that without the flight data and voice
recorders the authorities would be unlikely to determine the cause."

So, what are we to do if the black box is never found? *Stop asking
questions why the Airbus crashed the strange way that it did? *The question
will center on how long Airbus took to decide that it's pitot tube air speed
sensor design was prone to icing up. *I saw a mockup by air accident experts
on Nova that showed all the confusing error messages that are delivered when
a basic sensor like the pitot tube fails. *Anyone who's seen a Windows
machine freeze knows that error messages can be quite obtuse and even
misleading. *"Your most recent data will be lost" OK? *NO, NOT OKAY!

There is one segment of society that generally does *not* benefit from
monday morning quarterbacking, and that's people who own stock in a company
like GE, whose liability may or may not affect its bottom line. *Whenever
there's a general "talking smack" about a company on the net or in the
papers, that company's stock drops. *For the faithful, it's just an
opportunity to buy more shares, cheap. *For the worried, it could be a
significant loss of wealth as they fear a much further drop if they don't
sell. *When they sell, the price drops even more and a run can start.

A nuclear reactor should not have to rely on a single backup diesel
generator to keep from being turned into a smoking pile of rubble. That
is a design flaw. A nuclear reactor should not have it's spent fuel pool
in such a location as to be easily damaged and exposed, covered by
little more than a sheet metal roof. Too clever by half.

There were apparently quite serious problems at multiple levels in Japan.
Watching them trying to fix a high pressure radioactive leak from the
outside makes me want to scream "haven't you guys ever fixed a leaky tank,
tire or basement?" *Gotta do it from the *inside* if you want it to hold.

Someone should have thought about what happens when a containment vessel
cracks and what sort of boat and paddle would get you out of ****z Creek.
What happens if a jetliner full of fuel hits one of these things? *Will it
burn like the WTC, heating the vessel until it fails?

The accident in Japan certainly soured me on nuke power. *It's clear that
they don't have the waste issue under control - open pools, tin roofs? *WTF?
It's clear they are not equal to the greatest blow the Earth can hand out..
The containment vessel crack was in all probability a result of the quake..
So even without the tsunami, there has been serious trouble. *That means
redesign. *Prolonged discussion needs to precede redesign so that all the
potential problems are addressed. *It's becoming clear that *lack* of
thorough discussion contributed to designers overlooking the potential
tsunami damage

All I can say is "sorry for your loss" to the people who own GE stock or who
work(ed) for them. *The bottom line is "everybody gets their turn in the
barrel." *Today, it's GE.

--
Bobby G.

Analysing rumours is called speculation over here.
I would say lack of experience was the problem.
But then who gets to experience the thousand year event?
It leads to assumptions which is where things can go wrong.
But sometimes there is no alternative.