In article , Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
writes:

An astronaut/ham's license is renewable for the life of the
astronaut/ham. So is any other ham's license. Once a ham becomes a
silent key, responsibility for licensing him or her passes to a higher
authority (who is a ham and has just bestowed the ultimate license
upgrade to the newly deceased - the privileges are unparallelled, but
the licensing requirements are rather steep - although no
demonstration of Morse proficiency is required, the written test is
reputed to be a real killer). However, the reference to shuttles
burning up on reentry was a poor choice of words.

As to your last sentence, John, you would be right only in discounting
certain individuals in here.

This thread got started by one who is obsessed with throwing any kind
of garbage at myself for the slightest reason...or as manufactured
garbage through the use of inference, misdirection, or outright
malicious quoting out of context.

As one who has been IN the aerospace industry and actually worked
ON spaceflight hardware (including man-rated), I'm in the category of
ardent fans of the overall effort and certain honor the men and women
who have been chosen as astronauts...and cosmonauts.

A problem with the ordinary public is that they consider space flight
"safe," just like a long plane ride. It is most definitely NOT so. Every
single manned flight is a high-risk activity. That it has appeared safe
for many successful flights is due largely to thousands of non-astronauts
who did the engineering, design, fabrication of the vehicles and payloads.
The public is largely ignorant of them...at best only knowing the ones
around consoles at the MSFC Mission Control room.

Still, each and every space flight is not without risk today. The tragedy
of Columbia proved that very unfortunately. Back when Grissom, White,
and Chaffee lost their lives in a ground capsule test fire for Apollo, I was
working on unmanned space flight payloads...every single one of us in
the clean room were saddened on hearing of the event. At that same
facility earlier, some of us saw the unedited film of the Gemini-Agena
docking flight, the one where a stuck-open manuevering thruster caused
a high-rate double degree of freedom rolling. Command pilot Neil
Armstrong managed to shut it down, but not before the roll rate had
gotten very severe. Armstrong and David Scott could have perished on
that flight but managed to manuever just enough to splashdown in the
Pacific well away from the intended landing site.

Five astronauts and one cosmonaut (Yuri Gagarin) died in aircraft
flights. "Ordinary" air flight is supposed to be safe...but it is not
without
risk. Of the seven who died in Challenger (STS-51J), few know the
names of the major crew. Judith Resnick is honored by the IEEE
(she was a member) by having her name on an award. It was to be
Judy's second mission in space...also commander Scobee and
specialist Onizuka. Challenger never reached outer space, exploding
a mere 73 seconds after lift-off.

Before you get involved in castigating someone, consider carefully who
started this thread and the manner in which it was written. Like tens of
thousands of others, I honor ALL the names of men and women who
have gone in space...even those who have joined the space endeavor
knowing full well what their risks are.

Leonard H. Anderson
retired (from regular hours) electronic engineer person