"I am not at all sure how we would use that capability, because here you've got an orbiter that is not safe to bring people back on and yet you're going to try to land it, presumably in case you were too conservative. But in doing that you have to fly it over folks." Source: Wayne Hale, NASA's deputy director of the shuttle program, speculating about some of the problems the agency might encounter designing and flying a shuttle that could land by remote. If the crew had to abandon ship and take up temporary quarters on the International Space Station, proponents of the idea say the space plane could be flown home like a UAV. But the question becomes -- would a damaged shuttle make it without hurting someone or something on the ground? Hale was quoted by the Orland