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7 Myths About The Challenger Disaster
Lester67 writes "James Oberg at MSNBC has put together an excellent recap of the 7 myths surrounding the Challenger shuttle disaster. I remember that day clearly, but as the author points out, I didn't see it live, nor did a large chunk of the people said they did (Myth #1). Although there are no surprises on the list, regression may have caused you to forget a few of them (#3)."
Few people actually saw the Challenger tragedy unfold live on television.
Surely everyone who was watching the launch on TV saw the tragedy unfold. The number of people who did observe this, numbers in the high hundreds of thousands at least; that hardly qualifies as few, regardless of the unsubstantiated assertion the all major broadcast stations had cut away
The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
I don't know what the author thinks the common definition of explode is, but a quick look on Wiktionary shows it to have as one common meaning to destroy violently or abruptly which is certainly what happened to the shuttle. Furthermore, it is semantics to argue about the 'challenger' exploding versus the shuttle with booster and fuel tank.
The flight, and the astronauts' lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
Again we have semantics being put forth as fact. Most people would find little discrepancy between a person being subjected to violent trauma, going unconscious or into extreme shock, and dying within a minute and dying instantly. Nothing happens instantly anyway.
The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
This statement is complete poppy-cock. Any rational person would recognise the inherent danger in strapping themselves to the side of an enormous tank of liquid oxygen and lighting it.
Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
unrelated? surely this is the wrong word to use for a part that has been proven by more than one panel of highly respected scientists to be inherently flawed.
There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
This is simply delusional, and requires no further comment
Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management -- the disaster should have been avoidable.
It is difficult to know where to start with this statement. Aside from a criticism of management alongside a discussion of the inherent dangers of exploration, there are too many other mixed issues in this argument to make a sensible attack upon it, other than it is ill constructed.
As long as we're all crossing the line of bad taste:
Where did Christa Mcauliffe take her vacation?
All over Florida.
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Airplanes are 100x safer than a car. You are riding a container of explosive fuel and remember you are sitting on top of the explosives. Many fire fighers can tell you that many of the burns from car crashes come from the fact that heat rises and so when something burns it burns whats on top of it. So essentially in a car you are quite literally "riding a bomb" just like in DR. Strangelove. This is especially true when you consider some people's enthusiasm to ride their big SUV's.
Also a car is nto constantly inspected for safety and controled by a person with years of training and scrict guidlines about how alert/sober they need to be.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I'm sure your cozy middle class life kept you away from any pesky race riots, homelesness or unemployment.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Thirteen. Three in front, three in back, seven in the ashtray.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.