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Challenger Tragedy - In Depth, and Deeply Felt
Patchw0rk F0g writes "On this, the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, Jay Barbree has a moving and in-depth piece on this international disaster." From the article: "During several earlier shuttle missions, disaster did everything it could to crawl into the shuttle launch system and turn it into tumbling flaming wreckage. The primary O-rings on those flights suffered severe erosion from superheated gases, sometimes accompanied by lesser erosion. And the erosion had occurred after launch temperatures much higher than on this freezing Florida day -- 53 degrees was the lowest launch-time temperature up to that time. The booster engineers felt helpless. For months, they had been studying the O-ring seal problem. They knew a disaster was coming, but no one stepped forward and said, 'Stop this train until it's fixed.'"
What was the motivation of the engineers to tell everyone that their design was broken?
The answer is: to keep astronauts alive. Obviously this wasn't a big enough motivation and it should be a wake up call for anyone who trusts that a contractor or engineer will tell you that there is something wrong with a product on their own. If they won't do it spontaneously with people's lives on the line, they aren't going to do it for anything less. It is the management's job to find the problems then, by probing each and every engineer and every contractor. If you don't think there is something wrong with a product because noone has told you of issues; then you are wrong.
Need Another Seven Astronauts.
Really...
I went to space camp after Challenger, and the discussions there were focused on ejection methods, however, NASA counters every good idea by stating "it costs too much money". Understand, space travel is dangerous and rightfully so, but their "safety" stance is only politics. They recognized that the shuttle needed a new design 25 years ago, and have done nothing. They have recognized that all onboard systems need updates, and have done nothing. They have recognized that the shuttle needs some form of ejection, and have done nothing. NASA has become the very thing they despised 40 years ago... and for what? My respect for NASA is in the toilet, and will be until the agency finally dies. A good idea is nothing without the ability to make it reality.
If Bush only cared more about the space program, this disaster never would have happened. He was more worried about running oil companies and thinking about becoming a governor to care about the astronauts. If anyone has blood on his hands, it is George W. Bush.
Ya.
They found their head and shoulders on the beach.
boooo. I know I know. I'll be here all week!
Laugh a little. We're all going to die.
We don't give a rat's ass.