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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.'"
That's a lot of weight to place on one man's shoulders instead of the administration.
ARG DUP! And linked to the same story too!
you might want to expand your horizons a bit. the toronto blue jays won the world series in recent memory, and they are not in the usa.
in latin america, also not the usa, baseball is played quite a bit as well.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Let's not forget that the US didn't even make the semis in the baseball at the Athens Olympics. The four top teams there were Cuba, Australia, Japan and Canada.
Cogito, ergo sig.
I have to disagree with you here. The problem with "normal people" is NOT that NASA somehow let them down. The problem with "normal people" is that they're MORONS.
How do I know they're morons? Let's see;
1. They voted Bush in, not once, but TWICE. The second time was AFTER he'd already substantially screwed up our relations with the entire rest of the world and managed to do all sorts of nasty things to our civil liberties and plunge us from a surplus into a deep national deficit.
2. They aren't interested in science or math, but rather, idiotic sports statistics. Little Johnny can't be bothered to study physics, but he can recite to you every meaningless number related to major league baseball for the past fifty years. And don't get me started on the schmucks playing fantasy baseball or football, or conjuring up "dream teams" and having endless arguments over which would beat which -- I mean, MY GOD, two professionals arguing over which FICTIONAL TEAM WOULD WIN! It's like two kids arguing over whether Superman could kick Batman's ass, or whether Spock was a bigger badass than Sulu.
3. They care more about which idiot celebrity is fucking/impregnating/cheating on/divorcing which, than they do about the future of their own nation. This is particularly astounding when the celebrities in question don't even know these people exist, and when they ARE confronted with them, react callously.
4. They believe all the propaganda they're fed, and demand more, and they fall back on religion and superstition whenever they're nervous. Notice the surge in "alternative medicine" (which is really just magical thinking). Aunt Joannah thinks her lung cancer is going to be cured by her chiropractor waving his fucking hands over her tits and saying "I'm giving you my energy". Do you really think old Joannah is smart enough to be interested in space?
5. Worst of all, the mainstream culture here in America punishes intelligence and interest in math or science. The quickest way to become an outcast in school is to be interested in physics, math, chemistry, or computer science. You'll get tormented for it. Trust one who knows.
Don't blame this on NASA. People are stupid. They have always BEEN stupid. It's the way of things.