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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.'"

10 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Train? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 0, Troll

    They knew a disaster was coming, but no one stepped forward and said, 'Stop this train until it's fixed.'"

    Are you saying NASA is managed like Amtrack? I think you might be right there...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  2. wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    its one of the problems with cowardly engineers being worried about their way-above-average paycheck.

  3. Re:"international disaster" by jo7hs2 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Aha. Very snide.

  4. Kind of like the "World Series". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You know, where it's the USA versus...uh...Japan, maybe? Hmmm...I guess that makes it a "World" event, right?

  5. I remember exactly where I was-after the election. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    And Generation Y's is "GWB has won the election".

  6. International disaster by oob · · Score: -1, Troll

    "..this international disaster."

    The world's foremost rouge state had a setback in their programme to militarise space, the aim of which is to establish another avenue to exert their tyranny over the rest of the planet. The spectacular failure in this instance is an international success, not an international disaster.

  7. I remember that day vividly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I was laughing so hard that I was rolling on the floor.

  8. was it george bush's fault ? by carchiba · · Score: 0, Troll

    was it george bush's fault ?

  9. Re:OK, one correction is needed here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    No, it was a disaster, because those 7 people and that shuttle meant a hell of a lot more than some village dweller in SE Asia or moron in New Orleans.

  10. Expurgated passage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    As the flames licked and engulfed the helpless orbiter, Christa realized her end was near and in an instant felt dispair, tinged with loneliness. In desperation, she clung to her neighboring passenger, Dick, with his streak of blonde hair, intense cold blue eyes, and manly square jaw, clenched as he acknowledged the fate that awaited him. They stared into each other's eyes intensely, their hearts racing with desperate passion, determined to share a moment of love during their last few milliseconds of existence while shrieks of the orbiter breaking up echoed into the cold silence of space....