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Today Marks 50th Anniversary of Fatal Apollo 1 Disaster (nasaspaceflight.com)
schwit1 writes: NASASpaceFlight.com reports: "Fifty years ago Friday, the first -- but sadly not the last -- fatal spaceflight accident struck NASA when a fire claimed the lives of Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White during a training exercise at Launch Complex 34. The accident, a major setback for the struggling Apollo program, ushered in the first understanding of the 'bad day' effects of schedule pressure for spaceflight and brought with it words and reminders that still echo today." The article provides a very detailed and accurate look at the history and causes of the accident, as well as its consequences, which even today influence American space engineering. Are there any Slashdotters who were old enough to remember the incident? If so, we'd love to hear your take on the disaster. Where were you when the news broke and how did it affect you and the country at that time...?
First, wow, so many trolls... can't we get rid of some of this garbage?
There's a lesson to be learned here. In a lot of fields, scientific research isn't safe. It's for the advancement of science and hopefully the betterment of the world that we put our lives at risk. I see people calling for SpaceX to be grounded and ridiculing them for their failed launch. These are complex systems, and sometimes things go wrong that have unexpected consequences. It's unfortunate, but it's a risk we take, and without the early attempts at spaceflight, there is no Apollo 11, shuttle, or ISS.
This sort of thing happens in other branches of science, too. I am a meteorologist and I study tornadoes. That means chasing storms and, sometimes, getting close to the business end of a supercell thunderstorm to collect data. And yes, researchers occasionally do get killed, as unfortunately happened to Tim Samaras a few years ago. It's not safe out there, but it's because of research like that, that we're quickly moving toward a dramatic shift and perhaps a large improvement in how we issue severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Look up warn-on-forecasting if you're curious. We need the data to better understand the processes involved with tornado formation and what distinguishes tornadic supercells from non-tornadic ones. People have called for bans on storm chasing and ridicule the type of research meteorologists do as fringe science, but it may well save a large number of lives in the coming decades. It's not safe out there, but it doesn't mean we should walk away, give up, or ban the scientific research.
Should we have banned chemistry and research on radioactive elements because it led to the deaths of many scientists? We're better off that we didn't do that. Would we be better off giving up on tornado research and not trying to improve warning lead times? I think not. And we shouldn't try to put an end to the work SpaceX is doing, despite an accident and some noisy critics.