Proper commemoration of Challenger Disaster

Coming up on the 20th anniversary, I'm beating
my old drum with two suggestions for proper
commemoration:

1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a disaster,
a crash, a catastrophe, probably NOT an 'explosion'
(a disintegration, more accurately) -- but it was most
of all a consequence of actions, a string of situations
that all lined up to destroy the spaceship and the crew.
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT. It was
'wrongful death'.

2. Don't be satisfied with "73 seconds of silence". We now
know the crew did not perish cleanly in a shattering explosion
(the way many officials would have liked the public to believe),
but lost consciousness over the next 20-30 seconds as
the air rushed from their intact cabin (some taking emergency
measures, as trained), only to die on impact with the water
two minutes later. In the years after the disaster, NASA memorial
services commemorated the 73 seconds of the spaceship's powered
flight, but overtly ignored the next two minutes of the crew's lives.

See http://cbsnews.cbs.com/network/news/..._Disasters.htm

Jim Oberg wrote:


1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a disaster,
a crash, a catastrophe, probably NOT an 'explosion'
(a disintegration, more accurately) -- but it was most
of all a consequence of actions, a string of situations
that all lined up to destroy the spaceship and the crew.
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT. It was
'wrongful death'.



It was a badly designed and fragile space transportation system is what
it was.
It wasn't "somebody's FAULT", it was a LOT of people's fault, going
clean back to NASA cutting corners in the Shuttle's design that
compromised safety due to inadequate funding levels, to falling into
their own propaganda that it was so safe that it didn't need an escape
system, to Reagan using the "Teacher In Space" as a propaganda mission
for his upcoming State Of The Union address, to NASA launching on a day
that was too cold even though they knew that such a launch was
dangerous, to the news media poking fun at the delayed launch due to the
launch delays the previous mission had, to the Thiokol engineers taking
off their engineer's hats and putting their manager's hats on, to....it
goes on and on... it was a very complex and involved situation with a
lot of flawed decisions that each seemed only a little risky at the time
adding up to a disaster.

2. Don't be satisfied with "73 seconds of silence". We now
know the crew did not perish cleanly in a shattering explosion
(the way many officials would have liked the public to believe),
but lost consciousness over the next 20-30 seconds as
the air rushed from their intact cabin (some taking emergency
measures, as trained), only to die on impact with the water
two minutes later. In the years after the disaster, NASA memorial
services commemorated the 73 seconds of the spaceship's powered
flight, but overtly ignored the next two minutes of the crew's lives.

See http://cbsnews.cbs.com/network/news/..._Disasters.htm



Should we have three minutes and thirteen seconds of silence instead?
Would it make any difference?
When September 11th rolls around, do we also have an anniversary on
September 12th, for any survivors that may have survived the initial
collapse and been trapped alive in the rubble?

Pat

In article ,
says...
1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a [...] crash

Agreeing with most of what you say, but "crash"? What did the Shuttle
collide with? A UFO?

(Oh gosh, I've gone and done created a new conspiracy theory. Sorry
about that?)
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

In this country, we produce more students with university degrees
in sports management than we do in engineering. - Dean Kamen

It will probably be commemorated on usenet by 1000 mindless
trolls coming out from under their rocks, as we're already
beginning to see. Great- like my killfile wasn't big enough
already...

Dale

Kevin Willoughby ) writes:
In article ,
says...
1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a [...] crash

Agreeing with most of what you say, but "crash"? What did the Shuttle
collide with? A UFO?

Well, " crash " and " collision " aren't exactly synonyms.

There are one car crashes. Ditto for plane crashes.

(Oh gosh, I've gone and done created a new conspiracy theory. Sorry
about that?)

smackg

Andre

Jim Oberg wrote:
Coming up on the 20th anniversary, I'm beating
my old drum with two suggestions for proper
commemoration:

1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a disaster,
a crash, a catastrophe, probably NOT an 'explosion'
(a disintegration, more accurately) -- but it was most
of all a consequence of actions, a string of situations
that all lined up to destroy the spaceship and the crew.
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT. It was
'wrongful death'.

In my business (insurance type investigations), losses (most
often due to fire) are initially defined as being either purposeful
acts (i.e. arson) or accidental, even if due to negligence. I
view the Challenger failure as an accident that was the result
of negligent management decisions about a flawed design.

- Ed Kyle

"Jim Oberg" wrote in message
news

Coming up on the 20th anniversary, I'm beating
my old drum with two suggestions for proper
commemoration:

1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a disaster,
a crash, a catastrophe, probably NOT an 'explosion'
(a disintegration, more accurately) -- but it was most
of all a consequence of actions, a string of situations
that all lined up to destroy the spaceship and the crew.
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT. It was
'wrongful death'.

2. Don't be satisfied with "73 seconds of silence". We now
know the crew did not perish cleanly in a shattering explosion
(the way many officials would have liked the public to believe),
but lost consciousness over the next 20-30 seconds as
the air rushed from their intact cabin (some taking emergency
measures, as trained), only to die on impact with the water
two minutes later. In the years after the disaster, NASA memorial
services commemorated the 73 seconds of the spaceship's powered
flight, but overtly ignored the next two minutes of the crew's lives.

See http://cbsnews.cbs.com/network/news/..._Disasters.htm



Aye, James, I agree with you 100%.... I was in the IBM cafeteria on Space
Park Drive when it happened....

That 73 seconds lasted a very long time, until all hope was gone....

xchile at houston (dot) rr (dot) com

(amazing how somethings from so long ago are so raw and ragged like they
just happened)

.... of course I remenber it so well; my birthday is within a few days...

Thank you, Mr. Oberg.... Beat that drum as long as you have life.

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article ,
says...


1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a [...] crash



Agreeing with most of what you say, but "crash"? What did the Shuttle
collide with? A UFO?



Congressional funding constraints. ;-)

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:



Jim Oberg wrote:


1. Stop calling it an 'accident'. It was a disaster,
a crash, a catastrophe, probably NOT an 'explosion'
(a disintegration, more accurately) -- but it was most
of all a consequence of actions, a string of situations
that all lined up to destroy the spaceship and the crew.
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT. It was
'wrongful death'.



It was a badly designed and fragile space transportation system is
what it was.


I'd disagree. COuld have been designed better (well, duh), but then, it
was also flown outside of the environment is was designed for. A camel
is a great design for the desret but it sucks in the tundra.

It wasn't "somebody's FAULT", it was a LOT of people's fault, going
clean back to NASA cutting corners in the Shuttle's design that
compromised safety due to inadequate funding levels, to falling into
their own propaganda that it was so safe that it didn't need an escape
system, to Reagan using the "Teacher In Space" as a propaganda mission
for his upcoming State Of The Union address, to NASA launching on a
day that was too cold even though they knew that such a launch was
dangerous, to the news media poking fun at the delayed launch due to
the launch delays the previous mission had, to the Thiokol engineers
taking off their engineer's hats and putting their manager's hats on,
to....


Errrr.... not sure about that latter one. I've got copies of the memos
from the day before, some being photocopied directly from the
hand-scribbled "Don't launch tomorrow!" memos. The Thiokol engineers
(some being co-workers of mine) knew it was a bad idea. But they were
over-ruled by manager-types.


When September 11th rolls around, do we also have an anniversary on
September 12th, for any survivors that may have survived the initial
collapse and been trapped alive in the rubble?

No, but we should have a full day filled with the distant rumbings of
daisycutters going off someplace that ****ed us off.


--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

In article ,
Jim Oberg wrote:
1. Stop calling it an 'accident'...
It was avoidable. It was somebody's FAULT...

I think you're tilting at windmills here, Jim. "Accident" is routinely
used to describe such disasters in, e.g., aviation, even if negligence or
incompetence was involved, so long as it was not the result of deliberate
malicious intent. Lockerbie was not an accident; the Chicago DC-10 crash
was, even though its direct cause was active incompetence (systematic use
of improper shortcuts in maintenance procedures).
--
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