Space

[gwywnnydd]

Woke up this morning, staggered to teh coffee pot, then to the computer. Got it launched, dialed-up, watched my homepage load. Seattle Times website. FUCK, we lost another one?

My first thought was "Well, so much for any development in the next five years. Just like Challenger, this'll scuttle the space program for years."

And I'm angry, because I know politicians will decide that we have to be able to to this exploration 'safely', with no cost in human life. I bet if they were to look at Mr. Charles Yeager and tell him that "A single human life is too high a price to pay." He'd spit on them. Well, actually, by all accounts he's a very polite man, so he'd probably refrain from *actually* spitting on them. But you get my point.

But no. Somehow, spin doctors will make it so the average Joe on the street ACTUALLY BELIEVES that not one of those seven men and women believed that taking this flight could end in their deaths. That somehow they made it through all the safety training without ever hearing the "but accidents can happen, you can't completely prepare for them, that's why they're called accidents".

And that's insulting to the astronauts who took this risk, knowing what it could cost, but willing to take the risk anyway.

Comments

I'm hoping you're wrong...

[kamiilyaan.livejournal.com]

And I'm hoping all the spin CNN has put on it will help. One anchor has repeatedly mentioned how the astronauts are aware of ALL the risks and that the suits they now wear are a direct result of the Challenger disaster. They've also had several former astronauts on the air explaining what it feels like during re-entry and how they knew that their lives were on a knife's edge.
Dutch television has also interviewed scientists live to discuss the dangers involved...

*keeping my fingers crossed*

I hope i'm wrong too

[gwywnnydd.livejournal.com]

But, I'm cynical :).
The Administration has been increasingly reluctant to deal with folks coming home in body bags. This has been going on for decades, so i'ts not just the current iteration.

It looks bad in the Gallup polls. Can't have 'The Government' sending brave young men and women to die, can we?

Sorry, Having a grumpy morning.

[thogs-travels.livejournal.com]

The worst part from my view is that I think the politicians will use it as an excuse to back away from the space program, and that it's very likely it could have been avoided in the first place if we'd spend the money on any one of the several candidates to replace the shuttle with a newer bird.

But we won't spend the money, so it's going to happen. The shuttles are the 3rd best technology that you could buy... in 1972. It was an interim system from the get-go, never intended to be THE space shuttle.

The astronauts know all this better than anyone, but still, they go.

Yes, they go

[gwywnnydd.livejournal.com]

Because they have, somewhere inside themselves, weighed their own death with teh scientific advances this type of exploration will give us, and decided that they are willing to risk for the greater good.

I'd like to think I could make that choice. But I don't know.