For nature cannot be fooled

[drwex]

I'm embarrassed to say I nearly missed today's anniversary of the Challenger disaster. It's something I try to remember every year - something that I think we should remember. This despite the publication only a week ago of newly discovered pictures of the disaster.

If you're not familiar with the event and the people and systems around it, the Wikipedia article reads as thorough and remarkably unbiased, to me.

I will remember as long as I can what I was doing that day and how I saw the news. I will also remember Feynman's publicity stunt at the commission hearings, which I had been watching. I regard the astronauts as heroes and the NASA/Thiokol managers of that time as villains, mealy-mouthed excuse-makers who should at the very least have resigned in shame. That it was Feynman's impassioned grandstanding to call adequate public attention to their failures is what endeared him to me.

Comments

love you

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

*pebble*

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

As a person who's done safety engineering, this whole thing makes me so damned angry.

[drwex]

I didn't know you'd done that. I'd love to hear the stories.

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

Some of the stories are pretty scary.

[drwex]

I like scary stories, sometimes :)

[dcltdw]

That the Thiokol engineers did not face criminal charges was something that made me go Grrrr at the time.