What Puzzled Me About The Challenger Disaster...
The Space Shuttle, as magnificent as that system was, was a primitive first-generation attempt at a "space truck" to get things into orbit. They were practically rebuilding those things after every flight, and every reasonable person knew that it was risky and complex.
So what REALLY puzzled me about the Challenger disaster was that NASA didn't have PR response to a crash that should have been seen as "inevitable someday". Why hadn't all the astronauts recorded video messages of the "If you're seeing this, then I've died doing what I loved and trying to advance the causes of humanity. But we cannot allow my tragedy to derail the effort" category? It would have seemed to be an OBVIOUS way to mitigate, in some way, the PR disaster that would accompany the loss of a shuttle.
NASA and the news media together conspired to to the unthinkable; they made space travel BORING.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
