Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!credmond
From: credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Comment from an outsider
Message-ID: <1037@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 13:16:03 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.1037
Posted: Thu Jan 30 13:16:03 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 01:06:20 EST
Reply-To: credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 60

Please allow a few remarks from someone who hasn't been a reader
of net.space or net.columbia until the recent disaster, but who
has some thoughts on what has been being posted here.

First, we can all accept that it *was* a disaster, especially for
the families and friends of those killed, and for those whose work
or private enthusiasm involved them closely with the Shuttle
program.

(I carefully don't use the overworked word "tragedy"; having been
educated in the field of literature, I know that it's a technical
word meaning a disaster which results from a character flaw, and
I do not want to make any such judgement about what happend to
Challenger and its astronauts.)

Second, we can all see that it poses a threat to the future of the
space program, but that there is no logical reason for it to do so.
As various people including John Glenn have been saying, there was
almost bound to be a serious accident sooner or later, just as in
aviation or any other field of effort, and if the space program made
sense on Monday, it still makes sense today.

Third, I hope we can all see that it is *not* a "national tragedy
comparable to the death of John F. Kennedy", as various observers
have been making it.  (I say "national" even though I happen to be
in Canada -- it's hard to avoid American culture through the media
here.)  It was a sad accident; there are lots of sad accidents.  A
few weeks ago 153 American soldiers died in a much dumber accident,
when a transport plane crashed; there wasn't a fraction of this kind
of excitement.

Fourth, and most controversially, I hope we can all see that it's a
fallacy to say "Because of this incident, the exploration of space
must go on."  See point 2 above!  The incident is no more a reason for
exploring space than it is for abandoning space.  Those of us who
have harboured serious suspicions about the desirability of space
colonization, still have our doubts, but this accident isn't the reason,
and explaining it away (quite correctly) as a sooner-or-later-predictable
accident still leaves our doubts.

(Which is not to say that some people who might individually have
wanted to travel in space, now have lost their enthusiasm.  That's
understandable; lots of people have lost their willingness to fly in
conventional aircraft, as they've seen or heard of crashes.  It may
be desirable for them to get therapy for their phobia, but that's a
quite different issue from their opinions about the desirability of
*other* people flying if they want to.)

Finally, let's all agree that the media hoopla surrounding the tears
of the families and the nation has been somewhat tasteless, but that
it's an inevitable result of the way the Shuttle has been treated s
a source of national glory.  Celebrate the successes as if they were
national triumphs, and you're pretty well bound to mourn the failures
as if they were national disasters.

Thank you for listening.

  Chris