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One is that I think I know why people are looking for someone to blame. It's not just paranoia, or a desire to divide the world into Us and Them. If a human being, or an organization, attacks you, there are things you can do. You can bargain, you can threaten and hope they back down, you can strike back. You can't bargain with a micrometeorite, threaten entropy and metal fatigue, or get revenge on wind shear. The universe is not inherently meaningful--we give it meaning. We shape stories, and "they died randomly doing something important" doesn't satisfy everyone. It doesn't say where to go from here--there's no car to follow.
Also, comparing pain is always a losing proposition: how many died on Columbia versus how many were killed by a land mine in Kandahar versus the average daily number of deaths from malaria. We put our attention where we can, where we will, on things we care about for other reasons.
At the risk of sounding cold-hearted, we can spare seven humans, even seven brave, smart, well-trained humans. There are a lot of us. There aren't a lot of space shuttles, and damned little to replace them with. (That the seven people who died this morning might agree with me hardly matters, in this.) I'm not saying the astronauts were expendable, or at least, no more so than anyone else who died young and unexpectedly. Only that NASA will have a much easier time putting together another shuttle crew than building another shuttle.
Also, my earworm of the day is weirdly sideways: Woody Guthrie, singing about the Bonneville Dam: "Roll on Columbia, roll on. Your power is bringing our darkness to dawn, so roll on Columbia, roll on.
Also, comparing pain is always a losing proposition: how many died on Columbia versus how many were killed by a land mine in Kandahar versus the average daily number of deaths from malaria. We put our attention where we can, where we will, on things we care about for other reasons.
At the risk of sounding cold-hearted, we can spare seven humans, even seven brave, smart, well-trained humans. There are a lot of us. There aren't a lot of space shuttles, and damned little to replace them with. (That the seven people who died this morning might agree with me hardly matters, in this.) I'm not saying the astronauts were expendable, or at least, no more so than anyone else who died young and unexpectedly. Only that NASA will have a much easier time putting together another shuttle crew than building another shuttle.
Also, my earworm of the day is weirdly sideways: Woody Guthrie, singing about the Bonneville Dam: "Roll on Columbia, roll on. Your power is bringing our darkness to dawn, so roll on Columbia, roll on.
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We pray for one last landing
on the globe that gave us birth
Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
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I also like the Woody Guthrie quote. Yeah!
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I agree with all your comments. But while there isn't a proximate 'them' to blame, one does know that metal fatigue and entropy get worse as a vehicle gets older. The shittle fleet is aging, and Columbia was the oldest. Over the last 10 or 15 years there have been many plans for a replacement to shuttle, but penny pinching bureaucrats and politicians, and money grabbing areospace companies, eager to protect their valuable disposable launcher businesses, have prevented these developments reaching fruition. If there is to be a fitting memorial to the Columbia crew, it will be freeing up this logjam, so that a properly funded and properly built shuttle replacement flies soon, and brings cheaper, more reliable launch capabilities for everyone.
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day was about 40-odd people killed in an
Indonesian train wreck or something like that.
Kind of puts it all in perspective, doesn't it.