On this day in 1986 Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnick, Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Greg Jarvis, & Christa McAuliffe lost their lives in the Challenger space shuttle (STS 51-L).
Look here for an independant view on the reliability of the shuttle done by Richard Feynmen after the loss of the Challenger shuttle. I believe that he was asked to do this as part of the official investigation, but when it turned out to be so damning, they refused to use it in the report.
Yes. A moment’s silence for the Apollo I and Challenger astronauts, and also the cosmonauts who died in various Russian accidents as well.
Somewhere years ago, I read a line, which resonated, and stuck in my memory:
“Pioneering is the business of finding new and unexpected ways of dying”
I admire astronauts and cosmonauts for their courage in accepting and facing the dangers of their tasks. They are true pioneers and worthy of respect. Few of us would have the guts to get into a car any morning, if the odds of dying on the way to the office were 1 in 50, due to a catastrophic failure of the car….
But 1:50 was Phillip Feynman’s guess of the risk of failure of the shuttle…
And speaking of heroes, IIRC, Sunday was the anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill in 1965…
Geoff