Fallen Astronauts, Remembered
NASA remembers the fallen heroes of the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia crews here.
They were indeed heroes- risking their lives for the advancement of science, technology, and national reputation counts, I think- but I think that, in one example at least, more than just the cascading effects of key decisionmakers’ failures were to blame for the catastrophic failure of Challenger’s last mission. If space exploration had been properly commercialized following the initial successes of the Space Race, we’d likely see higher safety margins and smaller crews on quotidian, virtually unremarkable missions, and would likely be much further- and farther- along in our efforts at space exploration. This is why I hope to see the ongoing efforts of outfits like Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites- think SpaceShip One- succeed.
