Space News
space history and artifacts articles

Messages
space history discussion forums

Sightings
worldwide astronaut appearances

Resources
selected space history documents

  collectSPACE: Messages
  Free Space
  Correcting the public about space accidents

Post New Topic  Post A Reply
profile | register | preferences | faq | search

next newest topic | next oldest topic
Author Topic:   Correcting the public about space accidents
dabolton
Member

Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009

posted 01-28-2015 01:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dabolton     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It seems as though I spend this time of the year having to correct/teach people about what actually happened during the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia accidents.

The general public is apt to spread false information and jokes. It's really frustrating to read.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 01-28-2015 02:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Someone who I respect corrected me about calling the tragedies accidents, as that term can be interpreted as a suggestion that the losses were unpreventable.

Some spaceflight deaths have truly been accidents; Ted Freeman's T-38 crash due to a bird strike, for example. But Apollo 1, STS-51L and STS-107 were all the result of poor decisions being made.

(The person who corrected me did so while noting it is a personal choice, so I will add the same — I'm not mentioning this to correct anyone else, but rather to share a related experience.)

Fra Mauro
Member

Posts: 1586
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 01-28-2015 04:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Fra Mauro   Click Here to Email Fra Mauro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Some of it also has to do with the passage of time, new generations and the lack of media remembrance. But with my students, I always teach that these tragedies were preventable.

p51
Member

Posts: 1642
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011

posted 01-28-2015 05:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for p51   Click Here to Email p51     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by dabolton:
The general public is apt to spread false information-
Like what? I had a discussion with some co-workers recently, none of whom were space fans like anyone here, but they all knew the general reasons for Apollo 1 (frayed wire in O2 rich environment), Challenger (O rings on the SRBs launched in too cold temps, with a history that was generally acepted as normal) and Columbia (foam strike to tiles).

I've heard some pretty messed-up ideas on space events over the years but I really don't recall hearing any 'left field' takes on any of these events...

Blackarrow
Member

Posts: 3118
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 01-28-2015 05:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Blackarrow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Someone who I respect corrected me about calling the tragedies accidents...
A fraught issue: what exactly is an accident? If someone warns of a bad outcome but is ignored and the event comes to pass, does that mean it wasn't an accident? If not an accident, surely that must mean it was a deliberate act? * That's clearly wrong. Those who didn't accept the validity of the warnings about cold temperatures doomed the Challenger astronauts, but not even the harshest critic of NASA or Thiokol could say that NASA and Thiokol deliberately killed the Challenger crew.

In the case of Columbia, NASA didn't deliberately kill the crew by refusing to believe that foam shed from the External Tank could have breached the carbon-carbon panels of the wing leading-edge.

In the case of Apollo 1, pure oxygen had always been used in the "plugs out" test. No-one anticipated a tragedy. Was everyone blameworthy? Yes. Was it deliberate? Of course not.

We can look back on these tragedies with 20-20 hindsight and it can sometimes be difficult to understand why the experts didn't realise in advance what would happen, but the same case could have been made if Apollo 8 hadn't made it home; if Armstrong and Aldrin had crashed on the Moon; or if Casper's engine had failed during the Apollo 16 TEI burn. It would have been said of such deaths: "Well, that was an accident waiting to happen!" The deaths would not have happened because someone intended them, but because bold endeavours cost lives and because even clever people don't always see before the event the problems that everyone sees after the event.

One final thought: governments know that thousands of people will die in motor accidents in the next year, yet private motoring is not banned. The argument, if we face up to it honestly, is that the continuation of commercial and private motoring is considered more important than the loss of thousands of lives. Does that mean that governments deliberately allow fatal road accidents to occur?

* It could be a reckless act, but those who commit reckless acts leading to tragedies generally didn't expect or intend the consequences.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 01-28-2015 06:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Blackarrow:
A fraught issue: what exactly is an accident?
That isn't so much the question as is "Is there a better, clearer term by which to refer to these events?"

The losses of the Apollo 1, STS-51L and STS-107 crews have been referred to as tragedies and disasters, as well as other descriptors that omit any of the ambiguity that "accidents" may or may not imply.

p51
Member

Posts: 1642
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011

posted 01-28-2015 06:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for p51   Click Here to Email p51     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
My day job is handling auto accident liability investigations.

I get this all the time. I'll ask, "So, tell me about the accident—" then I immediately get interrupted with someone practically screaming, "It's NOT an accident!"

So, the sarcastic side of me usually takes over, as I've heard this probably 1-3 times a week for more than a decade now, and I'll reply with fake surprise, "Uh, it wasn't done on purpose, was it?" After all this time I've realized that people don't like the word for minor accidents because they feel that word is best reserved for something truly spectacular (you know, the kind of accident which make the nightly TV news). Some people get ticked when that word applies to their little fender-bender in a parking lot with less than a few hundred bucks damages total.

People love labels, and when you don't use the one they think best fits, even when it clearly does, they go a little bonkers.

You gotta call it something. I've had people balk at, "Accident," "Incident," "happening," and any other such word. One guy wouldn't let me use any word, and I got to the point where I was going to call it a "ham sandwich" for lack of anything better to say. I actually had to resort to calling it, "that thing what happened to your car," which I swear was the only thing he'd allow, and that came out of several minutes of frustration in finding a silly word to describe the event itself.

Folks like that seriously need to get over themselves...

It wasn't intentional. It was an accident. Deal with it.

dabolton
Member

Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009

posted 01-28-2015 07:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dabolton     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by p51:
I've heard some pretty messed-up ideas on space events over the years but I really don't recall hearing any 'left field' takes on any of these events...
The vehicle exploded vs aerodynamic destruction, audio tapes of screaming, etc. Generally much more grandiose scenarios versus what actually happened.

moorouge
Member

Posts: 2454
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

posted 01-29-2015 01:03 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Doesn't it all depend on one's own interpretation of the words 'accident' and 'tragedy'?

All unplanned or unexpected incidents - for want of a better word at this point - are accidents. It is outcome of these accidents that are sometimes tragic and thus become called tragedies.

Might I add that one needs caution in deciding what is the real cause of an accident. My experience as a former Health & Safety Representative has taught me not just to look at what the immediate events are in a given situation. To refer back to p51's 'fender bender' for example. The immediate cause might be a lack of concentration at the moment of impact. However, the reason there was a lack of due care and attention at this time was that the driver was mulling over the row he had with his wife just before he left home for work.

The lesson is that one needs to exercise caution in reaching conclusions.

onesmallstep
Member

Posts: 1310
From: Staten Island, New York USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 01-29-2015 09:34 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for onesmallstep   Click Here to Email onesmallstep     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
One word missing from this discussion: hubris. If men or women (i.e., engineers, managers, astronauts) truly believe in their work and think they are above reproach, then corners will be cut and decisions made from incomplete or ignored information. Not deliberate to cause harm or death to a crew, but born out of the 'culture.'

What is interesting is that of the three spaceflight tragedies we are talking about, no one individual was held legally responsible for his/her decisions or actions that would have led to a court case; I know settlements were reached with the contractors/companies involved (a subject of another thread, I'm sure). But careers were ended and lives altered irrevocably.

Call it 'go fever' or whatever you like, sadly this may be one of the hardest things to change, more than redesigning a new bolt or a whole system. Sometimes it stays inbred, with tragic consequences in the future. A tendency to 'move on' and not fully digest the facts learned from any previous tragedy can be the hardest lesson of all.

mode1charlie
Member

Posts: 1169
From: Honolulu, HI
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 01-29-2015 02:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mode1charlie   Click Here to Email mode1charlie     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Coincidentally, there was an article a couple of days ago in the NYT about the difference between "tragedy" versus any event that results in suffering and death. This was in relation to the Charlie Hebdo terrorism (which is certainly outside the purview of this discussion), but there are a few bits relevant here (note this is somewhat redacted for brevity and clarity):

Broadcasters and reporters daily proclaim as tragic the fatalities that result when, say, a family car spins out of control on an icy street and crashes. Just as, every spring, drunken high school students die tragically when they drive off the road. It’s a staple of the prom season.

...These days, any event that causes suffering or distress earns tragedy’s mournful title. ... But if everything that is avoidable, stupid and simply untoward is tragic, then nothing really is — not if we insist on its description of a specific kind of human sorrow. In devaluing the word, we devalue what it is meant to express. We trivialize what we wish to make truly important.

Since the Greeks first coined the word, tragedy has required not only a calamitous event but one that can be judged as meaningful. It has to matter in some greater manner that is, ideally, instructive.

“Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action that is heroic and complete,” argued Aristotle in “Poetics,” “and of a certain magnitude.” It is never trivial.

For an event to qualify as tragedy, its telling demands some kind of emotional catharsis, a resolution to the losses it details. This month’s Je Suis Charlie march in Paris qualifies. But more important, to be worthy of its name, tragedy must instruct."

So in this respect, the Apollo 1 fire, Challenger disaster, and loss of Columbia would still qualify as "tragedies" in that they were instructive in exposing non-trivial human error and illuminating the way to correcting those errors.

All times are CT (US)

next newest topic | next oldest topic

Administrative Options: Close Topic | Archive/Move | Delete Topic
Post New Topic  Post A Reply
Hop to:

Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts

Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved.


Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.47a





advertisement