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Xah Lee's Unixism

John W. Kennedy jwkenne at attglobal.net
Fri Sep 3 17:29:33 EDT 2004 
Alan Balmer wrote:
> The first disaster was due to (possibly inferior) gaskets and inferior
> judgment on launch day. The second was falling foam, and inferior
> realization of the gravity of the problem. I'm not clear on what
> either had to do with Utah.

There should never have been any O-rings in the first place.  Three 
better designs were offered, but NASA was ordered by the Nixon White 
House to pick Thiokol's design, a distant fourth, for political reasons.

The decision to launch wasn't "inferior judgment", it was pure damned 
politics, too.

The Challenger seven were just as good as murdered.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"
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