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  • MONDAY JANUARY 28 2008 3:00 PM

NASA Reflects on Past, Looks to Future

Submitted by crispy

Edited by punk

Tags: NASA, manned space flight

As you are reading this, innumerable satellites are orbiting the Earth, the rovers on Mars are still roving, and an international team of scientists is living in a tin can in the sky.

While placing things into space has become almost commonplace, it has never been routine. Sometimes things go wrong, and millions of dollars are lost. Other times, things turn tragic and human lives are lost.

NASA is commemorating three such tragedies, which have all eerily occurred around the end of the month of January.

On Jan. 27, 1967, three of the first group of NASA astronauts - Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee - died during a routine ground test of the Apollo capsule, later named Apollo 1.

[…]

The highly anticipated Jan. 28, 1986, launch of Space Shuttle Challenger, which carried the first teacher-astronaut, Christa McAuliffe, was watched live by many around the nation, including school children. But 73 seconds after takeoff, the shuttle erupted in a fireball that killed the entire crew.

[…]

On Feb. 1, 2003, following a 16-day science mission, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart upon re-entry, killing the entire crew: U.S. astronauts Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.


While it is important to reflect upon the painful memories of mistakes past, it is equally important to continue moving forward despite the inherent risks of manned space flight.

"The spirit of exploration is truly what it is to be human," astronaut Stephen Robinson said in an August 2005 audio message on flight STS-114, which directly followed the Columbia disaster.

"[W]e hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program," Grissom said just a few weeks before he died, the NASA History Web site said. "The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."


Space shuttle Atlantis is on schedule for a February 7th launch that will deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station, and sometime in the late fall of this year, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbier (LRO) will be sent to gather information in preparation for man's return to the moon.

Here's hoping for nothing but smooth sailing in all future missions.

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Comments
sick

sick

Minneapolis, MN
June 2003

JAN 28, 2008 03:55 PM

I'm too young to remember Apollo 1, but I remember the Challenger and Discovery disasters.

I'm a huge proponent of manned space exploration, but if I were the superstitious sort, I might advise NASA to not plan missions for the last week of January and the first week of February.

IDGAS

IDGAS

Jackson Heights, NY
March 2004

JAN 28, 2008 07:40 PM

What do you expect from rocket scientists?

Chainlink

Chainlink

Key West, FL
August 2005

JAN 28, 2008 08:05 PM


Those people are all heros to me, seriously.

Their pursuit of knowledge and drive to expand the reaches of humanity both intellectually and physically inspire me to hope.
When I think of the losses humanity incurred over thousands of years of just exploring our terrestrial boundaries it seems to me that the exploration of space is going rather well.

It is a risky venture to be sure. But as Gus Grissom said, they understand the risks and they also understand the potential for humanity.

I can only hope that every failure is a learning experience that leads them to greater success, and that we never forget the sacrifices they make.

ReverseEngineer

ReverseEngineer

Chicago, IL
July 2006

FEB 03, 2008 08:26 AM

bald_eagle said:
I know that hindsight is usually 20-20. But I've always thought the chief cause of all three disasters was idiocy.

How can you not see that a pure-oxygen environment is a bad place to run a bunch of electrical wiring?

How can you not know that O-rings shrink in the cold?

How can you not understand the impact potential of frozen styrofoam at high speed?



that's three things
now look at how many other variables they had to keep track of at the same time.

r00kers

r00kers

Nederland, CO
February 2003

FEB 03, 2008 03:13 PM

I have a friend who had an experiment on STS107 and got some nice pictures from the mission.

zoom image

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RandomNerd

RandomNerd

I'm lost
January 2005

FEB 04, 2008 12:22 AM

bald_eagle said:

ReverseEngineer said:

bald_eagle said:
I know that hindsight is usually 20-20. But I've always thought the chief cause of all three disasters was idiocy.

How can you not see that a pure-oxygen environment is a bad place to run a bunch of electrical wiring?

How can you not know that O-rings shrink in the cold?

How can you not understand the impact potential of frozen styrofoam at high speed?



that's three things
now look at how many other variables they had to keep track of at the same time.


I'm not saying it's simple. But something like electrical wiring through a pure-oxygen environment seems pretty fundamental. Anyone who's ever worked around oxygen in a hospital would know better.

And so does O-ring shrinkage. Anyone who's ever done a cold-water dive would be aware of that problem.

I'll grant that the foam thing was freakish.



I know I'm defending incompetence by saying this, but I think most people fail to see how horribly difficult it is to put a human into Lower Earth Orbit and return them safely. I'm amazed NASA had only 3 fatal accidents over the course of 40 years.

Can we agree that NASA no longer treats spaceflight with the sense of wonder it deserves, or treats the risk with the sense of caution it demands?

GrayRains

GrayRains

Twin Lake, MI
January 2008

FEB 04, 2008 11:07 AM

I know I'm defending incompetence by saying this, but I think most people fail to see how horribly difficult it is to put a human into Lower Earth Orbit and return them safely. I'm amazed NASA had only 3 fatal accidents over the course of 40 years.

Very very true. Hopefully NASA continues to get more funding, a lot of technology nowadays is owed to the efforts into space research. With more help, I hope NASA continues to make great advances in science and technology, and helps us understand our world better.

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