codshit.com: Shades of Challenger

Monday 3 February 2003

Shades of Challenger

by Michael Rivero

When Challenger exploded on launch January 28, 1986, the cause was quickly determined to be from a burn-through on the solid rocket booster caused by launching the spacecraft with frozen O-rings. Subsequent investigation showed that burn-throughs had happened before and concern raised, but the necessary changes were not made because of budgetary constraints, and because the prior burn-throughs had been relatively harmless. On Challenger, however, the burn-through from the SRB hit a major structural component, causing it to fail.

Now Columbia is gone, apparently from loss of heat tiles causes by a loss of insulation from the external tank. and once again we find that heat tiles have been lost on previous flights, as well as insulation from the external tank, and once again concerns were raised, but necessary changes were not made due to budgetary constraints, and because previous tile and insulation loss had been relatively harmless. On Columbia, the insulation from the external tank appears to have knocked loose a large number of tiles exposing a critical location to the heat of re-entry, causing the left wing of the shuttle to fail.

It was known a problem might have occurred at launch. But all of the tools built to deal with such a situation, to repair heat tiles in space, had been left behind. Budgetary constraints. It costs money to take along an extra EVA suit, the remote arm, and the tile repair materials, or the extra fuel needed to get over to the space station if something does go wrong.

7 people are dead and a national treasure evaporated, because someone looking at a budget decided you can pay for half a space flight and still get a complete mission. We've seen the same arrogance and stupidity before, in the men who decided to sail Titanic with fewer lifeboats, or that Hindenberg could be safely flown with hydrogen instead of helium while painted with powdered aluminum paint, or that Challenger could be launched knowing that the SRB had a tendency to spring leaks, especially when cold.

Full story...

BUSH WARNED DISASTER WAS GOING TO HAPPEN

Enlightenment

Do you feel like you're living in some Orwellian nightmare? Or perhaps you feel as if you're plugged into The Matrix? Well if so, you've come to the right place. No matter how messed up you thought the world was, by the time you've finished reading some of the things I've found on my travels in Cyberspace you'll realise that 1984 was just a typo!

A note to the non-ravers out there: codshit is NOT a derogatory or insulting term and bears no relation in offensiveness to its four-letter cousin, it's a word used to describe the nonsense that people sometimes talk when they are off their heads. To understand what codshit is watch the film Human Traffic.

Comments are welcome, but before you waste perfectly useful energy abusing me please take a moment to reflect on the basic right we all have to express ourselves!

Please remember that I am not telling you what to think or believe, take everything you read here with a large grain of salt!

Wisdom

Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'...they say 'President', we say 'stupid psychopathic git'....
.: Alexi Sayle :.

If you confront the Universe with good intentions in your heart it will reflect that and reward your intent... usually... It just doesn't always do it in the way you expect.
.: G'kar :.

So there, we have figured it out, go back to bed America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control again. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed America, here's American Gladiators. Here's 56 channels of it. Watch these pituitary retards bang their fuckin skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go America, you are free... to do as we tell you.
.: Bill Hicks :.

Let there be no doubt that the people of the free world are engaged in a war... In the next few years, we are either going to see the people of the free world rise up against these fascists, now setting the stage for global war, or we are going to see the end of democracy as we know it with martial law the end result.
.: David Shayler :.

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
.: Albert Einstein :.

Wisdom