Re: In two years time...



On Mar 9, 9:15 am, bob haller safety advocate <hall...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

people die in car accidents daily, from DUIs and other preventable
reasons, but they are still called accidents.

probably all accidents are preventable, human or mechanical error,
mechanical failure, etc etc.

In an earlier post, I made a real effort to call your attention to the
word "unintentional," not "preventable." In the case of the two (and
only two) shuttle disasters, there *is* a difference. From
Dictionary.com:

accident (noun)

1. an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally
and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty;
mishap: automobile accidents.

In your Columbia opinion, you obviously recognize that the landing
should have been (and could have been postponed), while rescue efforts
were undertaken. Subsequent actions by Mission Control (during later
missions) bear this out.

To that extent, surely you must see where I'm coming from when I rule
out Sean O'Keefe's part in the disaster as "unintentional" (similarly
for Bill Graham). If you (like CT) can be forgiving of this executive
behavior, so be it; but don't generalize on my behalf and the behalf
of others. Make sense?

incidently the first launces had ejection seats, but truly it wasnt a
escape system since it wasnt usable for the entire 7 astronauts, that
flew on later flights

That's true, but it's irrelevant to the development purpose that it
properly served.

As I've stated in previous posts, Reagan rushed to a premature
declaration that the shuttle was "operational," so that he could use
it unsafely in a clandestine program for which it was not designed --
classified military missions launched more or less on demand. There
was a non-lethal way to stand down the civilian space shuttle -- the
democratic American way.

JTM
.



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