Digital Raven (digitalraven) wrote,
Digital Raven
digitalraven

The news

The space shuttle, though one of the most analysed and well-designed vessels ever created by humans, has a 20% failure margin. I know this because I have spoken to and worked with one of the people that performed the safety analysis on the shuttle before it went into service. The engineers knew that. The NASA bods knew that. The astronauts knew that. When Challenger blew up, that's what it was. The 20% coming back to metaphorically bite the world on the arse. And that's what it was with this one. Nothing deliberate. No cut fuel lines, surface-to-air missiles, secret laser satellite death weapons or anything like that. It was, when it boils down to it, nothing but blind chance.

Don't get me wrong, I believe astronauts are some of the bravest people that exist. They put their lives into the hands of chance. This time, the dice fell against them. That's what it was. If anyone tries to claim it was anything but direction-less probability in the end, they are both lying and stupid, and must not be allowed to spread their message, especially if they use it as a chance to propagate hatred.
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