Congress votes to issue a Christa McAuliffe commemorative

Apologies. I misread this originally thinking it was Christine Todd Whitman. My mind was elsewhere that day. Christa I have complete respect for.

 

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The proposed coin, according to the Congress, is to raise funds for a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) program and robotics competitions. It is not a memorial for the shuttle victims.

Ironically, Christa McAuliffe was not a science or mathematics teacher. She was a high school social studies teacher.

The coin is also a reminder of a spectacular technology failure.

 

Thanks for the follow up Prez. Though your original post and part of my post have since been edited out, I could not for the life of me understand when I first saw your post. Makes sense now.

 

Yep. Had the tv on in the background. Musta heard something or maybe just tired. I re-read it and thought I should correct it.

 

The real problem was normalization of deviance. NASA and Morton-Thiokol knew that the O-rings performance varied under different conditions and designed their launch perimeters accordingly. But, as they become more confident...they let those standards slip and little and nothing went wrong. O-ring blow-by was seen during the second shuttle launch (STS-2) but nothing bad happened. There was serious O-ring leakage on STS-51-C in 1985...but nothing bad happened. These issues were well outside of the established safely perimeters...but nothing bad was happening. They become complacent...then something bad happened.

There is actually evidence to suggest that despite the failure of both O-rings in that joint, Challenger still might have made it into orbit. An oxide layer formed and sealed the leak. However, the most severe wind shear ever recorded on a shuttle flight to date also occurred during the launch and is believed to have disrupted the oxide layer. I have often wondered that if the shuttle had survived and the severity of the leak been examined...would they have finally stopped and fixed the problem or would they have continued flying because once again nothing bad had happened.

I 100% agree. Werner von Braun was a critical part of our space and ICBM programs. Not going to say anything otherwise. I just don't see him ever being on a US commemorative coin. Frankly, I don't know if he would have escaped the gallows at Nuremburg had he not had a useful skill.

 

Challenger need never have failed had proper time been afforded to the problems. Like everything else though, greed and money and just plain more ended the possibilities for success. Sad indeed. I remember watching that thing live. Awful.

 

Engineering is always, always about optimizing among safety, cost, and time. As @CamaroDMD said, the longer they went without a failure, the less attention was given to safety at the cost of time or money.

But the same thing happens with, say, cars -- they hardly ever kill you due to a manufacturing defect any more, but they're kind of expensive. They could be a lot cheaper if you didn't mind dying more often.

 

Well, I won't get into a debate about reasonable profit versus excessive except to say that somebody, somewhere had to have MORE than anybody needed. Why? Greed. If only people thought about the long term future of people and things, many problems could be negated before they occurred. Not to be long winded but when I was a kid, people actually seemed to care about the long term growth and success of most everyone else. Today? It's not how much would be enough of a profit, it's how much can I extract despite my cost. That attitude prevails over everything today and it will inevitably be to the detriment of everyone. End of rant.

 

Why was the term "political" invoked and enforced here but allowed in a recent 'bullion forum' by a "gold" member. Why is that member allowed to continue here without penalty?

 

I'm guessing Prez2 and Rob943 have the same IP Address.

 

Oh I bet you could.

 

I'm betting they DON'T, genius.