Columbia

[MistyCaldwell]

It comes down to the astronauts tangible value, of sorts.

This explosion represents the loss of billions of dollars, years of hard work, and untold intellectual investment, as well as what the shuttle itself represents, namely a tribute to mankind's yen to explore, as well as being a stepping stone to the realization of the vision of humanity's (hopeful) destiny in the stars.

Basically, the impact of this disaster comes from just that investment. So much was put into the project, that it takes on an aura of invincibility. When it goes (seriously) wrong, it hits hard. People say money can't buy happiness. That's debatable, but one thing money (nothing can, really) can't buy is absolute certainty. Yet we feel it can, and did, and it didn't. We have lost 7 astronauts, and all that they represented. Does this make their deaths any worse than 7 regular Joes?

I'd say yes.

I am glad I come here, it's a refreshing POV from watching the tv reporters speak tripe and rehashed info every 2 minutes. It's a horrible thing and I truly hope they didn't suffer very much at all.


I remember one time when I lived back with my mom, the columbia was going through the atomsphere well enough to see the cloud trails at least. That made me realize how many years this shuttle had been in service. The space program has been not too popular for years now. I didn't even knoew Columbia was currently on a mission.

I agree that it's time for new designs and the space program as an idea. It'd be nice if getting to Mars didn't take 3 years to get there/3 years back. When mandatory birth control is given to Africa along with the food aid I'd feel a lot better about helping them with so much money. No one deserves to be hungry but if you can't feed yourself and you have 6 kids you can't be suprised at what happens then.

[Giton]

Sorry you are irritating me. Space travel is really important to humanity. Africa is a stupid waste of time fuck them. I want to see us accomplishing something before I die.

That's what really saddens me: The Nazi-like attitude of some people in this forum.
Of course FEEDING Africa instead of flying into space isn't the right solution, because there are greater problems to be solved before, e.g. growth of population in underdeveloped countries, what is the main reason for the appearance of hunger, starvation or illnesses.

The death of those astronauts is a tragedy indeed, but only one out of millions of tragedies that happend today.
Most of these are unknown to us, because we don't want to see them or we're not wanted to see them.
The upcomming war between the US and Iraq might be a disaster that outnumbers today's accident by a million times.

Modern space travel is still in the beginnings and there will be more deadly incidents in the future.
An astronaut is risking his life every time he goes on a mission or even at training.
If you take a closer look to the backgrounds of those men and women, you'll soon realize that most of them come from the military (US Navy).
Therefore those people are "ready to give their lives" for the mission itself and I think every astronaut is aware that he may come back from space only as a corpse.
So the tragedy/shock itself lies more in the failure of technology than in the deaths of people.

I believe there are more vital things than manned space travel, such as protection of environment, social justice, liberty - things that are necessary to survive on this planet and can't be bought.

Foremost we need a fair, united world with a stable environment before we should even think about space colonies and stuff...

Especially Americans often seem to not realize that.

Sorry if my English's too poor
BTW: I don't want to offend anybody, seems simply the truth to me.

[FATTY_VM]

Didnt the Challenger, this incedent and apollo 13 all happen within a week or 2 of each other? or have i heard wrong?

[BishounenStalker]

I don't know about the Apollo 1, but this happened only 4 days after the 17th aniiversary of the Challenger (January 28, 1986)

[Innotech]

I just came on here to stress that most likely htis accident was a fluke and NOT the result of an aging shuttle. So many people are blaming Nasa saying they didnt keep maintenance on Columbia. that simply is not true.

[Golden Saucer]

AHhh!!, points of View!!

I don't fucking want em in my world!! 8)

Nah, talking seriously europe should clean the mess they left in Afrika, faggets, in the other other hand don't say NASA DOES this, or NASA DOESN'T DO I mean what TV says kids ins't always truth, not even half-truths sometimes and in the other hand sometimes they don't say at all

Here some weird Half-truth that might fit some of you and might make some folks laugh (or cry)

http://www.goroadachi.com

[RadicalEd0]

I dunno. The whole righteous 'we dont want a war' thing that [edit: some people] are for, I'm not so hot on that. At first I was like wtf bush wtf hes got nothing against iraq why is he bitching about them. But :\ but I didn't know how completely fucked up iraq is then. My history teacher digresses onto the matter quite often, and really, I buy into his opinion on the matter. Not only did he spend a few years in the mid east himself, he's damn wise and not to mention a history teacher. Fact is iraq is bad and getting worse, the place needs a serious clean out. Saddam and his son especially could use a bullet to the head. I don't buy into the whole 'lolo sadam is evil god is with us' thing but he is full of shit. The governing there is off the wall. Baghdad has fucking executions on the corner like every week. Whether Bush is an asshole has nothing to do with the fact that Saddam needs to be taken down. Now its none of the US's business what goes on there right? Pfft. Sadam sent signed letters of death to the scientists working at the weapons inspection sites and their families if they spoke a word about it.
Maybe you think the US had better just stay out of it, but :\ leaving shit like that go for any longer is just going to get us fucked over in the end.

[Deaths_ally]

I just came on here to stress that most likely htis accident was a fluke and NOT the result of an aging shuttle. So many people are blaming Nasa saying they didnt keep maintenance on Columbia. that simply is not true.

I agree... I don't think they would dream of missing even the slightest thing with the shuttle at all..

I also don't belive it could have bee terrorism (if a terrorist was going to destroy the shuttle, they most likely would have done it when it was at the space station.. More damage would have happened)

It is my personal belef that one of these 2 things happened:
1- the entry angle was off, thus resulting in the tragedy. or
2- (i belive this the most) something happened on reentry that caused a tiny fracture that couldn't be picked up, to open up and cuase a part of the outer heat shield to come off..

of course they are only theories....

This has turned out to be a tragedy that has hit the world hard...

lets hope this does what september 11 did, and bring everyone together. And i also hope it get goerge bush to stop thinking about going to bloody war agianst Iraq...

[Giton]

Hey RadicalEd, you're right!

Saddam might be the last "great" dictator on earth besides Kim Jong Il.
I guess there are even weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But I think war's not the right answer, at least not this war, becuas it's only a war for the US, a war for oil.
Why left the US government Iraq, Afghanistan etc. alone for all those years? Because these countries voluntarily delivered their oil to the US at cheapest price.

I wouldn't mind if the war was truly for the people there, but US military gives a fuck what happens to them.
Remember Rwanda - no oil, no soldiers came, millions of people were slayed. In deed the deployed Belgian blue berets fled, saving the ambassador's furniture instead of human lifes!

Ok, I have to admit that it was the Europeans back then, but bloodbath lasted for month and nobody intervened.
War is never for the people, it's only for economic interests.

That's why I'm against any kind of war.

[Mr. Bucket]

They go to space they're taking chances, everybody takes chances, why are astronauts so special?!

Really what's sad is that NASA will probably spend in the investigation enough money to feed Africa for 3 fucking months, fuck space travel we should concentrate on mor earthly concerns, i don't give a fuck about going to outer space to place satelites with gioant laser beams to fucking burn the face of earth, fuck NASA

They are taking chances so that you can learn something about our galaxy, and our universe, and by doing this we can learn so much about planetary shifts, and other shit that i cant explain because im not an astronaut.


so die.