I agree with both Fuller and Levitt.

That said, let's turn our eyes from the stars above our
heads to the detritus under our feet. There is an article in the NYT today that
includes, about the Challenger disaster:

> Investigations later showed that faulty welds in a booster rocket —
> faults that had been concealed through falsified X-rays by a subcontractor
> to avoid the cost of repairs — had gone undetected and uncorrected
> until NASA auditors were tipped off by former employees of the subcontractor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/national/02HIST.html?pagewanted=1

I heard (inter much alia...) on the TV yesterday -- I think it was astronaut
emeritus Collins -- explaining that if debris from the booster
rocket damaged the Columbia during its liftoff, the astronauts had
no way of checking it out (neither by robot camera or by a space
walk), and that there was probably nothing they could do to try to fix it
if they had found it.

This kind of stuff isn't particle physics (I too would rather
have the Supercollider...), or even rocket science.
It's some kind of psychopathological "denial", "splitting", etc.

I think a large part of the problem is that children are childreared
and graduate students educated
to try to please their elders and betters -- instead of being
childreared and educated
to see as clearly as possible all the latter's faults.
When "you" (I mean I, in the first instance...) have been childreared
to not see the obvious "or else", where's the big surprise when
you don't see the obvious, e.g., in the correlation between
O-ring "blowby" and launch temperature --> especially when your
COmmander in Chief very much wants to have a school teacher
orbiting overhead while he delivers his State of the Union address?

\brad mccormick


Steve Fuller wrote:
> I believe that Norman Levitt has provided just the right context for
> thinking about the Columbia disaster. And I also share his suspicions
> and prognoses surrounding the event. Yet, what he says raises some
> rather large questions that may be worth taking up in Scipolicy –
> formally or otherwise. Here are two that cut somewhat against each
> other:
>
> (1) Is it hypocritical for the scientific community to complain
> about public ignorance of science, when at least some sectors of that
> community – e.g. NASA? – routinely capitalize on this ignorance to
> promote their own interests? Levitt’s remarks suggest that if
> politicians knew more science, they would not be so overawed by manned
> space missions. I agree. But wouldn’t the next best thing be for
> scientists to expose each other’s snake oil more publicly – instead of
> concentrating their fire on UFOists, Creationists, etc.?
>
> (2) At the same time, the symbolism historically surrounding the
> manned space program had to do with not only exploring ‘the final
> frontier’ but also beating the Russians on some surrogate Cold War
> battleground. This part of the story may not have been so irrational, if
> it deflected interest (and resources) from actual engagement in military
> conflict. Is there some scientifically respectable way of pursuing this
> political angle?
>
> Yours in discourse,
>
> Steve
>
>
> Steve Fuller
> Professor of Sociology
> University of Warwick
> Coventry CV4 7AL
> United Kingdom
>
> Phone: 44+ (0) 2476 523 940
> Fax: 44+ (0) 2476 523 497
> E-mail: s.w.fuller@...
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>
> Stephen Miles Sacks, Ph.D.,
> Editor and Publisher
> SCIPOLICY-The Journal of Science and Health Policy
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> and
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--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@...
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