Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Thirty Years Ago

Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just over a minute after liftoff.


Seven astronauts were killed that frigid January morning.


The failures in management that led to the explosion were many, mostly ones of "we did this before and nothing bad happened"-- which, in retrospect, was like proclaiming that Russian Roulette is a safe game because the hammer fell on empty chambers in the first two tries.

In a public demonstration, using o-ring material and ice water, Richard Feynman showed why Challenger blew up. Arguably, much of the credit for uncovering and making public the cause of the disaster is Feynman's.

But did NASA learn from the loss of Challenger? Probably not.

2 comments:

Deadstick said...

The ice-water trick was nice enough in itself, but it was really a brilliant ploy to force the Rogers Commission to include his full report, which went much deeper. Lots of people at NASA quietly helped him with it, and he saw to it that nobody was exposed to reprisals.

Sadly, the Manhattan Project was already killing him as he wrapped it up.

Comrade Misfit said...

I fully believe that the Rogers Commission would have been a whitewash job without Feynman.

The ice water demonstration was terrific in that it made the problem clear to the public.