Space Shuttle Columbia lost?

[Greyman]

What else can I say?

On January 27th 1967 an Apollo capsule burned up killing all 3 on board.

19 years later on January 28th 1986 the shuttle Challenger explodes during liftoff killing all 7 on board.

Another 17 years later on February 1st 2003 shuttle Columbia breaks up on re-entry killing all 7 on board.

Given the number of successful missions flown over all those years, into such a hostile environment, all in all, it's a fairly good record. Still, 't is no less a tragedy for that. Sometimes one is one too many.

 

[DM_Matt]

That is sorrowful. It's not only about the death of seven excellent persons, or the huge material cost of the disaster. It's also a severe wound to humanity's only worthy dream, space discovery.

Isn't that going a bit too far?

There is an old Jewish myth regarding the Tower of Babel that attempts to answer the question of what exactly was so bad about humanity's aspirations to reach the heavens (and thus reach G-D Himself). It says that when a human worker fell from the tower, the people had no compassion, but rather they put the body into the bricks and continued on. But when one of the massive bricks that was being taken up the tower fell, they cried "Woe unto us! When shall another one be brought up to take its place." And thus G-D foiled their plans.

Human life must always be our paramount concern. Progress is important, but we must never lose sight of that no matter what we are doing, the preservation of human life, particularly innocent human life, is the greatest good of all.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Isn't that going a bit too far?

There is an old Jewish myth regarding the Tower of Babel that attempts to answer the question of what exactly was so bad about humanity's aspirations to reach the heavens (and thus reach G-D Himself). It says that when a human worker fell from the tower, the people had no compassion, but rather they put the body into the bricks and continued on. But when one of the massive bricks that was being taken up the tower fell, they cried "Woe unto us! When shall another one be brought up to take its place." And thus G-D foiled their plans.

Human life must always be our paramount concern. Progress is important, but we must never lose sight of that no matter what we are doing, the preservation of human life, particularly innocent human life, is the greatest good of all.

I don't follow any religious faith, but this certainly rings true.
We cannot blindly stumble on into space 'just because'. We must always remember that the mission is important because of the human lives involved, and the lives that may be saved through these endeavors, not the other way around. The mission is important because of the people, not the people because of the mission.

 

[Kilmore]

I don't follow any religious faith, but this certainly rings true.
We cannot blindly stumble on into space 'just because'. We must always remember that the mission is important because of the human lives involved, and the lives that may be saved through these endeavors, not the other way around. The mission is important because of the people, not the people because of the mission.

True that, very true.

But we should also remember that these brave souls knew what they were getting into and the chances that they were taking. Exploration is an adventure, and adventure always has an element of danger. It's like Reagan said after Challenger, "Space is not for the faint of heart."

We should do whatever we can to keep tragedies like this from happening, but we should not let fear keep us grounded.

I salute those willing to accept the risks.

 

[Umbran]

I don't follow any religious faith, but this certainly rings true.

Not quite. The mission is important because of the people, and the people are important because of the mission. The two are not mutually exclusive.

By the logic of the Babel story, we should not go to space. The risk is too high. If preserving human life really were the greatest good of all, then we could not morally allow anyone to take mortal risks.

The seven on board Columbia knew the risks, and took them because the mission was important. They flew for the dream. It is not for us afterwards to say that the mission wasn't important without them. They certainly thought it was important. If they hadn't made that choice, they would not have been heroes.

On the flip side, to us the mission and the dream are all the more important because they made that choice, and gave their lives for it.

So, I say the two go hand in hand. It is not one above the other, but both side by side - the mission and the people who undertake it.

 

[DM_Matt]

By the logic of the Babel story, we should not go to space. The risk is too high. If preserving human life really were the greatest good of all, then we could not morally allow anyone to take mortal risks.

Not true. Risks are fine if they have benefit, like eventually saving MORE human lives. However, losing humans is mor eimportant than losing useful machinery.

 

[Umbran]

However, losing humans is mor eimportant than losing useful machinery.

*shrug*. Sorry if I misread you, but in some ways your presentation was a little ambiguous. Yes, the simplest reading of the story is about hardware. Mind you, as presented it gives no allowances for the value of the project, or the scarcity of appropriate materials.

Aside: Can one not imagine a project of great importance to mankind (say, like reaching Heaven), for which there may be many volunteers, but little appropriate hardware? personally, I don't think this falls into such a category. If we want, we can build another shuttle easily enough. But just this situation - where a given inanimate thing is worth many lives - is a staple of fiction, strong in our hearts. "Many Bothans died to get this information."

Back to the main point, now - more importantly, your commentary after the story wasn't limited to hardware. Specifically, you seemed to put progress secondary to preserving human life. In this day and age, I don't see many bandying about the idea that "progress" doesn't include benefit to future generations. So, if human life is more important than progress, I figured that meant that current human life is more important than future well-being. That doesn't quite ring true.

Again, sorry if I misread. Given history, I'm perhaps a little quick to stomp on things that sound like, "The risk isn't worth it". Especially when, really, the only thing most of us risk are a few dollars.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Not quite. The mission is important because of the people, and the people are important because of the mission. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I think you're misunderstanding me, but it's not like I did much explaining...
Yes, the mission may benefit mankind. Mankind. Once again it comes back to how it benefits human life. See?

"...the mission is important because of the human lives involved..."
All life on this planet may one day hang on what we learn from these missions. The missions aren't important for their own sake. We aren't opening a box just to see what's inside, or just to say that we did it, but because the price of not doing so may be too high.

By the logic of the Babel story, we should not go to space. The risk is too high. If preserving human life really were the greatest good of all, then we could not morally allow anyone to take mortal risks.

By the logic of the Babel story, we should never cheapen the value of a human life in pursuit of our goals. The lesson is not to lose our humanity, our compassion. For if we are trying to enrich humanity, losing our humanity on the way up means we've already failed.

 

[Umbran]

I think you're misunderstanding me, but it's not like I did much explaining...

See above.

 

[Ravellion]

jester47, Celebrim: Great that you explained why you feel the things you do to Hoju.

Sagan Darkside: Really mature that you can put someone on an ignore list for asking a philosophical question that might be very relevant to him.

Rav, standing somewhere in Between Hoju's ideas and the general tendency of the thread.