> > > Some times, I wonder if going with the lowest cost is in everyone's
> > > best interest.  I think I remember hearing that a rubber O-ring
> > > caused some space flight disaster (possibly the Challenger).  It was
> > > too cold to launch that day, and the washer became stiff, and didn't
> > > seal properly.
>
> Just a note: It was the Challenger. Furthermore, it was board member and
> Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman who publically
demonstrated
> the O-ring problem. He compressed a piece of O-ring material with a
C-clamp,
> held it in ice water for several minutes, then removed and unclamped it.
He
> was able to show that the O-ring did not return to its original shape.
> Therefore, the ring's ability to seal was lost.

Yes - but the problem was known about long before that.
Feynman produced a minority report which outlined the sad and sorry trail of
events leading to the disaster. He had to push quite hard to get it
published as a minority report.

I have read his report and it is both illuminating and sad. Feynman
concluded, and few would question his conclusions once they had listened to
his reasoning and seen the material he based them on, that the failure was
essentially bound to happen sooner or later. NASA had been "re-doing" the
science concerned to keep the ring material "in spec" - setting rather
optimistic confidence limits and then using the outer limits as a new
starting point for new work. Partial burn throughs had been occurring on
most flights. NASA sealed the deal by "having" to launch in out of spec
conditions to save face for political purposes. Not doing so would quite
possibly have cost them jobs and funding, but doing so cost them a Shuttle
and 7 lives.

It's easy to be wise after the event about what other people should have
done. The harder thing is to learn the lessons that they should have learned
and apply them to our situations where they can do some good. One good
example of where we are NOT yet accepting the lessons of human nature and
human failings is Genetic Engineering. Notwithstanding its very real
potential advances, we are also *potentially* heading for a disaster through
GE, the like of which the world has not seen for about 700 years. But the
standard vested interests of money, pride & power (sex seems to largely be
missing from this one) are driving us on. With any luck we will blunder into
something which will "only" kill a few thousand people world wide or
compromise the immune system of a similar number of people or destroy an
"unimportant" species or two, and thereby alert Joe-Public to where we might
be going. Failing this we MIGHT learn enough to completely avoid the very
real major dangers but it is entirely possible that instead we will wipe out
25% of the population of Europe just as a flea borne disease managed to do
about 700 years ago. (But this time, a few other continents would be
involved as well and the percentage deaths could be higher). Anyone who
thinks this ISN'T a real prospect may wish to tell us why.



        Russell McMahon

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