> > That said however, public attention did seem to slip fairly quickly
> > away from the demise of Columbia and crew
>
> You know, it's sad that people died and I wish it didn't have to be.
> but think if this, how many 1000's of people dedicated decades of
> their lives to designing and building Columbia, or Challenger? All
> combined, I'm sure that's many hundreds of lifetimes of work - lost
> in a cloud of smoke. I haven't seen any press coverage for them.

My recollection with both Challenger and Columbia was that attention
was not on the people who it could be said did their jobs but rather on
the handful of people who it's alleged did not do theirs and contributed
in a significant way to both of those failures. The focus (undoubtedly
important and essential) on that fraction of 1% of the teams was not
balanced by deserved congratulations to the rest on their achievements

In some respects that's understandable. As projects, they failed, albeit
in avoidable and tragic circumstances, so the whole teams were tarred
with the same brush

"One bad apple ruins the barrel"
"There's no "I" in team"
"You're only as good as your last job"

and various other platitudes...........

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