News: space shuttle has crashed

While I agree with much of your point, I certainly hope you understand the difference between the Space Shuttle System and a helicopter.

Yes, I know the difference between a space shuttle and a helicopter. I'm not talking about systems here, but human lives! Many nations have helicopters, a number of companies build them, and they are used by both the military and civilians for all kinds of uses.

The Space Shuttle System is a unique method of taking persons and payloads into earth orbit (and potentially farther) as well as the primary transportation system for the International Space Station. It is still on the cutting edge of applied technology after 20 years and with the astronauts is a symbol of the United States and her people in a way that a single helicopter and crew are not.

The human lives lost in both situations are a tragedy, but the astronauts put their lives on the line in a much more risky way than standard military people do.

Oh really? Ever been shot at? Who sent the astronauts in space? "Standard" military have no choice as to their assignment, astronauts volunteered knowing the risk.
willing to accept that risk for glory and self satifaction. "Standard" military people do it out of a sense of duty to their country.

Thanks for your perspective!
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A little perspective here, before things get out of hand.

If a president is assassinated, does that make the loss of a police officer in the line of duty any less tragic?

No one is minimalizing the value of the chopper crew's lives. The astronauts aboard the shuttle were involved in a higher profile tragedy, but their lives were not any more important than any one else who passed away this past week. We're ALL equal in God's eyes.

However, we can't get our nose out of joint because media coverage is greater for the shuttle disaster. Media coverage is no barometer of the value of a life.

I mourn all who have passed away this week and pray for their families during this horrible time.

Just my .000325 Euros, FWIW.

Blessings,
James

 

I'm not trying to represent some lives as more important than others... They are all important. But as I said previously, they are high-profile national figures who represent the nation as individuals. Military people, with some exceptions, represent the nation as a unit.

Oh really? Ever been shot at?</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, back when I was doing executive security/anti-kidnapping work.

The military usually have weapons in order to defend themselves. The shuttle astronauts have very few alternatives when things go wrong.

NASA

I find it very strange that you ascribe selfish motivations to all astronauts while assuming the highest and purest motivations of military people. I seem to remember the Army recruiter who was after me in college (I did ROTC in college but decided against making a military commitment) only stressed the benefits of a paid education and the opportunity to see the world. I wouldn't join for those reasons myself, but I would join willingly if I thought my nation needed me.

I don't want to argue here.

I am following this story very closely because I have connections to the story. My uncle was one of the many designers for the shuttle orbiter. I first heard about the shuttle program back in the very early 1970s when my uncle moved from the Apollo program (he worked on the telemetry system for the first stage of the Saturn V rocket) to the space shuttle orbiter project where he worked on a small team that designed the communications and telemetry systems. I've always been very interested in the space program even when the media was pre-empting moon landings for regular programming. I am also very interested in this situation because of the loss of the shuttle over Texas and the debris field beginning about 10 miles away and going literally across my parent's neighborhood several hundred miles away. (My parents searched for shuttle debris this afternoon over about 30 acres of land.)

The media is not forcing my interest here. If that military helicopter crashed in my area, I'd want to know at least as much about the situation as I do Columbia's.

And by the way, I did hear about that helicopter crash in Afghanistan. There was not much media coverage about it, but that might have something to do with it being in a combat zone involved in a possibly sensitive mission instead of an accident witnessed (and videotaped) by millions over a heavily populated portion of the United States involving the second of only five experimental vehicles that shuttle people and cargo into outer space.

[ February 02, 2003, 08:32 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

The fact that some of you folks are using this incredible national tragedy to foster rumors that this might not be an accident is so completely unchristian, that I'm ashamed to even be on the same board with some of you right now!!!

Get off the board, open your Bible, and see what it says about being forbidden from spreading rumors!!!

Shame on you!!!

 

Ernie I appreciate what you are saying, but wouldnt it help your course a bit more if you used a seperate thread to highlight the helicopter tragedy rather than making this a contest between the different events

yours, Jon.

 

How sad and dissappointing to hear on the news that there are some people who have been trying to sell bits of the space shuttle over the internet.

yours, Jon.