| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 230.1 | Luddism | CACHE::MARSHALL | hunting the snark | Thu Nov 13 1986 12:03 | 15 |
| This "disturbing trend" has existed for all time. The Challenger
accident is just the most recent example for people to point at.
Remember TMI? Actually Chernobyl eclipsed Challenger for a while
but I think these modern day Luddites would rather point to a failure
of Western technology.
It does not matter to these people what the cause really was,
to them the "cause" is technology itself.
/
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/
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| 230.2 | Challenger is a useful example | SKYLAB::FISHER | Burns Fisher 381-1466, ZKO1-1/D42 | Thu Nov 13 1986 13:34 | 13 |
| I don't think pointing to Challenger as an example is, in and of
itself, bad.
Challenger does point out a technological fact of life, writ large:
Things will fail. The point to me is that we can't say, as NASA
did, the SRBs will not fail. Or the cooling pumps will not fail.
Or whatever. The real question to be asked is What is the result
of an unpredicted failure? Is it 7 lives and $3B? Is it 10**6
lives? Is it our whole civilization?
Burns
|
| 230.3 | an example of what? | CACHE::MARSHALL | hunting the snark | Thu Nov 13 1986 15:29 | 21 |
| re .2:
True, it depends on the motivation of those using Challenger as
an example. And as an example of what?
I don't think the author of .0 is disturbed by people pointing out
that technology is not perfect. What would be disturbing is the
conclusion that because technology is not perfect, it should then
be abandoned.
I don't think NASA said the SRB's would NOT fail, they just decided
to take the risk of them failing and lost.
The disturbing trend is the condemnation of technology in general
for its failures, without even acknowledging its successes.
/
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| 230.4 | | SKYLAB::FISHER | Burns Fisher 381-1466, ZKO1-1/D42 | Wed Nov 19 1986 12:55 | 20 |
| re .3: I understand what you are saying. I think my point is that
I am not disturbed by a statement of the ilk of "We should not build
Seabrook. Technology can fail. Look at Challenger. It shows that
such failures can happen. Space research should forge ahead because
the cost of a failure is acceptable in the grand scheme of things.
Seabrook should not because the cost of failure is not acceptable."
You can see where my politics lie here, but I am only using it as an
example. I don't object to anyone arguing that the cost of failure at
Seabrook is acceptable. I just don't believe that pointing to
technology that fails is being anti-technology.
Burns
(BTW, for non-New England readers, Seabrook is a new nuclear power
plant which is nearly completed on the New Hampshire seacoast.
There are lots of fights going on about whether it should be licensed.)
|