THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 18, January 23, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CAPE CANAVERAL: WHERE POLITICS MET REALITY
By Christopher G. Adamo
THE U.S. SPACE PROGRAM, THE NASA BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLITICS, & LIBERAL LEFTIST IDEOLOGY --
POLITICAL & IDEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OF THE SPACE PROGRAM'S THREE GREAT
DISASTERS: APOLLO I, CHALLENGER, & COLUMBIA
FULL STORY:
This week marks the thirty-eighth anniversary of the launch pad fire of
Apollo 1, which took the lives of Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and
Roger Chaffee. In a grim irony, this same week also marks the nineteenth
anniversary of the Challenger disaster, as well as the second anniversary of
the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Though memorials are certainly in order, a closer examination of the nature
and cause of each catastrophe reveals much about the American nation throughout the
past four decades. Particularly in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and its
ensuing investigations, disturbing trends in NASA emerged.
On May 25, 1961, with America still riding high on the successful
fifteen-minute flight of Alan Shepard, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech
in which he committed America to “landing a man on the moon and returning
him safely to the earth.” President Kennedy’s aggressive timetable stipulated that the
feat should be accomplished before the end of the decade.
But while his obvious intention was to surpass Soviet technology, the 1970
deadline held a personal angle as well. Undoubtedly, at the time that he
made the speech, Kennedy fully intended to hold office until January 20,
1969, meaning that the possibility existed for the moon landing to occur
during his tenure. What President could possibly hope for a more enduring
legacy?
In reaction to Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, America rededicated itself
to the goal he had set. So the space program pressed forward at an almost
unbelievable pace, with the first manned Apollo mission scheduled for barely
five and a half years after Shepard’s comparative barnstorming stunt.
In the frenzy to develop the technology for trans-lunar flight,
considerations for the flammability of spacecraft cabin materials in a
high-pressure oxygen environment were overlooked. Thus was the stage set for
the tragic Apollo fire of January 27, 1967.
Nineteen years later, a different set of circumstances led to the loss of
the Space Shuttle Challenger. Having been embarrassed by numerous delays in
the previous shuttle flight, NASA was intent on seeing the Challenger launch
on schedule. With budgets dependent on a demonstrated ability to establish
the shuttle system as a reliable space ferry, key players within the Space
Administration, in a complete departure from previous policy, decided to
take an unnecessary risk.
Though experts warned of the danger posed by cold weather, and the loss of
flexibility in the seals of the spacecraft’s enormous boosters, such
concerns were overridden. The craft was launched on schedule. The forewarned
failures did indeed occur, and seven lives, along with a multibillion-dollar
space vehicle, were needlessly sacrificed.
Yet, as grim as were these occurrences, they pale in comparison to the fate
of the Space Shuttle Columbia. In the years following the Challenger
disaster, problems were noted and corrected, operating expertise gained, and
the nation’s shuttle fleet established itself as a reliable, and even safe,
mode of orbital transport.
After a dozen years of dependable flight, manufacturing processes for the
giant fuel tank were altered, not to increase safety or dependability, but
to be more “environmentally friendly.” Immediately, problems with the tank
began to manifest themselves, and risks to the orbiter became apparent. But
owing to the Clintonian political forces of the 1990’s, these dangers were
never addressed. Eventually, as with all risk-taking on such high technology
ventures, the odds caught up with the Columbia.
But it was during the post-mortem of the Columbia disaster that the ominous
changes in NASA became glaringly apparent. Rather than relentlessly pursuing
the cause of the problem, and thus arriving at a proper fix, the behavior of
NASA officials seemed an uncanny precursor to the 9-11 Commission, in which
obvious causes of the disaster were suppressed for the sake of political
considerations.
Clearly, NASA initially attempted to hide the fact that excessive deference
to the twisted tenets of “political correctness” and environmental extremism
had cost America its oldest shuttle orbiter, along with a crew of seven
Astronauts.
Whether it is the inarguable truth of unborn human life, the immutable
nature of marriage or the cruelly inalterable laws of physics, dire
consequences are universally assured whenever reality is supplanted by the
blindness of Liberal ideology. Though not always as horrifically
spectacular, the result is no less inevitable than the nightmarish shower of
debris over East Texas that, once the effects of “political correctness”
had been borne out, was all that remained of the glory of the Space Shuttle
Columbia.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer who lives in southeastern Wyoming and works in the field of industrial instrumentation.
He is actively involved in Wyoming's political process, serving as a delegate to successive Wyoming State Republican Conventions
and as a member of the Wyoming State Republican Central Committee. He has assisted Republican candidates for local and state
legislatures and for the United States Congress. His articles, which appear regularly in The Progressive Conservative, U.S.A.,
and on a number of other websites, reflect a major concern with the damage being done to Conservatism and Conservative causes by
the Liberal Leftist faction in the Republican Party as well as by the much larger and more powerful Liberal Leftist faction in the
Democratic Party. During the early and middle 1990s, Adamo was Editor of the Wyoming Christian Coalition's official news organ,
The Wyoming Christian. Adamo maintains his own Internet website, which is located at
www.chrisadamo.com.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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