Tragic lesson

The contrails from the fiery demise of space shuttle Columbia in the clear blue sky over Texas on Saturday morning had barely faded away when the chorus began of the need to keep the space program going despite the tragedy.
That’s very true, of course. After all, we don’t stop driving after a car accident, or quit getting on airplanes if a jet goes down. But we must not allow our understandable eagerness to continue the exploration of space to overshadow the inherent danger involved—and especially to compromise safety.
It’s hard to believe, with the image of space shuttle Challenger exploding in mid-air barely a minute after launch still so clear in our minds even after 17 years, that NASA would revert back to its same gung-ho attitude at the expense of safety which was a major factor behind the first disaster.
Yet that’s precisely what seems to have happened, given budget cuts, the push to keep to a gruelling schedule of shuttle launches, and word that those who questioned decisions or raised alarms were either ignored—or dismissed.
True, the astronauts know the risks. And we, the general public, are notoriously impatient when it comes to delays or setbacks, giving way to our inherent “let’s get on with it” mentality. There’s also no question, like during the mid-’80s, that we once again grew more and more complacent with each successful shuttle flight.
That complacency ended abruptly—and tragically—on Saturday morning.
Yes, NASA will figure out what went wrong, fix it, and resume shuttle flights, as it should. And men and women will continue to volunteer and train to be astronauts, as they should.
The danger, though, is allowing NASA—and ourselves—to get complacent again and inevitably start cutting corners. Surely we don’t need a third lesson for that to finally sink in.