Talk:Space Shuttle Challenger

		This article was nominated for deletion on October 11, 2014. The result of the discussion was Rewritten; Kept.

Other comments in 2014 VFD vote

Safety waivers

I'm a little surprised the 6,000 safety waivers never got mentioned -- but maybe it's just impossible to improve on reality there.... Snarglefoop (talk) 17:00, October 11, 2014 (UTC)

NASA says the explosion killed the crew. The evidence says otherwise -- if they'd been able to eject (and had, like, parachutes and stuff) they might have survived. Unfortunately I don't see how that little tidbit could be made "funny"... Snarglefoop (talk) 17:07, October 11, 2014 (UTC)

6,000 waivers? Point me to a document — though I think I've covered the cavalier attitude and don't see the point of describing the paperwork involved (unless "waivers" laid the groundwork for those of Obamacare). Spıke Ѧ 23:07 11-Oct-14

First thing I found is http://www.space.com/1210-nasa-cuts-space-shuttle-safety-waivers.html though I would have preferred something more authoritative. My memory actually said it was 600 waivers, but either way it's pretty appalling (and the correct number is somewhere in the sixes; of that I'm sure...). I think I recall that something from Feynman mentioned the number, 'way back when, but that's too many years ago and the memories are far from crisp.
It's also hard to improve on the fact that the O rings had been found to burn 1/3 of the way through in some earlier flights, implying that the putty had failed completely and the O rings were well on their way to failing ... and NASA described this as a factor of 3 safety margin. The actual fact reads like a bad joke; how could you make it any funnier...? Snarglefoop (talk) 23:18, October 11, 2014 (UTC)

Wow! Someone should have written UnNews:NASA improves safety by discarding blinders and donning smaller blinders. Spıke Ѧ 23:36 11-Oct-14

Shame Uncyclopedia didn't exist then. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:49 11 October 2014

"And never blew up; not once."

I considered fixing the sentence that begins with a conjunction, but I was afraid it would jump up and bite me. Thoughts? ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 16:40 11 October 2014

But you could do it anyway. And it probably wouldn't bite very hard. But seriously, I actually like the current phrasing -- the ". And" construction implies a bit of a dramatic pause before "never blew up; not once" which improves the pacing, I think. Snarglefoop (talk) 17:14, October 11, 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess. It's also not an independent clause, which means that even stuck in the preceding sentence it would sound funny. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 17:17 11 October 2014

Thank you, Snarglefoop. This sentence that begins with "And" is ungrammatical but suggests a tone, as though it had begun with "Yup." Even a sentence that began with "Ah mo" might be appropriate in context, though an unencyclopedic sentence is funniest when the surroundings play it straight, so as to set it up to be a shock. Spıke Ѧ 22:38 11-Oct-14

It even breaks the "fourth wall"

The parenthetical note, "and this writer thinks that seventeen years without an airborne human barbecue is a damned fine safety record," is the first person, a technique I often ask others not to use idly. Its point here is to suggest, after an article with no apparent bias, that the writer is "in the tank," another NASA booster after all.

The reason to segue to the other destroyed Space Shuttle is to make the comedy point that everything is hopelessly screwed up, we all know it, and nothing ever changes. Spıke Ѧ 14:37 12-Oct-14

Ka-blooie!

Guess what just happened today! http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/29/us/nasa-rocket-explosion-explainer/ --Nikau (talk) 17:15, October 29, 2014 (UTC)

Yup, Romartus has covered it at UnNews:Americans receive "privatized" fireworks show. Spıke Ѧ 17:34 29-Oct-14