Confidence in those things that...
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Confidence in those things that can ultimately disappoint is a natural human tendency. In our era, people have extraordinary confidence in technology, yet two dramatic and painful events have pointed to our tendency toward unjustified confidence in that technology. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle, Challenger, with nine successful flights to its credit was launched from the Cape. With a crew of seven, including the first teacher to travel in space, the flight was dubbed 51L. But only 73 seconds into the flight the craft exploded killing the entire crew and stunning the world. On February 1, 2003, history repeated itself when shortly before 9 a.m. the space shuttle Columbia was lost during reentry. The shuttle was traveling at 12,500 miles per hour, 39 miles above the earth when the failure of a wing tile, damaged during liftoff, allowed superheated plasma into the wing destroying Columbia. All seven astronauts on board were killed. Both tragedies grounded the shuttle fleet while the reasons were examined and the technology altered to prevent future mishaps.
