Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!censor!geac!dmntor!bill
From: bill@dmntor.UUCP (Bill Kyle)
Subject: Re: Weekly World News publishes Challenger tape transcript
Message-ID: <1991Jan29.223318.11632@dmntor.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@dmntor.UUCP (Bill Kyle)
Organization: Digital Media Networks, Toronto, Canada
References: <57477530@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 22:33:18 GMT
Lines: 86

In article <57477530@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>I'm not necessarily defending the WWN, but a few points may not be clear
>to readers of this thread.
>
> * This was considerably more elaborate than their normal "talking cactus" 
>   treatments.  It was a four page spread with sidebars, diagrams and
>   photographs.  I have not typed in the articles but I probably will:
>   net readers should make their own decisions about the contents.

    The above is a self-defeating argument, if the WWN, by throwing in a
    few sidebars, diagrams etc validates the story in your mind then indeed
    the WWN has the incentive to provide such visual aids. It is like those
    cough medicine commercials that show piles of cerlox-binded documents 
    labeled "clinical study"....if you buy that then....hey what can I say.
    >
> * WWN is definitely a "family" rag, so if there WERE expletives in the
>   original tape, WWN might easily have deleted them.  Of course the
>   Times or WPost would do so more responsibly, inserting "[expletive]"
>   at the appropriate points.  But they don't have tapes.
>
> * The article repeatedly refers to a "pieced together" account, and
>   mentions that "several" crew members carried personal cassette
>   recorders (PCRs).  Later, McAuliffe's recorder is explicitly
>   described as having been found, but it doesn't say hers was the ONLY
>   one.  I agree that it would be difficult, for instance, for Christa's
>   PCR (on the middeck) to capture what Resnik was saying up on the
>   flight deck, or what Smith and/or Scobee were saying to her as she
>   passed out.  But if several PCRs were involved, their complementary
>   contents might indeed be "pieced together" to produce a single,
>   possibly incomplete transcript.
>
> * Why would a disreputable rag like WWN end up with this, rather than
>   major, responsible organs like the NY Times?  One possibility is
>   that, simply because the big guys WERE so responsible about it and
>   tried to go through the courts to force NASA to release what it had,
>   their hands were tied: even if someone walked in the front door with
>   a satchel of tapes and transcripts, they couldn't publish them
>   without risking contempt of court!  The other point is money.  Assume
>   some staffer-geek made a few extracurricular visits to the Xerox
>   machine one weekend.  Who'll pay him the MOST for his scoop?

    What can I say....just perhaps.....perhaps....WWN made this up. After
    all I don't think Elvis is alive because the NY Times hasn't been
    "scooped" by the WWN on that story.

> * Is there too little NASA-jock lingo present for this to be real?
>   Maybe.  If I were the WWN editor I might unscrupulously delete
>   anything that sounded too technical for my readers, or that I
>   couldn't understand myself.  There are several multi-second pauses in
>   the WWN version that would be hard to explain in a real crisis
>   cockpit full of conscious astronauts.  Again, I'm not defending WWN's
>   integrity here (tough decision :-); rather, I'm trying to evaluate
>   this as source material.
>
> * Why would someone say 'ditch procedure' when (as we think) no such
>   thing exists for the shuttle?  Perhaps because the person talking,
>   besides staring his death in the face, was trying to soothe his
>   scared crewmates by implying that it'd be just like a fighter plane
>   ditch.  The "No way!" immediately following suggests that someone
>   wasn't going for it.
>
> * I have to believe that the whole experience for people strapped into
>   the middeck as helpless passengers would be a lot different from that
>   of the pilot, commander and other flight deck personnel.  It strikes
>   me as unrealistic to expect all seven people, including a satellite
>   engineer and a schoolteacher, to behave on cue as the competent,
>   steely-eyed stoics of NASA myth.  

No but as someone pointed out earlier most humans are rather resigned in
moments before death. People are more emotional when there fate is undecided.
Once their fate is clear they usually are rather reflective. Evidence?.....
execusions, cockpit recordings (usually just a curse or two). To expect 
volumes of screams from the crew is not realistic. 

My final point is this. The very fact that we can attempt to validate or 
invalidate this story proves that it is possible to fabricate this. Given
that I choose to wait for specific confirmation from NASA if any ever
comes. Proof positive. Not some lousy rag. 

>
>------------
>
>Personally and for what it's worth, I would rather think of them going
>out to the 23rd Psalm than a checklist anyway...


