1st FEBRUARY - 21 YEARS AGO


A friend when greeted this morning said that 2024 seemed to be going quicker that 2023. Leap year, I replied. Ah, he said, the last one was 2020; you know what happened then... 😀😀

Here arrives February, the month signifying hope, cleansing and atonement, with Valentine's Day occupying it's pride of place mid-month, of love, flowers and chocolates...

Having said that, let us not forget to remember the seven souls of Space Shuttle Columbia, all of whom literally merged into space just about sixteen minutes before touchdown, this day, 21 years ago...

It is sad to imagine the mission getting crippled soon after it's launch, while the seven astronauts on board never knew they wouldn't be seeing mother earth again alive. Conscientious NASA officials must have lost sleep as the gravity of the snag was realized on the second day...

I suppose every workplace has it's share of quandaries. Though many would prefer to adhere to, ethics could be a casualty, for whatever reasons. While the goal oriented NASA in 1986 launched the ill-fated Challenger despite an engineer's warning not to, one thought such mishaps would never be repeated. But it did, this day in 2003...

Investigators opined that NASA’s  organizational culture, norms, beliefs and SOPs made quite a bit of contribution to the Columbia tragedy, 17 years after Challenger...

The magnitude of the tragedy, believed to be one of the glaring examples of engineering ethics (or lack of it), prompted the technical accreditation board ABET to ensure that it be part of the  engineering curriculum thereafter...

Surely lessons have been learnt, as we find that the current NASA chief Bill Nelson had this to say -
"Speak up. A question, even a simple question, is more forgivable than a mistake that can result in a tragedy. Each of us has a responsibility to cultivate a work environment where every member of the NASA family feels empowered to voice doubt. Make your concerns heard. Communicate openly."

And finally, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the "love month's" copybook was blotted yet again, just 2 years ago. You guessed it right...

🙏🙏

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