NASA's Public Relations Problem
At 8:00 AM CDT on February 1, 2003, all communications were lost with the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107) as the craft disintegrated during re-entry over the clear blue skies of north Texas. The shuttle was at an altitude of 207,135 feet traveling at approximately Mach 18.3 at the time of the accident. Do you think that NASA was thinking about public relations at a time like this? I, naïve as I tend to be, do not think so. Space flight is an extremely risky business. …
