Why Rush The Countdown?

February 16, 1986

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced that it plans to go ahead with plans to make a teacher the first private citizen in space. At a minimum, the countdown on that project should have been put on an indefinite hold.

It is inspiring to know that there are courageous teachers out there who still yearn to go aloft in a space shuttle, even though everyone has a renewed appreciation of the risk. But it inspires absolutely no confidence in NASA to see it rushing ahead with the teacher plan before it even has determined exactly what went wrong with Challenger.

The element of public relations that in retrospect was so disturbing about NASA`s fatal flight plan now seems grotesque. Sure, the Challenger disaster raised fundamental questions about the space program. And sure, NASA is right to insist on going ahead.

But renewing the commitment to the least essential part of the program is no way to convince people that the serious business of human exploration of space is worth the risk.