The Rational Egoist

A report blames the “culture” of the NASA program for the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

WASHINGTON – A long-term relaxation of safety vigilance at NASA culminated in the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and seven astronauts, investigators said Tuesday, warning that without sweeping changes, “the scene is set for another accident.”

In a report that cited disturbing “echoes” of the shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986, investigators said, “NASA’s organizational culture had as much to do with this accident as foam did.”

Officials have known for months that a piece of insulating foam material broke away from the orbiter’s fuel tank during launch, struck the leading edge of the left wing and led to its disintegration from the heat of re-entry on Feb. 1.

“Given the current design of the orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive,” the report said.

The space agency lacks “effective checks and balances, does not have an independent safety program and has not demonstrated the characteristics of a learning organization,” the board said in a stinging 248-page report.

In my opinion, the Columbia space shuttle disaster was caused by the government forcing environmentalism on NASA.

A human being has no automatic means to achieve survival and happiness. The requirements for doing so do not exist ready-made in nature. By his nature as a human being, he must PRODUCE the conditions necessary for the highest benefit of his own life. This means that he can not adapt to the environment around him but rather must alter the envrionment around him in order to achieve survival and happiness.

According to the philosophy of environmentalism, the environment has intrinsic value. An intrinsic value is a value which is divorced from reality, from any mention of beneficiaries or valuers. An intrinsic value is something that, according to its proponents, is good regardless of reality. Since the environment, according to environmentalism, is intrinsically good, anything done to alter the environment is intrinsically evil. Therefore, since a human being must alter the environment in order to produce the conditions necessary for the highest benefit of his own life, according to environmentalism, a human being’s existence is inherently evil.

Like most other anti-man, anti-reality philosophies, most of its adherents do not believe in it fully. However, to the extent that a person does advocate the philosophy of environmentalism, they are advocating that human beings do not act to achieve their own survival and happiness. The biggest examples of environmentalist outrage can be seen with technologies and industries which benefit human beings the most at the cost of the highest alteration of the environment; such as genetic engineering, power plants (especially nuclear ones), technology which uses oil (especially SUV’s), medicines and pesticides which cure diseases at the expense of insects and small animals (such as DDT), and many others.

Some environmentalists even engage in terrorist attacks against what they believe to be the biggest threats to the environment.

WEST COVINA, Calif. — Fires destroyed dozens of SUVs (search) and a warehouse at an auto dealership Friday, and vehicles there and at three other dealerships were spray-painted with slogans such as “Fat, Lazy Americans.”

“With all the evidence … it’s highly likely it’s an arson fire,” said Rick Genovese, fire marshal for West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb.

The radical group Earth Liberation Front (search) issued an unsigned e-mail Friday calling the incidents “ELF actions,” and the FBI was investigating the dealership fire as domestic terrorism, Police Chief Frank Wills said.

The underground group has claimed responsibility for a slew of arson attacks (search) against commercial entities that members say damage the environment. It is suspected in a multimillion-dollar arson fire Aug. 1 that destroyed a five-story apartment complex under construction in San Diego, though an ELF e-mail claimed the group had not been in contact with those responsible in that case.

The blazes at the Clippinger Chevrolet dealership broke out about 5 a.m. Friday. Flames destroyed about 20 vehicles, mostly Hummer H2s, which are luxury SUVs patterned after the military’s workhorse Humvee. Another 20 vehicles were badly damaged. A separate blaze caved in a warehouse roof.

There were no reports of injuries, but damage was estimated at $1 million.

One such terrorist envrionmentalist group is the Earth Liberation Front

Earth Liberation Front Guidelines:

* To inflict economic damage on those profitting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment.

* To reveal and educate the public on the atrocities committed against the earth and all species that populate it.

* To take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.

Through the pressure of environmentalists, the government has enacted a large number of laws aimed at “protecting the environment” by forcing individuals to act against their own judgment.

According to Hannes Hacker at Capitalism Magazine, government edicts in line with environmentalism were the cause of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.

Now that a dramatic new test has confirmed that a piece of thermal insulation flaking off of space shuttle Columbia’s external tank during launch was the most likely cause of its destruction during reentry, the typical second-guessing in the press has focused on NASA engineers, asking: “What did Mission Control know, and when did they know it?”

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Why did the shuttle’s foam insulation flake off? In response to an edict from the EPA, NASA was required to change the design of the thermal insulating foam on the shuttle’s external tank. They stopped using Freon, or CFC-11, in order to comply with the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an agreement designed to head off doubtful prognostications of an environmental disaster.

But it was the elimination of the old foam that led to a real disaster for the shuttle program. The maiden flight with the new foam, in 1997, resulted in a ten-fold increase to foam-induced tile damage. The new foam was far more dangerous than the old foam. But NASA–a government organization afraid of antagonizing powerful political interests–did not reject the EPA’s demands and thoroughly reverse their fatal decision. Instead, they sought a compromise, applying for a waiver from the EPA that allowed them to use the old foam on some parts of the external tank.

Under the pressure of government edicts, the scientists at NASA were forced to act against their own judgment, and thereby not able to use their minds properly. They were unable to create the safest conditions for the use of the space shuttle because environmentalists, using the gun of the government, forced them to use unsafe products.

The proper response to environmentalism is to reject it outright, to uphold man’s right to produce the conditions necessary for the benefit of his own life by altering the environment around him.