We interrupt this sports website for a space exploration update.
As my friend Julie Zimmerman would say, “Holy Buckets!” NASA has a four alarm P.R. migraine right now, as the test shuttle for the Orion project plummeted thousands of feet during re-entry and crashed on the desert floor in Yuma, Arizona. Two out of three parachutes failed to deploy.
Meat Loaf was wrong: two out of three can be particularly bad.
I love the way the press described it: “impact on the ground left the craft severely damaged.” Gee…ya think?
First things first: it was unmanned. Thank God – no one got hurt except for their pride. NASA execs tried telling people that, “this was the most complicated parachute test we’ve run since the ’60s,” but that strikes me as odd. And then there’s my favorite head-scratcher: “A failure of set-up parachutes is actually one of the most common occurrences in this sort of test.”
Hey NASA! I think I speak for every American when I say landing the thing in one piece better start being “the most common occurrence in this sort of test” and fast. Comprende?
If you need a little more motivation, use this for bulletin board material:
