“There is no known complete protection from the breakup event except to prevent its occurrence.”

True. From the NASA report, published yesterday, on the breakup of the Challenger Space Shuttle. More in the NYT here.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, N. Wayne Hale, Jr., a former head of the shuttle program, said, “I call on spacecraft designers from all the other nations of the world, as well as the commercial and personal spacecraft designers here at home, to read this report and apply these lessons which have been paid for so dearly.”

Looks like Ballard was right. It's not the writers who get the best sentences these days. It's the engineers. Beautiful.

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See also. 

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In less apocalyptic mode Will Ashon invited me to do a "best books/art/dance etc of the year" which is now posted here along with contributions from a whole bunch of other people at his blog Vernaland.