Welcome to the 1980s where technologywas starting to get
computers in it, and anything was possible. Poweryour home
with solar panels and make money selling electricity back to the
grid? Ha ha, that sounds CRAZY! Also, the article about low-drag
cars is offset by all the cigarette advertising. Geddit?Nothing New Under the Sun
From The
ArchivesSEPTEMBER
1981SEPTEMBER 1981
by ANTHONY FORDHAM
THIS ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST
Space Shuttle launch makes for
uncomfortable reading, now. Not just
because of all the dismissive talk about
how thermal tile damage couldn’t hurt the
orbiter, and how they “could have taken that
spacecraft, filled it up again, and reflown it.”
No, fate would prove crueller than that.
Because not only did thermal tile damage
lead to the deaths of all seven crew on STS-
107 in 2003... it was this very spacecraft,
Columbia, that was lost. The exact same
thing that everyone said was fine in 1981
turned tragically not-fine 22 year later.
Forewarnings and foreshadowings of that
awful future are all through this piece. See
how many your hindsight can spot.
An Exercise in
Overconfidence
72 POPULAR SCIENCE
—the inside story of
a near-flawless mission