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by Julian the Apostate » Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:08 pm
Nordic » Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:23 am wrote:What got me about the one in two thousand three was that it seemed a particularly grim omen for Bush and his plans. It even streaked across Texas as it disintegrated. Turned out it most certainly WAS one hell of an omen.
by brekin » Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:58 pm
Approval Drops
In the wake of recent revelations of wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra Affair, polls reveal that President Reagan's approval rating has fallen from 67% to 46% in just one month.
Sun, 12 Jan 1986
Challenger Disaster
The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff, killing all six astronauts and one civilian—elementary school teacher Christa McAuliffe—aboard. In a moving tribute delivered a few hours after the disaster, President Reagan says, "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
Tue, 28 Jan 1986
Reagan Apology
President Reagan goes on national TV to deliver a confusing apology for Iran-Contra: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages," he says. "My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it's not."
Wed, 04 Mar 1987
It’s bitterly cold in the nation’s capital for State of the Union Day. Twenty-eight years ago, on a similar morning, another second-term president was preparing to give his State of the Union address. The speech would come, but not for another week. It was postponed by a tragedy that unfolded on national television and left adults explaining to children why a beloved public school teacher would never set foot in a classroom again.
The disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, proved a pivotal moment in Reagan's presidency. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.[14] On the night of the disaster, Reagan delivered a speech, written by Peggy Noonan, in which he said: The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave... We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'[15]
The speech is ranked as one of the ten best American political speeches of the 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeches_a ... ald_Reagan
Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we’ve never lost an astronaut in flight; we’ve never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, “give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy.” They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the member of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.
I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute. We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: “Your dedication and professionalism have moved an impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.”
There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, “He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” Well, today we can say of the challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
by stefano » Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:49 pm
InfraGard » Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:06 pm wrote:BrandonD » Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:30 am wrote:Were there any sinister elements behind the Challenger disaster?
In a word .. RonnieRaygun
Not so much sinister as political expedience. There was intense political pressure on NASA to launch in spite of less than ideal conditions for launch. Namely the frigid temps wreaked havoc with the infamous O-rings. With that in mind NASA decided to launch anyway because there was pressure from the White House since Reagan had Christa McAuliffe as a major talking point in his SOTU speech that night.
by divideandconquer » Thu Feb 20, 2014 6:54 pm
The Challenger shuttle completed nine missions for NASA. However, the mission is remembered mainly for the space shuttle Challenger disaster that took place on January 28, 1986.
This date was when Challenger was launched for its tenth mission. However, shuttle was never able to complete its mission. Seventy-three seconds after its launch, the Challenger shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, killing the seven crew members aboard.
The disaster lead to a two-year investigation and the scrubbing of all of the other shuttle launches for nearly three years.
The Strange Warning
Though officially ruled an accident caused by an O-ring failure, FBI reports indicate that a call was placed the night before the launch telling a local news affiliate that Challenger would be destroyed and its crew would never make it home alive.
The official investigation into the space shuttle Challenger disaster describes a failure with an O-ring. The investigation found that an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at the time of liftoff. This failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it was supposed to seal, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside.
Once the gas reached the outside, it collided with the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and the external fuel tank. This collision led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Once this seperation and structural failure occurred, natural forces took over and promptly caused the orbiter to disentagrate in mid-air.
However, FBI declassified documents reveal a heavily redacted report that vastly differs from the findings of the official investigation. That report states the following:At approximately 1:50 P.M. on January 28, 1986, several hours after the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, Boston FBI received a telephone call at the complaint desk from [Redacted] Channel 7, A CBS-TV Affiliate. [Redacted] indicated that the newsroom at Channel 7 received an anonymous telephone call at 8:35 P.M. on January 26, 1986, the night before the scheduled launch of the Challenger, in which the caller indicated that he was part of a group of three people who were going to sabotage the shuttle, causing it to blow up and kill all aboard.
The FBI took the threat seriously after the shuttle exploded the next day and began to investigate. After interviewing the staff at the local news station that received the call, the FBI discovered that the call was disregarded by news reporters, no notes were kept and the “story” was never distributed to the news desk. One key point that the anonymous caller kept repeating was the fact that he was not crazy.
The Sting Operation
To find the caller, the FBI set up a sting operation. This operation depended upon the caller calling the station back. During his initial call, he stated that he would call back if the shuttle exploded. True to his word, the caller called back the following evening.
As the caller dictated his instructions to the news station employee, the FBI listened in, took notes, and planned their operation.
The caller planned to meet the news station employee at a local steak house. This meeting was to give the employee all of the information concerning the space shuttle Challenger disaster. The FBI and local law enforcement staked out the restaurant, and at the agreed upon time, the prime suspect was spotted in the establishment. The FBI went in and verified the suspect's identity by posing as the news station employee. When the verification was made, the prime suspect was arrested.
Upon interrogation, the caller was identified as a man who had made the same claims earlier during the year. Previously, he had walked into the news station and claimed to be responsible for a series of plane crashes and other shuttle delays.
Mental Instability - True or Just a Cover?
Further interrogations also led the investigators to the conclusion that the caller, "appears not in possession of full faculties." Finally, the caller was released, but not without a recommendation that he should be committed on the basis that, "It is entirely feasible, and in all probability likely, that [the caller] will make similar calls prior to departure of future space shuttles."
Even though the caller was deemed as crazy and unreliable, the fact is that he was right about the explosion. So two schools of thought can be derived from these documents. Either the caller was responsible for the Challenger disaster and fooled the FBI, or it is proof that even a crazy man gets it right every now and again.
by shaftoe » Thu Feb 20, 2014 6:56 pm
by christs4sale » Thu Feb 20, 2014 7:32 pm
by shaftoe » Thu Feb 20, 2014 7:45 pm
by freemason9 » Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:32 pm
kelley » Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:57 am wrote:8bitagent » Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:12 am wrote:
Long as Uncle Sam is wasting billions on space and not blowing up people, what's the harm? I'm sure a whole generation of kids were inspired by seeing a man land on the moon.
the shuttle program was DoD's trojan horse for the militarization of space. in the early '70s, contractors at GE and elsewhere were building prototypical flight simulators and writing algorithms for artificial vision and robotics architecture that would ostensibly become key parts of the shuttle mission, yet that research was also integral in the development of smart guidance systems and the unmanned drone tech of today. only a cretin wouldn't marvel at a man on the moon, but everything comes with a price.
by 82_28 » Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:35 pm
by Nordic » Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:42 pm
brekin » Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:58 pm wrote:I did read something pretty compelling about a possible Challenger conspiracy. I thought it was even on here.
Basically, from what I remember, and this sounds tinhat at first brush of course, the Challenger tragedy happened (or was allowed to happen) to redirect attention away from Iran Contra issues that took place a few years earlier and now were coming to light.
I tried some searches to find the essay that lays it out as a deep state, pre-9/11 use of the national tragedy public sacrifice and mourning ritual to quiet dissent, but haven't located it. One thing that struck me from the essay was hearings (related to Iran-Contra and other high level malfeasance) were taking place right at the moment when the tragedy happened. They actually suspended them and not all of them continued.
Here is a objective Reagan timeline that shows where his presidency was at that month.Approval Drops
In the wake of recent revelations of wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra Affair, polls reveal that President Reagan's approval rating has fallen from 67% to 46% in just one month.
Sun, 12 Jan 1986Challenger Disaster
The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff, killing all six astronauts and one civilian—elementary school teacher Christa McAuliffe—aboard. In a moving tribute delivered a few hours after the disaster, President Reagan says, "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
Tue, 28 Jan 1986
http://www.shmoop.com/reagan-era/timeline.html
Of course Iran Contra didn't go away and a few months later Reagan admits wrongdoing, kind of.Reagan Apology
President Reagan goes on national TV to deliver a confusing apology for Iran-Contra: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages," he says. "My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it's not."
Wed, 04 Mar 1987
But it is interesting that the Challenger tragedy caused Reagan to postpone his planned State of the Union address during an embattled time.It’s bitterly cold in the nation’s capital for State of the Union Day. Twenty-eight years ago, on a similar morning, another second-term president was preparing to give his State of the Union address. The speech would come, but not for another week. It was postponed by a tragedy that unfolded on national television and left adults explaining to children why a beloved public school teacher would never set foot in a classroom again.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 21382.html
And instead deliver one of the most powerful patriotic speeches ever.The disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, proved a pivotal moment in Reagan's presidency. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.[14] On the night of the disaster, Reagan delivered a speech, written by Peggy Noonan, in which he said: The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave... We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'[15]
The speech is ranked as one of the ten best American political speeches of the 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeches_a ... ald_Reagan
So basically the question the Challenger conspiracy poses is whether it was the 9/11 of the 80's. Were innocents, again, sacrificed live on television to traumatize and unify the country, deflect criticism and quiet dissent? Here is the speech:
Speech on the Challenger Disaster
Ronald Reagan
January 28, 1986Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we’ve never lost an astronaut in flight; we’ve never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, “give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy.” They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the member of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.
I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute. We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: “Your dedication and professionalism have moved an impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.”
There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, “He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” Well, today we can say of the challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
by kelley » Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:54 pm
and that certainly wasn't one of the defining characteristics of that presidency.by elfismiles » Fri Feb 21, 2014 2:47 pm
Related Operation Mongoose proposals[edit] Main article: Operation Mongoose
In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the U.S. Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.
Twelve of these proposals come from a 2 February 1962 memorandum entitled "Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba," written by Brig. Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project.[17][6]
...
It also includes Operation Dirty Trick, a plot to blame Castro if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed, saying: "The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al. Cuba [sic]." It continues, "This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ ... _proposals
by 82_28 » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:52 pm
by kelley » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:57 pm
82_28 » Fri Feb 21, 2014 3:52 pm wrote:
I'm trying to think of the first time I saw a television in school and this could very well be it.
by 82_28 » Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:30 pm
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