To: letters@nytimes.com
Re: Are the Challenger and Columbia accidents also a lesson for Spaceship Earth?
Date: Fri, 12 September 2003 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I gather that a major cause of both space shuttle accidents was NASA's high stress culture of trying to achieve too much too quickly with too little money.

Is this not the same culture that permeates (in fact, drives!) our entire, particularly our economic, culture?

Like NASA in particular, western civilisation in general has achieved amazing things, so why do we continue to put ourselves under such pressure to achieve ever more, always as quickly and cheaply as possible?

It is a question we need to answer, because this culture, I fear, is leading to a similar catastrophe with our planet, Spaceship Earth!