BBC Headline Writers Tip Their Hands….

thermal blanket damage.jpg

The headline on the BBC site says “Shuttle Crew Sees Damaged Earth.” But there’s no mention of a “Damaged Earth” in the article, which is about the the shuttle’s damaged thermal blanket.

Nasa rules against shuttle repair

Nasa has decided a further spacewalk to repair a torn thermal blanket on the shuttle Discovery is not necessary.
The US space agency told the seven crew members the shuttle would be safe for re-entry despite the torn blanket below the cockpit window.

On Wednesday, astronauts removed protruding material from the orbiter’s underside which was threatening the heatshield’s integrity.

It is the first mission since Columbia overheated and broke up on re-entry.

Someone’s been reading too much enviro-extremism literature.

UPDATE: The title has been changed to “Nasa rules against shuttle repair.”

LATEST UPDATE: As the first commentator notes, the piece was expanded and the title was changed. There is now reference to a “damaged earth,” but it’s pretty weak “Captain Planet” material.

3 Responses to “BBC Headline Writers Tip Their Hands….”

  2. Tom G. Palmer

    Thanks! I see that they’ve added material to the article, but have changed the title to remove reference to a “damaged planet.” That’s a bit odd, but not evidence of much of anything beyond an indecisive editor.

    What’s more interesting is that the references to damage seem remarkably weak. Besides soil erosion and deforestation (I suspect that they didn’t mention the REforestation of large parts of north America compared to 100 years ago), they mention how “very thin” the atmosphere is:

    “The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it’s so very thin,” she said. “We know that we don’t have much air – we need to protect what we have.”

    That’s pretty weak as evidence of a “damaged planet.” It sounds more like a third-grade “science project” that involves lots of paste and papier mache.

    August 4, 2005 at 6:25 pm