@Expedia do you realize your happy little commercial about astronauts on a movie set uses the flight patch for the CHALLENGER that was lost after liftoff with the loss of seven lives? #challenger #TeacherinSpace #BadTaste #ToneDeaf
— Dayle Kenyon (@daylekny) February 27, 2022
The video (which probably will be taken down soon)
Oops?
I know. This is more a lack of teaching history than an actual idiot thinking it would be cool having an Eastern Egg in the commercial. But I bet they check-marked all the Critical Race Theory and Social Justice points when doing the filming.
Never attribute to malice that which may adequately be explained by stupidity. Likewise, one should never assume a complex
conspiracy when a simple cock-up explains the same set of circumstance.
My best guess is that the production company behind the commercial just rented space suits from some other prop company. These sort of things are hella expensive and unlikely to have be built, bespoke, for a thirty-second ad spot. The rented props likely had the Challenger patch on them and no one involved in the filming gave it any thought further than “Hey, these space suit props look good.”
The patch doesn’t have the name of the Challenger on it and it’s not like the names of the astronauts on that mission are common knowledge, besides maybe Christa McAuliffe… and a lot of people conflate her with Sally Ride.
I can’t figure out why a Challenger spacesuit prop would even exist. The mission didn’t have an EVA scheduled.
Probably, again, just a case of “cock-up.” The prop maker(s) didn’t realize the significance of the mission patch they were using.
I mean, I’ve seen WWII movies where the actors had Korea and Vietnam campaign ribbons… Sometimes the prop guys or the costume department just make mistakes.
I wouldn’t have looked, never mind noticed without the still and zoom in.
I’m with Ish on the rented suits idea.
I think it was most likely intended in tribute than in malice.
And, really, if you want to be annoyed — the Kennedy Space Center has a big film show about the program, with a role call of the vehicles at the end. Neither Challenger nor Columbia are included. They even left out Enterprise, even though it appears in the film.
They have a very good memorial to the lost crews elsewhere, but I don’t get why those shuttles weren’t named.
I guess they don’t want people to remember two of the three biggest f***ups in NASA history.
I learned a bunch about the Columbia disaster from a case study in a management training course last year (from HBS). The level of screwup not just at the management and organization level but also at the technical level in that mission was just mindboggling. Actually, it wasn’t just that mission, it was the whole program — but only in those two missions did the large collection of screwups combine with conditions just badly enough to kill people.