<story><title>Remembering Allan McDonald, who refused to approve the Challenger launch</title><url>https://text.npr.org/974534021</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oivey</author><text>HBO’s Chernobyl is more of a dramatization than a documentary. It certainly doesn’t contain interviews of people who were actually involved. There are quite a few good bits highlighting the dangers of nuclear energy, particularly in the context of the Soviet bureaucracy, but there also a few liberties taken with the science and reality of the event. The fact that people think of it is a documentary despite that is also concerning.</text></item><item><author>softwaredoug</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast this with the Chernobyl HBO documentary. Both are engineering disasters, both have very complicated cultural and political underpinnings to why they were allowed to happen. It&amp;#x27;s not to say the Challenger disaster is comparable to the scale of the Chernobyl disaster, but more crucially: what if the same poor incentives and decisions in place that cause Challenger caused other engineering disasters in the US.</text></item><item><author>zb</author><text>The film “Challenger: The Final Flight” on Netflix includes interviews with the most important participants in the launch decision, including McDonald. (It also has interviews with many of the astronauts’ families and does a great job at putting their experience front and centre.)&lt;p&gt;The guy whose job it was to send the fax because he happened to be the one who knew how to operate the fax machine is to this day utterly devastated; weeping.&lt;p&gt;The MTI VP who signed off (although the decision was made above his head) admits that he agreed with it at the time, but acknowledges it was a mistake. He’s being interviewed in a large room full of very expensive furniture.&lt;p&gt;The NASA manager who bullied them into agreeing to launch because they couldn’t prove that it was unsafe basically says that if he had his time over he would kill all of the astronauts again. Truly terrifying.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jboog</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d go even further and say that the way most people treat &amp;quot;documentary&amp;quot; to be equivalent to &amp;quot;unbiased recitation of factual events&amp;quot; is problematic itself.&lt;p&gt;I love docs but often research the subject after watching and it&amp;#x27;s INCREDIBLY rare to see a doc that doesn&amp;#x27;t play fast and loose with the facts for the sake of creating a dramatic arc or thrilling moments.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s ESPECIALLY true in &amp;quot;true crime&amp;quot; docs. The director has an idea of painting the subject as either sympathetic guy who was wronged by a corrupt system (Making a Murderer) or evil mastermind (The Jinx) just to give two recent examples.&lt;p&gt;Turned out years later the giant reveal at the center of The Jinx which made it such a viral hit was 100% manufactured by the director cutting up audio to make Durst say things he didn&amp;#x27;t. He also lied to the police about the audio so it wouldn&amp;#x27;t spoil the ending of the doc.&lt;p&gt;Jarecki never had to apologize for the blatant dishonesty in the doc, never had to give back the Emmy. It&amp;#x27;s still universally acclaimed.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;24&amp;#x2F;arts&amp;#x2F;television&amp;#x2F;robert-durst-the-jinx.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;24&amp;#x2F;arts&amp;#x2F;television&amp;#x2F;robert-du...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sorry to rant, but the &amp;quot;documentary&amp;quot; film industry is a fucking joke. I  have so many more examples...</text></comment>
<story><title>Remembering Allan McDonald, who refused to approve the Challenger launch</title><url>https://text.npr.org/974534021</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oivey</author><text>HBO’s Chernobyl is more of a dramatization than a documentary. It certainly doesn’t contain interviews of people who were actually involved. There are quite a few good bits highlighting the dangers of nuclear energy, particularly in the context of the Soviet bureaucracy, but there also a few liberties taken with the science and reality of the event. The fact that people think of it is a documentary despite that is also concerning.</text></item><item><author>softwaredoug</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast this with the Chernobyl HBO documentary. Both are engineering disasters, both have very complicated cultural and political underpinnings to why they were allowed to happen. It&amp;#x27;s not to say the Challenger disaster is comparable to the scale of the Chernobyl disaster, but more crucially: what if the same poor incentives and decisions in place that cause Challenger caused other engineering disasters in the US.</text></item><item><author>zb</author><text>The film “Challenger: The Final Flight” on Netflix includes interviews with the most important participants in the launch decision, including McDonald. (It also has interviews with many of the astronauts’ families and does a great job at putting their experience front and centre.)&lt;p&gt;The guy whose job it was to send the fax because he happened to be the one who knew how to operate the fax machine is to this day utterly devastated; weeping.&lt;p&gt;The MTI VP who signed off (although the decision was made above his head) admits that he agreed with it at the time, but acknowledges it was a mistake. He’s being interviewed in a large room full of very expensive furniture.&lt;p&gt;The NASA manager who bullied them into agreeing to launch because they couldn’t prove that it was unsafe basically says that if he had his time over he would kill all of the astronauts again. Truly terrifying.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lostlogin</author><text>Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl: History of Tragedy seems a great text on the subject, and while the tv series is undoubtedly dramatised and many characters are morphed into one, the tv series seems to broadly follow the history of events as described in the book. Serhii seems to have a favourable view of the tv series.&lt;p&gt;Is there something glaring I am missing?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.hromadske.ua&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;chernobyl-expert-serhii-plokhii-on-the-accuracy-of-the-hbo-series&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.hromadske.ua&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;chernobyl-expert-serhii-plokhi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>