The View From Here: Space shuttle debris should not be sold
What people will do in times of tragedy.
We should have known after September 11, when an unscrupulous couple came up with a scam to fake a death and collect insurance money or when funds meant for victims were not being handled properly, that deplorable acts in the face of mass tragedy were possible. But perhaps our basic human nature is that we shy away from believing people can stoop this low.
Similar events have happened in our own backyard, although to a much lesser degree. When the school was having, at the very least, air quality problems several years ago, we saw chin scratching salesmen coming out of the woodwork, taking advantage of the situation in hopes that the right people were listening.
Perhaps the sales pitch was OK. This is America, after all, the land of capitalism, and people make millions from simply being in the right place at the right time every day. Opportunists abound, acting in ways that benefit them no matter what, and for the most part, that is what we have been taught to do.
But what a sickening feeling to learn of attempts to place collected pieces of the space shuttle Columbia on eBay. If we were talking about a 16th Century battle sword found in a distant relative’s closet that turned out to be worth millions, it would be different. People are happy when the average Joe strikes it rich today. But these pieces are more valuable than that.
Thankfully, eBay removed the items, touted as space shuttle debris, from the company’s Web site last weekend. It’s something the company has gone through before, with some listings popping up after September 11, where pieces of the World Trade Center were offered.
It is hard to tell what is worse – that people wanted to capitalize on the shuttle tragedy for their own financial gain, or that the potential sellers counted on potential buyers ready to pounce at the opportunity. Maybe it’s worse that if the pieces offered for sale were just pranks, listing them on eBay shows how much or how little some people thought of the tragedy.
What was more telling was the amount of time it took to concoct this idea after the shuttle exploded. For those not keeping score, it took about one day.
I don’t necessarily want to contribute to the overblown nature of news coverage by going on and on about a horrific event. Most people recognize the Columbia coverage has been overdone by the mainstream media when we had 24/7 news reporting even though their were no new major developments, but I can’t help but observe the more major tragedy of the related scams.
This week, we’ve heard about a sort of grace period where federal officials promised not to prosecute if people who had gathered pieces of the shuttle would return them. I hope people holding the debris took note.
I dare say those officials saw this coming before many of us did. That was the reason for the early warnings about not touching the debris, I believe.
And let’s not forget that while NASA officials have some ideas about what could have happened, new theories are emerging and we still don’t know.
If it is possible to make sense from the debris, given how scattered it is, a picture of what happened cannot occur at all when people are hoarding the materials for their own personal gain.
It is possible one of those pieces could be the key link to preventing a future problem. For the people out there who thought auctioning the debris could be the way to achieving financial freedom, shame on them.
(Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)