From the nation's first parade for veterans returning from Iraq, held today in St. Louis.

Photo: @explorestlouis

Photo: @jailbaittm

Photo: @jailbaittm

All the fuss over Newt Gingrich's plans for the moon glosses over the fact that ambitious endeavors don't just happen because a politician wishes them so; they require the heroic efforts of thousands to tens of thousands of technicians, scientists and engineers.

Twenty-six years ago today, seven of those heroes lost their lives in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Almost six months to the day before that tragedy, Roger Boisjoly, an engineer and employee of Morton Thiokol, the company that manufactured the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, made a heroic effort to prevent it. This morning, Letters of Note tweeted the interoffice memo he sent to the company's Vice President warning of the now infamous O-ring failure:

"This letter is written to insure that management is fully aware of the seriousness of the current O-ring erosion problem in the SRM joints from an engineering standpoint.

The mistakenly accepted position on the joint problem was to fly without fear of failure and to run a series of design evaluations which would ultimately lead to a solution or at least a significant reduction of the erosion problem. This position is now drastically changed as a result of the SRM 16A nozzle joint erosion which eroded a secondary O-ring with the primary O-ring never sealing.

If the same scenario should occur in a field joint (and it could), then it is a jump ball as to the success or failure of the joint because the secondary O-ring cannot respond to the clevis opening rate and may not be capable of pressurization. The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order - loss of human life."

Despite these and other warnings, executives at Morton Thiokol did not stop the Challenger launch and the predicted catastrophe did occur. Even so, I think we should all be inspired by Mr. Boisjoly's efforts to make his voice heard and to ensure the safety of those he was helping to leave our home planet.

Sadly, Mr. Boisjoly passed earlier this month, but just under two years ago he gave his person archive of papers, memos, and notes from his work at Morton Thiokol and his Congressional testimony on the Challenger disaster to Chapman University in Orange, California. Road trip, anyone?

Cross-posted from Newtonianism for the Ladies.

Links cited on the show:

The Bob Dole Pepsi ad (that mocks the Bob Dole Viagra ad) *also* stars Eric Stonestreet, better known these days as Cameron on "Modern Family."

Segment's after the jump.

Even though we post all of the Cocktail Moments here on the blog, it doesn't take long for them to disappear into the archive and people often have trouble finding them. The secret is that they're all tagged with "drinks" so if you put /drinks on the end of the blog URL you get the whole collection. Obviously this is a ridiculous thing to keep secret, so I've added a little cocktail banner button in the right column of the blog, way down on the bottom.

I've tried to include drink-making Rachel has done in places other than our Cocktail Moments but I sometimes miss those, or else there's no online video available (the Martha Stewart appearances, for example) so if you know of one I missed, let me know. Even as I write this it occurs to me there are probably a few in our pre-blog archive...

Ah HA!!

• Flaming Christmas punch!
• A cocktail Triple Crown (Mint Julep, Whiskey Smash, Belmont Breeze)
• The Bamboo!
• Thailand in a glass? (Siam Sunrays)
• The Jack Rose (for NY Mag)
• The Holiday Hot Toddy

Ok, so obviously this list is as likely to grow backward in time as it is forward, but at least we're putting it all in the same place.

On the subway platform where I wait to come to work, new posters have been posted promoting the new Ghost Rider movie. All I can think of when I see it is, Why the heck does he need a radiator on the motorcyle? Dude, you're on FIRE. That's pretty much past anything a radiator is going to help you with.

Two things I learned in the course of being ridiculous:

1. There is no mistaking that air intake on the sides of the tank as being of anything other than Yamaha's V-Max design. But as I poked around to see if Yamaha had announced a product placement deal with Marvel (why else drop the first movie's chopper?), in one forum someone who knows the bike's features well pointed out incongruities. It turns out that while the V-Max has an upstanding reputation as a street bike, it's not so good for blockbuster movie flaming stunts. So they bolted look-alike parts on a Kawasaki motocross bike for the stunt scenes.

2. I'm not familiar with the Ghost Rider comic book, so at the comic book store this afternoon I checked to see if the brand of motorcycle in the actual book is recognizable. It turns out the Ghost Rider in the current issue (#8, I think) is riding something futuristic-looking. BUT... Did you know Ghost Rider is now a woman? Since a reboot of the title this past July, the new Ghost Rider is a Nicaraguan woman named Alejandra. The Wikipedia entry describes her in past tense, but she's on the cover of the latest issue, so I think she's current.

Image after the jump:

We received a happy surprise today – our Emmy awards arrived! Rachel helped unwrap and handed out the first award to a lucky staffer.

Cory Gnazzo, our senior show producer, happily accepted - he was also the designated speaker when we (unexpectedly) won our Emmy for "Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis" this past September.

And in case you were wondering what happened with the statue we received back in September, it lives on top of Rachel's bookshelf, next door to Adventure Team G.I. Joe:

Rachel Maddow

Tonight's guests include:

Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for the Washington Post

Eric Schneiderman, New York Attorney General

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

While watching the video preview below, take a listen to tonight's soundtrack. (Just be sure to let the ad play out below before playing the song.)

Executive producer Bill Wolff, and the TRMS staff, share a preview of tonight's show:

Welcome, winter haters. In my second attempt to de-suckify the January gloom and cold, here's a sunny slice of feel good from Liam Neeson called The Grey...

I kid because I love. A way gnarlier idea is to check out the Volcom Pipe Pro surfing spectacular happening right now in Hawaii.

According to the Aloha Update:

Defending event champion John John Florence (see his epic shredding here) will head the field, joined by top international talent Josh Kerr (Australia), Bruce Irons (Hawaii, wildcard), Kolohe Andino (California), Tanner & Dane Gudauskas (California), Wiggolly Dantas (Brazil), Joan Duru (France), Balaram Stack (New York), and Hawaii chargers Ian Walsh, Dusty Payne, and Jamie O'Brien.

You had me at Wiggolly.

And the weather?

Air Temp: 81° F
Water Temp: 78° F

This Morning's Surf Report: Surf down a bit from its peak yesterday but some great waves still rolling in. Pipe and Backdoor looking really fun this morning as both the right and lefts are going off. It is a little inconsistent but when the sets come in there is plenty of energy on tap.

Aloha.

Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

A lunar colony as imagined by American engineers, Sep. 26, 1969

I don't want to harp on the logistics of Newt Gingrich's moon colony proposal because, well, it's nutty for so many reasons and Rachel pretty much summed it last night just by appearing in a bad imitation space suit.  But in addition to being a really expensive idea (and a possible pander to Florida's "Space Coast"), building an American colony on the moon might also be illegal.  According to the United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space, which I am delighted exists, the moon is not available for colonizing:

The exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestialbodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries,irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be theprovince of all mankind.Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free forexploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis ofequality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access toall areas of celestial bodies

(h/t @TriciaFantinato)

Also, because coincidence is awesome, today is the 45th anniversary of the very first outer space treaty upon which the above treaty was based.