Zinnsee

So you're saying in the crazy event, that someone really did put on a big show. A huge staged event, where a shuttle gets destroyed. But that someone would not be capable of putting some body parts at the crash site?

If there was something going on and the crew really was spared I would say they never entered the shuttle. But instead the shuttle was prepped with body parts.

Dantethebald

Edit: Removed "pretty good" from the description of the snopes debunking, it isn't very thorough either.

Snopes does has a debunking of this , with as much effort as the person who put OP's link together.

TL:DR; Two of the "doppelgangers" are brothers and I don't find it hard to believe siblings resemble each other.

If you look into the other people's backgrounds you see that they have a paper trail of public profile jobs and/or education records. Sure those could be faked by the government, but why go through the effort? Their resemblence doesn't really hold up under a closer look at some key features.

There is not really an explanation offered for why whoever "planned" this wanted to fake the astronauts deaths and blow up the shuttle, and if anyone can come up with a why for the shuttle needing to be destroyed, why would those responsible for it go through the trouble of saving them?

Wouldn't it have just been easier to sabotage the shuttle, any clandestine operation would likely consider the astronauts as expendable.

k_digi

I always thought "snopes" was a shill "debunking" site ha ha I've never taken them seriously, people should be able to figure out if something is BS or not on their own.

Dantethebald

I don't think you are wrong, it is just one resource that can be used for most people who aren't going to do their own reasearch.

I was hesitant to link it at all, but becuase of the realtively quick read that brought up the same things I was thinking when reading OP's link I went ahead and linked it since I wasn't going to do any more research than Snopes already did for such a flimsy theory.

People definitely shouldn't just see snopes debunk something and take it as correct, and I didn't mean to imply that people should do the same here. I'm just putting that into the conversation.

Zinnsee

Snopes doesn't do a convincing job in debunking this theory for me. On the other hand I still fail to see a motive on why bother with such a huge deception.

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in NASA’s shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by then President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The commission found NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident.

What were the consequences of the Rogers Commision? What changed at NASA that needed such a huge cataclysm to make it happen?

Dantethebald

Well they completely redesigned the solid rocket boosters (the ones witht he faulty o-ring) used in the shuttle program.

They created a Safety and Quality Assurance office which made minor changes to the administrative structure of NASA.

Funding increased by 0.1% of GDP in 1988 and another 0.1% in 1989, from 0.76% GDP from 1985 through 1987 to 0.99% in 1990, as well as a temporary renewed interest by the public when the program started back up in Sept. 1988.

I'm certainly not saying that the event didn't have consequences and results, I just don't know who would have benefited enough to offset the loss of the shuttle and the program's setback for almost 3 years.

Snopes doesn't completely debunk it but as I said they put as much effort as the original article linked, that is to say a cursory look at it and some ancestry and SSID research. Other than tracking down evidence and testimony from colleagues and university peers for those involved I don't know what else they could do to debunk what is already fairly tenative "proof".

k_digi

Nice, case closed.

considering NASA is built on deception, hmm I wonder...

Zinnsee

I'm somewhat confused. Did you mean to post the same link as I did in the title?

k_digi

I'm thinking he didn't click the actual link ha ha.

Zinnsee

Never heard of this before. What could be the reasoning behind faking this event? What were the changes made in the aftermath that would explain such a deception?