In his analysis of the Challenger accident, Edward Tufte argues that a correct visual representation of the data would have overcome “all sorts of political and other mischief” including an overly optimistic flight schedule, the politics of the client/provider relationship between NASA and Morton Thiokol, the public relations pressure of an impending presidential State of the Union Address. He writes: “But these pressures would not have prevailed over credible evidence against the launch, for many other flights had been delayed in the past for good reasons. Had the correct scatterplot or data table been constructed, no one would have dared to risk the Challenger in such cold weather” (52). In short, for Tufte, correct visual representations have credibility and can generate the needed ethos and logos to take precedence over other rhetorical strategies.

Defend or reject Tufte’s assertion that information graphics with sufficient ethos could have overcome other political/rhetorical forces in the decision to launch the Challenger, drawing upon a close reading of one author’s work from our syllabus. Incorporate specific examples from the NASA History of the Accident website. https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html

Incorporate summary, paraphrase, and direct quotations from our texts, and appropriately make use of at least FIVE (5) specialized terms used by the authors themselves, demonstrate that you understand each key word’s meaning by using it appropriately in a sentence of your own construction. Boldface these five terms in your response.

Specialized Terms : use five

Writing, Renaissance, Noetic , Concomitant, Primary orality, Chirographic Secondary orality , Imperious Moveable Type Rhetoric, Logos, Pathos, Ethos, Forensic, Deliberative, Epideictic, Paradigm, Oratory, Science studies, Scientific revolution, Stasis, Objectivity,Theory, Normal Science, User centered design, Mapping, Context, Culture, heuristic, Distributed Work