I don’t know that 22 pages of items posted today after 2 pages the week before is a small increase.
I see absolutely no problem with that - getting a mission patch, and wearing it proudly as a memorial to the crew. What I have a problem with is the people who are using the tragedy and the strong feelings that are naturally evoked in people in order to line their pockets.
To be honest, if I see Columbia memorablia on e-bay 6 mos. from now, I’ll have no problem with it. It’s the timing of these things that’s the issue.
Yeah but I saw two auctions selling debris. Probably not REAL debris, but claiming that it was. One of them claimed to be a “fuel injector” and the other looked like a piece of scrap metal.
There is nothing to correct. I didn’t claim that the link was to a debris sale…but that there had been debris sales seen by others… (apparently OpalCat and others have seen the auctions, they tend to get taken down rather quickly I guess) I just included the link as another example of the shameless behavior of some people…I even identified it as “some loser’s domain squatting efforts.”
I hoped this was an evil rumor, but visited eBay tonight. A pox on these people! Seven people are no more. Their families, husbands, wives, parents, lovers, children, and friends are left with a hole in their heart.
I cannot fathom their grief. No face to view, no bier to visit. Closure is sufficiently difficult under ‘normal’ circumstances. My heart goes out the the bereaved.
What is wrong with selling pieces of the shuttle? What’s with all the venom?
If I found pieces of the shuttle, I would sit on it for a year then sell it on the underground market (probably via the internet). Most of you hypocrits would too. Those who went the EBay route are fools in the first degree. The reason that you are bitching is that an opportunity did not fall from your sky yesterday.
People who buy this stuff are the same people who buy things like Jeffrey Dahmer’s tools or Hitler’s underwear or cars. There is no limit to the depravity of a collectors mind.
Regardless of their integrity, the people who put “debris” up for auction yesterday were frauds, and deserved to have their submissions taken down for that reason alone.
This wasn’t even like Ground Zero, where at least people knew where to find the site. The wreckage was scattered across ~140 miles in Texas and Louisiana, and nobody knew exactly which bits fell where. There’s no way someone could get on the road and find genuine Columbia debris before noontime yesterday, much less cart it home, photograph it, scan the photo, and submit it for auction. eBay offers some items that people think are in poor taste, but they take down anything that’s bogus. It doesn’t matter if yesterday’s submission fit the first criterion or not; it definitely fit the second.
Presumably, eBay won’t support an auction where the seller clearly does not have legal title to the item being auctioned … which would seem to apply here, as well as the whole “repulsively insensitive” thing.
Yong Lee Fampee, it’s not your complete lack of class that disturbs me, but the fact that you would commit a federal crime that hinders the investigation into the cause of a deadly accident aimed at preventing the death of any additional astronauts in the future.
Don’t you dare say we are no different and would do the same. It’s simply not true.
I realized my mistake after posting, dave. Sorry about that. I was going to write a correction post to my correction, but my keyboard was crushed under the weight of the irony.
Yong Lee Fampee, the first rule of posting on the Straight Dope Message Board is “Don’t be a jerk.” This post shows insensitivity at least, and may be trolling. A quick review of your other posts shows a similar disregard for the feelings of others. Either learn to play nicer, or find another playground.