ABSTRACT
The rhetoric surrounding the Columbia was particularly relevant to the human relationship because of the potential impact of this accident on continued manned space exploration. This chapter examines the artifacts for a general sense of the meaning and context. The metaphors used to describe the human relationship, whether explicitly or implicitly stated, are identified. The chapter group these metaphors into clusters in order to determine what the major themes are and to analyze what these themes reveal about the communicators' perception of the human relationship. It discusses the possible implications of these metaphors on the perceptions of the human relationship in American culture. The chapter reviews the literature surrounding metaphoric inquiry, with particular attention to the metaphoric studies of environmental communication. This chapter describes the historical context in which the Columbia disaster occurred. It analyzes the metaphors in the communication by Clark and Chawla, then by Bush, and it examines the possible reasons for the conflicting, yet interrelated metaphors.
