When I was young and first listened TO the Hindenburg disaster radio broadcast I could not believe that a grown man would cry like a boy after witnessing such a tragedy. With the recent Antares rocket disaster a similar reaction is heard by the reporter filming the liftoff. It is a very primal instinct and/or cultural reaction to such disaster being witnessed at such close proximity. Here are both, listen closely to each reporter:
ANTARES (2014)
What a wuss. He should immediately turn in his man card.
Seriously - it's a rocket launch. Some rockets fail. Some time they failed more often than they succeeded (that's why the US put a g*ddamned Nazi in charge of the program). The chance may be low, but it's always recognizably above zero, and when it happens it's almost always spectacular. I mean, there's a lot of highly combustible chemicals densely packed, with a godawful long open flame coming out on one end.
The most benevolent explanation of this wailing that I can come up with is a lack of mental preparation for what can happen.
The Hindenburg disaster - it probably also came as a big surprise, and there were human lives at stake, either being consumed by the fireball or jumping down from a still very dangerous height (a few survived, after all). So I can absolutely understand a more emotional response. But an unmanned rocket that goes down? There's a financial loss and a lot of clean-up work involved, but it's other people's money (and someone else than the reporter is going to do the cleaning); there's no reason to lose composure.
