Human Error

A catastrophic collision between an orbital station and an approaching vessel leaves much of the station destroyed and sends wreckage spiraling toward Earth. Survivors aboard the crippled station and remote authorities attempt desperate maneuvers to avert disaster while recovered recordings and tracking data document the sequence of errors that produced the crash. A government program promoting mechanical, errorless cybernetic substitutes for humans frames the investigation as officials debate whether human fallibility or machine failings are to blame. The narrative examines tensions between human error and the allure of errorless technology, and the moral and practical consequences of removing human judgment from critical systems.