Challenger

[filkertom]

Hard to believe, in some ways, that it's been a quarter of a century since the space shuttle Challenger blew up.

(Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Apollo 1. NASA has a remembrance site for those lost to the stars.)

I don't think of it much nowadays, but when I do it's as fresh as it was that day, with several of us sitting in an office listening to a radio, calling friends and family, and generally just feeling a huge hole in our hearts. But with that came the need, the desperate irrepressible need, to get right back on the bike and go... the imperative of not stopping, not slowing down, but reaching onward and upward.

Twenty-five years later, forty-four years later, the legacy of Challenger lives on.

One day, we'll get back to space. This time, to stay.

I hope we're all around to see it.

Comments

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I was four when it happened, which makes me one of the youngest people to remember it. I spent most of my childhood being afraid of outer space, until my bio dad pointed out the disaster and my relative age. (And my parents' divorce three months before.)

I started getting over my fear of space as a teenager, and the first SciFi movie I saw was Star Trek: First Contact. Now I'm writing a book involving space flight.

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

I was 14 and at home lying on the couch. I had the flu and Mom was letting me watch the launch like I would have been doing if I was at school. I remember, and it still brings tears to my eyes.

On the same note, I saw the news about the Columbia while in line to pay for groceries at Walmart.

Mom and Dad remember the details of where they were and what they were doing when they heard Kennedy was shot. Their kids remember the Challenger and Columbia.

[kengr]

I was sitting in my third grade class when they announced "President Kennedy has been shot" A while later, they announced that he was dead.

Space re;ated stuff, I recall my mom taking me out into the back yard to try to point out Sputnik. I didn't really understand what she meant, so I looked at the wrong "moving light" in the night sky.

A few years later in first grade we got herded into the school gym to watch a black & white TV when they launched the first two Mercury flights.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

No worries, my friend, we will. GTFS "Dragon 9".

We're goin' to the stars, see our Fire In The Sky...

The one redeeming quality about January, with so much death, is it has Conflikt.... g-ds know we need the healing. So I shall go where you were GOH last year... heh... the singalong this year just *happens* to be that Fire In The SKy.

Onward!

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I'll see your birthday party, and raise you a WorldCon. 2069, Luna City. You *know* it's gonna happen. I intend to be there. I'll be 102.

Oh, and I goofed, Hope Eyrie is the Conflikt song this year. Same subject matter, entirely different treatment. :)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

<snark>That's my home con, and I'm not at all convinced it'll still be happening in 2019, much less 2069</snark>

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

Minneapolis (relocated to Mars) in 2073! ;)

[hms42]

When the Challenger disaster happened, I was home from high school due to a 1/2 day (mid-terms, I had a chemistry mid-term that day) and someone (my mother likely) called me in to watch a shuttle launch from my clearing about 1" of snow from the driveway. I am still not sure if I saw it on TV as it happened or the rerun just after the accident. (I just know I watched it for about an hour before I went back to the shoveling.)

I think they picked better than they realized with 'Hope Eyrie" as the Conflikt 4 singalong for the CD.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

Hate to be a downer, but the space program is being cut and will probably go under the bus in a few years. A friend of mine, who is unfortunately addicted to right-wing radio hosts, blames Obama for killing NASA. I don't believe it, since Republicans have been chopping NASA and science programs for a long time, and when did Bill O'Reilly care about science and reality? But he's adamant in his hatred; he loves the space program, and finally has one person he can blame for its end.

Over in Titusville, there's enormous nostalgia for the space program, and there's a museum with tricked-out surplus control panels showing how complex the whole thing used to be, set up in a "NASA museum." People there remember how they used to be paid for launching missiles, and the quasi-military pride they had in participating in the program. Now that area is going back to a quiet, economically-depressed community of retirees. Kind of reminiscent of those places around Civil War battlegrounds and the home-museums of famous Americans.

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

Obama did take a real chance insisting that NASA no longer build their own launch and delivery vehicles. It could turn into the biggest boost manned space ever had, if it works that private companies can make rockets that carry men into space. Space-X has already showed remarkable ingenuity in cost cutting designs that work. They are likely to get the next manned space contract. If they can reduce costs in a manner NASA was never able to we will eventually see more, not less, manned space programs. However, they may run into technical nightmares that will take years to resolve. Only time will tell.

Something everyone in government seems to be pointedly ignoring is that the race to the Moon was the greatest economic stimulus and jobs program this country has ever seen. We were in a bad recession when Kennedy made his famous speech. By the time Armstrong stepped out of the Eagle, we were at the lowest unemployment we have ever had.

[kengr]

People have been suggesting since at least the early 70s that NASA be *forcibly* removed from building launch vehicles and instead have something like the old airmail contracts where they just commit to buying so much launch capacity of various sorts and companies get to bid to supply the vehicles.

That'd leave NASA doing payloads and building *experimental* rockets to test new propulsion systems and the like.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that a Democratic President is letting private enterprise take over a government operation and it's being criticized by some loud mouth that has repeatedly called that President a "socialist".

*facepalm*

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

I didn't exactly realize I was saying this, but it does sound like something I would say.

Politically I'm a libertarian, and therefore consider myself a conservative, but absolutely not in alignment with the current Republican Party. I do not consider those Tea Party yokels to be conservatives, they are extremists.

I think Obama has done a better than decent job on most things, and while I appreciate an opposition party as a check valve to prevent run-away government in any direction, I think this constant criticism of everything Obama does to be highly counter-productive. Time and again Obama has endorsed programs originally proposed by the Republicans, only to have the Republicans switch sides just because Obama favored it. It cannot be possible that they suddenly realized all their ideas were bad only because the president agreed with them. They are like a pack of small children ganging up on the unpopular kid and turning against everything he says just because he said it. This is not government, this is schoolyard bullying.

So yes, once again, someone on the right is criticizing the president for doing something they would have applauded had Reagan done the same exact thing.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I don't know why conservatives deify Reagan so much. He raised taxes repeatedly (something which conservatives CLAIM to oppose), gave amnesty to illegals (something which conservatives CLAIM to oppose), increased the size of the government (something which conservatives CLAIM to oppose), increased our national debt (something ... you know the rest), and funded Islamic terrorism (guess). If a liberal president did any of those things, they'd be calling for impeachment, and in the last case they'd be correct in doing so. But if it's Reagan, one of their own, it's acceptable! IOKIYAR

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

Yep, I just posted almost the exact same response to someone on FB, so I guess we couldn't agree more on this.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

I remember Challenger.

I was 18 at the time, and was home from school (teacher's meeting). I was preparing for my Eagle award ceremony later that day, when I turned on the TV< and saw a news report showing a view of the Atlantic Ocean. While wondering what happened, I noticed the news ticker said 'Live from Cape Canaveral'. I remembered there was to be a shuttle launch that day, and I thought 'Uh oh'...

It was especially tragic for my community, because one of the astronauts, Gregory Jarvis, grew up in my area.

To this day, it really moves me when I think about it.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Tom -- I remember you calling me. (Working midnights would have meant missing a lot of the news otherwise.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. [hugs]

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

I was in high school, and at first I thought one of my classmates was making a very tasteless joke. Then the announcement came for a minute of silence.

My husband's a NASA brat. His father (among other things) was one of the people tasked with analyzing the data to figure out what went wrong. He still doesn't talk about it. Not that we ask.

The best memorial for the seven is that we keep on going.

[scyllacat.livejournal.com]

All I remember is I was vacuuming the living room (was it a snow day? teacher work day?) and had to turn off the vacuum because I couldn't believe what I saw on the TV. It was my first conscious experience of denial. "That couldn't be real. A model, a tape, something else... they're not dead. They must be dead... "

That was the weird bit. I'd never seen anyone die live, and even though I didn't see it then, I saw it. We all saw them killed.

Yeah, my next thought was what damage this would do to the space program. We've not been so high since.

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

At the time I had a job involving a lot of driving from one site to another. I returned to the office after one of those trips and a co-worker said "The shuttle just blew up." I thought he was starting a very bad joke. Someone had already set up a small TV in a back room, so I was sent there to see for myself, where I first saw the broadcast of the smoke trails of the tumbling booster rockets which we all have seen so often since then.

I am tearing up now just thinking about it again.

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

I'm also old enough to remember Apollo 1. It took NASA almost a year to call it that, since it was officially a ground test accident. It was only after the other Apollo banned together and delivered an ultimatum to NASA that none of them would fly a mission unless their dead comrades were honored with a mission that NASA broke down and called the accident crew Apollo One and issued a mission patch for them.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I was 18, my Senior year of HS. My science teacher had been a finalist for the Teacher in Space program.

I had a doctor appointment that day, probably to get my ears suctioned out, and Mom and I had gone to a thrift store afterward. Mom was poking through clothes (keeping me clad as I hit 6' tall was a chore) and I watched the launch, and disaster, on a blurry old console television. Then I called Mom over to see the replay.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

One day, we'll get back to space. This time, to stay.

God, I hope not.

After Apollo 1, Soyuz 1, Challenger and Columbia, as well as all the other fatal incidents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents#Astronaut_fatalities_during_spaceflight) who the fuck in their right mind would actually want to take that 5% chance of dying, especially since there's nothing worth seeing live and in person out there? With even Mars four years away, send robots instead. Then we'll still get the few benefits without having to have so many memorial services.

[invader-tak-1.livejournal.com]

Fuck you. Sorry I cannot form a better reply to this realinterrorbang. I am simply far too angry.

I wanted to make an intelligent, reasoned reply, but all I can say is FUCK YOU, to you and all the other Luddite fucks who want the dream to die because they personally don't give a fuck.

Go back to your latte, and leave the future to the people who care.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

Without condoning or condemning realinerrobang's statement, the best possible response IMHO comes comes from the classic ending of 'Things to Come:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRN6d-QUa5c

And as far as dying, Frank Drebin said it best: 'You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan.'

And This Goes For The Rest Of You

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Tak, NO. I agree with what you're saying, and I'll post my own reply, but, NO. No verbally abusing friends on my LJ. I'm having to become more strict about this. Please apologize. And, realinterrobang, I also apologize. Nobody who hangs around on this forum deserves that.

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

We would still be in Europe if our forefathers listened to that line of reasoning.

There may or may not BE something worthwhile out there, but we won't know until we go and see for ourselves.

I will take my 95% chance of survival, thank you very much. That's a better odds than my ancestors on the Mayflower had.

[kengr]

What "5% chance"?

Keep in mind that *Alaska* was thought to be not worth anything at one time. Ditto for the Louisiana Purchase.

And far too many of the deaths have been due to Congress nickel and diming things to death forcing equipment to be built *too* cheaply.

Yes, there are risks. But life isn't about avoiding risks.

Hell, if we'd kept things going after Apollo, we might actually have Solar Power Satellites in service. In which case we'd long ago have told the folks in the Middle East to go fly a kite because we wouldn't *need* their oil.

And there are a lot of other things we *know* we can get or do out there. And there are lots of others we won't know about until we go and look (and robot probes can't really do the sort of exploring that's needed. They can only look for what you *expect* to find).

Heck, long term space missions would require developing *working* long term closed enivormental systems. Which would teach us a lot about how to keep things working here on Earth.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

there's nothing worth seeing live and in person out there

Wow. That's a pretty parochial POV, considering that almost the entire universe is out there to see. Heck, even Earth is out there to see -- in ways we can't see while we're on it.

As for "who", I'd suggest that if you asked for volunteers, you'd have more than a lifetime or three's worth of building launch vehicles' worth of volunteers, starting with me. I don't have the really valuable skills, and I'm both too old and out of shape, but if I had the chance, I'd be head of the line.

Gods, I hope you're mistaken about us being marooned on this little mudball.

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

I would go in a heartbeat. I always wanted to be an astronaut--bad eyes cost me that early--and I still do. The Challenger and Columbia pushed back civilian space flight, but one day it will happen. And I will be there.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Sorry, it doesn't wash. More people die in traffic every day than have died in the history of space exploration. And there's a lot to see live and in person out there. And, even if you don't think in those terms, we are messing up our one and only biosphere beyond all redemption, and we'd better figure out soon how to colonize multiple worlds or we are going to join a shitload of other species that have vanished.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to take that chance. And who are you to say there's nothing worth seeing in person? Would you rather look at Angel Falls in a picture or actually be there yourself?

[writer-jack.livejournal.com]

All I can say is that if you do not personally think the adventure is worth the risk, don't go. Not everyone agrees. I would jump at any chance to ride a launch vehicle, no matter how how many previous accidents it may have had.
After all, 95% of the astronauts and cosmonauts returned safely. That's not a bad average for an experimental program.
I also believe that the payback will eventually exceed the investment. There is enough H3 lying on the surface of the moon to meet the energy demands of earth for a thousand years. We should be harvesting it. There are rare metals in abundance in space. We should be harvesting them. We need to plant our feet on more than one place to keep from being wiped out in a massive man caused or cosmological accident. We should be on permanently stationed on te Moon and Terraforming Mars, just to be in more than one place. We already know other planets and their moons contain exotic compounds not found on earth. Who knows what science and engineering can do with these compounds if they could get their hands on them. We should be collecting them.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

Challenger... I heard this news in my doctor's office. Shock, horror and all that. But it was never quite real to me, because my father was in hospital and just over 24 hours later would be dead. The loss of those strangers seemed irrelevant when my mother had lost her husband, I my father, and my kids their beloved grampa.

Now, I feel it as keenly as if happened yesterday, but without the comfort of having shared it with the world at the time.

OTOH, JFK's death, Martin Luther King's death, RFK's death are like little diamonds in my memory, along with Columbia. I lived those along with everyone else.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

Okay. I forgot to say that just about our whole filk community supports the space program and hope it continues. We in Canada have been part of it.

I wish you'd had the chance to see Earth to the Moon. You would know how we feel.

[the-sheryl.livejournal.com]

I was in high school. I remember that my teacher in Mammalian Physiology had brought in a transistor radio to listen to the launch. I don't remember what he said, but I know he told us what happened.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I was in grade school. Mom promised I would get my pet gerbils that day and I was excited about that. The Challenger didn't really enter my mind since I didn't yet realize its importance. I wanted my new pets dammit! By the time reality sunk in, it was too late to be shocked. But I remember it every year since I became a sci-fi fan.

Columbia was a much more vivid memory. My employer sent me to NYC to help with some programming there and let me stay the weekend to do "the tourist thing". I just saw what remained of Ground Zero and walked to the park where I would catch the ferry to Liberty Island. (Amazing how EMPTY the streets were on a Saturday morning.) I was waiting in line when I heard the announcement. I wanted to sit down but had to settle for leaning on a pole.

The tribute songs "The Challenge" and "Columbia" still make me misty-eyed.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I was in the Navy at the time this happened. My ship was just passing the coast of Florida when it happened. We suddenly joined the 3 days of rescue/salvage support. The Captain had everyone muster in their bunks and showed the explosion on the CCTV so we all knew what happened and what we were about to do. When we were not refueling other ships (we were an oiler) we were part of the search. I hope no one ever has to do that kind of duty again. The crew sure took all of our disaster drill training a lot more seriously after that too.

[old-fortissimo.livejournal.com]

DADDY'S LITTLE BOY - REQUIEM
Daddy's little boy turned 4 some years ago.
A day imprinted and burned into me.
He told me what he'd seen - an airplane catching fire.
He saw it at the daycare on TV.

There was nothing I could tell him
And nothing I could say.
For January 28 is Jason's natal day -

When fire, fire, fire burned the Challenger in a flash!
Fire, fire, fire turned our dreams to molten ash.
A day of joy and pain for me, the lesson that I've learned
Is how to smile, and how to hold back tears.
As Jason's birthday comes around each year.

DAMN THEM!! - CHORUS
Damn, them, damn them, damn them!
They made the same mistake!
The bottom line's out there
And not the profit that they'll make!
Grissom, Chaffee, White, McAuliffe
Scobee, Jarvis, McNair,
Resnick, Onazuka, Smith
Demand we stay out there.

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

To this day I cannot hear the words, "Challenger, go at throttle-up" without tearing up. It takes me right back to the day when I watched the disaster on television and said to myself, "This can't be. This sort of thing doesn't happen."

And then the NASA announcer said, "The vehicle has exploded," and I started to cry.

Challenger

[tealbeen.livejournal.com]

I have a lovely daughter who turned 25 yesterday - she was born in the valley between the Bears winning the Superbowl (the only football game I've ever watched) and the explosion of the Challenger.

I remember lying my the hospital bed watching the TV, and getting irritated they were showing the same footage over and over - until I got the sound turned up and realized what had happened.

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

I listened to the Challenger lift-off on the radio in an empty classroom with a favorite teacher in High School. I didn't see the footage until after school.

Every lift-off since then, I hold my breath... waiting until the ship is "safe".

[ladysoapmaker.livejournal.com]

I was in fifth grade and as my school didn't have enough tvs for all the classrooms (and no auditorium) they were taping it to replay it for the rest of the classes. One of the other teachers or secretaries came in and told my teacher and I think she went pale. I know she told us what happened and we got the tv and spent the rest of the day watching it. I know we didn't do any work the rest of the day. It was one of my first memories of being more aware of what was going on around me in the world.