A Sad Anniversary. . .

I had forgotten this year -- not something that I usually do. Twenty years ago Saturday, the Space Shuttle Challenger burst into a ball of flames and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven astronauts onboard. I was home sick that day and my mom and I were watching TV when they broke in live from Kennedy Space Center. At first, we just saw stream of smoke and what appeared to be missiles flying through the sky with no explanation - we had no idea what was going on. Tom Brokaw finally explained that they were not missiles, but were the solid rocket boosters from the shuttle; something horrible had happened, but no one was quite sure what. It would be years before we knew about the faulty "O" ring and the fact that the seven astronauts actually survived for almost three minutes after launch; long enough for the crew cabin to plummet back to Earth and hit the ocean at approx. 200 miles per hour. This article talks about a few of the myths surrounding the Challenger disaster.

I was ten years old and obsessed with becoming an astronaut. Space was the coolest thing ever. I built and launched my own rockets and had models of the space shuttle in my room. One of my favorite teachers was a semi-finalist to actually become the first teacher in space -- I've never been so glad that someone lost a contest. I have had the privilege of visiting the Challenger memorial in Arlington National Cemetary; it is rather small and unassuming, but in a place of great honor within the cemetary. Unfortunately, it has a companion memorial now -- the Columbia memorial.

I know that I will probably never go to space (still hoping), but I think that space exploration is critical to the United States and to the world. There are experiments in science and medicine that can be done in zero gravity that could never be done on Earth. I don't think we'll be colonizing new planets anytime soon, but I hope that we continue to venture out to where few brave men and women have gone before.