We've Just Lost a Shuttle!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Folks, I’m so sorry. For you in America, for the family and loved ones of those who have perished, for all of you who’ve seen this happen on the newsfeeds. God, I’d hoped not to see something like this occur again – faint hope.

From this part of New Zealand, just waking up to another Sunday – my condolences, my thoughts are with you. :frowning:

I was 22 when the Challenger exploded. It altered my perception of things, of my life at the time. And now, we have all, every one of us, lost Columbia and her crew.

Heard about this from a Universe Today specual bulletin over the emails – what a way to greet the day. :frowning:

So, so, so, sorry … :frowning:

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Alternate verse to The Navy Hymn. (Page has a plug-in.)

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(this is stream of consciousness…please bear with me)

I just heard about this, less than half an hour ago. We watch Nickelodeon here all day. No break ins, no nothing.

My husband had gone out for coffee, and when he came back, he told me to change the channel. That it was bad. That we’d lost another shuttle.

I was working in a newspaper mailroom (where all the inserts are put in to the paper) when the Challenger exploded. I remember it so vividly. It was awful. The press stopped. We waited and waited and waited to find out why, and when we heard, no one believed it. Not even the many older people I worked with. The people in their sixties and seventies, who had lived decades before the space program ever existed. The we saw the pictures on the new front page. Oh God. We had to stop the lines in our work area for a few minutes again, because most of us were crying so hard we couldn’t function.

This is awful. I never thought I’d see anything like this again.

May Deity bless and keep the astronauts and their loved ones.

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CNN just showed the same image, so that is probably the debris.

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I know I am mortal, a creature of the day;
Yet in spirit I accompany the wandering stars as they
circle round the Pole.
Through my foot no longer touches the earth. By the
side of Zeus himself
I share the meal which preserves the Gods themselves in
immortality.
Ptolemy (c. 2nd century AD)

Rest in peace heros of the earth.

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The “debris field” being shown on radar are extremely small pieces that are still suspended in the air. The small pieces are very reflective, and thus show up on radar.

I can’t believe I’m typing a reply about shuttle particles causing reflectivity on local weather radars.:frowning:

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That was beautiful, lokij

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The astronauts will be mourned.

Their names will be enshrined in the pantheon of space heros, ordinary pilots and scientists who embraced extreme risk to advance the cause of human enlightenment. Without such men and women, we’d still be living in caves.

" Though we are not now that strength which in the old days moved Earth and Heaven,
That which we are, we are; –
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yeild. "

ULYSSES, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Arrgh. I just found out about this because of this thread. Then I went out and chackec my favourite news sites…

<sobs>

What can I say.

{{{hugs to all}}}

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:frowning:

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oh, damn.

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Ok. I just didn’t see anything on that page so I wanted to make sure (“Cite?”)

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Name: Rick D. Husband
Position: Commander
History: Husband, 45, made his second trip into space. The U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer piloted a shuttle flight in 1999, which included the first docking with the international space station.

Name: William C. McCool
Position: Pilot
History: The 40-year-old former test pilot made his first foray into space. The U.S. Navy commander and Naval Academy graduate was responsible for maneuvering the shuttle as part of several experiments.

Name: Michael P. Anderson
Position: Payload Commander
History: Anderson, 42, went into orbit once before, a 1998 shuttle flight that docked with the Russian space station Mir. The U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and physicist was responsible for the shuttle science mission.

Name: David M. Brown
Position: Mission Specialist
History: The U.S. Navy captain made his first flight into space. Brown, 46, an aviator and flight surgeon, was working on many experiments, including numerous biological ones.

Name: Kalpana Chawla
Position: Mission Specialist
History: Born in India in 1961, Chawla earned an aerospace engineering doctorate from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Chawla, who has logged more than 375 hours in space, was the prime robotic arm operator on a shuttle flight in 1997.

Name: Laurel Clark
Position: Mission Specialist
History: Clark, 41, a U.S. Navy commander and flight surgeon, was making her first flight into space. A medical school graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Clark was taking part in a variety of biological experiments.

Name: Ilan Ramon
Position: Payload Specialist
History: Ramon, 47, is the first Israeli astronaut. A colonel and former fighter pilot in the Israeli air force, he saw combat experience in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the Lebanon War in 1982.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/

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Opal, Pilot answered your question better than I could have. These pieces will eventually fall to earth. That’s why I said I didn’t know how long the image would last.

If you go to the site I mentioned, you can click on “loop” and see the images recorded about an hour ago.

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I just had a thought: Ilan Ramon was widely popular in Israel, if the US tries to kill it’s manned space program, Israel may put pressure on the US to continue. That certainly would be some good to come out of this.

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Buck: I understand the concept, and I thought that it looked like what I’d expect. However, without a real source for the info, I couldn’t be sure that was what it really was, as opposed to some strange weather formation.

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My brother told me when I got home from a babysitting job and I thought he was kidding until he switched from his cartoons to the news. Just total shock.

God bless them all.

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This is awful.

My condolances to the families.

It’s very sad that our first questions are those of terrorism.

We must not let this bar us from exploring space, of course.

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Its a sad day.
They seem to have located the debris. Not much is left, just a smoking black smudge on the ground :(.
A amatuer astronomer in Toronto was monitering the transmissions this morning. Aparantly they was much less communication then what was normal. The last transmission had Nasa saying (IIRC) Were recieved your transmission on the tire air pressure but did not copy your last transmission. The crew responded “Roger” and that was it. The communication took place about 15 minutes before the explosion.
I hope Nasa sees this as an opportunity to rethink their program and come up with a new ship design to replace the old ones. Canceling the space program is simply not an option.
This is a terrible thing to wake up to…

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I was present at the Rogers commission hearing at which Dick Feynman pulled the O-ring rubber out of a glass of ice water to demonstrate the coldness problem. It was a … I don’t know … a way to conquer the disaster, to show what was wrong and how to fix it. It was a way to show that we couldn’t be stopped, even in the face of tragedy.

I know we’ll figure out what happened here as well. I know we’ll get back on track.

Oh, God.