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thedrifter
01-28-06, 05:49 AM
Posted on Sat, Jan. 28, 2006
Readers remember Challenger
Macon Telegraph

We asked our readers to share their memories of the Challenger disaster. Here's some of what you had to say:

IT FELT LIKE THE WORLD STOPPED

I was stationed at Patrick Air Force Base, just south of Cape Canaveral. It was a cold day and I thought they would cancel the launch again as they had several times before. My co-workers said, "Let's go up onto the roof to watch the shuttle launch." But I said, "They won't launch it today, it's freezing out."

Well, almost immediately afterward, they came running in telling everyone how the shuttle exploded. To this day I remember my exact words: "Shuttles don't explode!"

I saw the big cloud from the explosion with the smaller trails and I cried right then and there. It felt like the world stopped. No one at work could go on for awhile that day. Being a part of the Space Coast community, it was as if a chunk of my world was ripped away.

Several weeks later, a local radio station came up with an idea to show how much they cared about the astronauts who perished. They asked that everyone in the community come down to line up on the beach with a lit candle.

I went down there that night, and I saw candles up and down the coast as far as I could see. Again, I cried. It was apparent we as Americans cared for each other. Always have, always will. We may not agree every time, but we care. Please use this memory to reflect on how you feel about others. Don't wait for the next tragedy.
- Tom Sheridan, Warner Robins LAWMAKER SHED 'A FEW TEARS FOR AMERICA'I was completing my 10th year in the Georgia House of Representatives. As the General Assembly was in session, I was at the state Capitol, just outside of the House chamber near the shoeshine stand, which is a popular gathering place on the second floor. A television set is located near the shoeshine stand, and a group of 30 or 40 people were watching the launch along with House Speaker Tom Murphy.

We all were filled with great pride for the success that the United States had achieved in our space program going back to President John F. Kennedy's administration.

When the Challenger exploded, we were stunned, as the entire world must have been. There was absolute silence as we stared at the television set and listened as the announcers grappled with what to say or do. The stunned silence continued outside of the House chamber.

After 15 or 20 minutes of silently praying for the astronauts and their families, knowing full well that there would be no survivors, I returned to my desk in the House chamber where I continued my prayers for the astronauts, their families and our great nation, and shed a few tears for America.
- Franklin S. Horne Jr., Macon A LOT CHANGED THAT DAYI remember there was a lot of hype surrounding this particular launch due to the fact that there was a teacher on board. I was a senior at Merritt Island High School, about 20 miles south of Kennedy Space Center. It was a cold morning and we all were excited about the launch.

During our lunch break we went out into the commons, which was open to view the launch. Someone had a radio, and we heard the space shuttle had lifted off. We waited, and soon we were able to hear and see the space shuttle. One of the school kids said, "Watch it blow up." Next thing I know, the SRBs (solid rocket boosters) were going off by themselves and the shuttle was just a big fire ball.

Students were running into classrooms to see what had happened. We watched to see if anyone had survived. A lot changed that day for Brevard County. The space program overall changed. The Air Force went back to its unmanned space program, and NASA pressed ahead.
- Master Sgt. Paul Spalding, Georgia Air National Guard IT WAS JUST SUCH A FEELING OF DISBELIEF AND SADNESSI was on the rifle range in Hawaii when someone told us. I must have been 18, had only been in the Marines a few months. I remember we didn't believe it, said, "Naw, that didn't happen." When you were at the rifle range, you stayed all day and were cut off from everything else. It wasn't until we got back to the barracks and saw the replays on TV and saw President Reagan's press conference that we really believed it.

Growing up I watched all the launches and space coverage. Everyone wanted to be an astronaut. It was just such a feeling of disbelief and sadness.
- Mike McConnell, Macon WE SAT THERE SPELLBOUND BY THE IMAGESI remember it clearly. I had just come home for lunch and was channel surfing while my wife was in the kitchen. I remember my wife's disbelief as I told her.

We sat there spellbound by the images of pieces falling from the sky, images of the people on the ground elated at the sight of the launch turning to sorrow and disbelief, the haunting voice of mission control giving out flight data information after the explosion, not yet knowing of the flight failure, and the lone parachute (from the SRB recovery system) that gave a false sense of hope that someone could have survived.

When it was over, all we could do was say a prayer that God would welcome seven brave souls into his arms.
- Mike Wachowiak RELAYING THE TRAGIC REPORTAs I left the office for lunch, our receptionist announced the Challenger had exploded and all astronauts on the mission had died.

When I reached the cafeteria, I took a glass of iced tea and sat down at a table with a co-worker. He was a retired Air Force pilot with service in Korea and Vietnam. He acknowledged my presence and asked if I had any fresh news about the Challenger, because he was following it closely.

As I gave him the tragic report, he stopped eating and reached for a handkerchief. There was nothing I could offer as he left the building, but I knew his understanding of the tragedy was deeper than mine. Because on many a mission he too had flown alone at the top of our atmosphere protected only by a thin metal cockpit and God.
- John G. Kelley Jr., Macon FADED DREAMS AND TEARSI was in the sixth grade in Scottsdale, Ariz. There was a lot of media coverage surrounding the teacher on board. As children, we felt so included in the process. It was such an exciting journey that we were about to take vicariously through her.

Soon after, I wrote a poem in remembrance and memorized it:
Effort, hard work and devotion was put in
Then came the blast, as sudden as the wind
The crowds were hushed, the smiles wore thin
Sound had been altered to the drop of a pin.
Amidst the smoke and pieces of debris
faded dreams and tears were all that could be seen
In the backs of our minds, they're remembered still
The starbound seven who were tragically killed.
- Erin Nelson, Warner Robins WE ALMOST WONDERED IF WHAT WE FIRST SAW AS TRULY REALThe day the Challenger exploded my son Chris and I were working on a model in front of the TV. Chris was home sick from school.

As the Challenger lifted and then exploded, we were shocked. We almost wondered if what we first saw as truly real. As they focused on the family members of the astronauts, they said from mission control, "the vehicle has disintegrated." Chris and I were heartbroken.

Eventually, we had to stop watching. At the time, Chris was in the third grade, and until he was a junior in high school, his dream was to be an aeronautical engineer.

Yes, the Challenger exploding, the loss of lives, of dreams, the first teacher in space, had a tremendous impact on us, on our lives. I will always pray during these missions, and I will never take success for granted.
- Gloria Hood, Macon ALL WE COULD SEE WAS SMOKEI was in high school and we had a snow day, so a couple of us had decided to have a sleepover at a friend's house. The next morning, her mom turned on the TV to make sure we all got to see the launch. Being teenagers, we went along with it knowing we'd really rather be watching something else. But her mom was the kind of person who made you think about things, and we all realized that history would be happening right in front of our eyes.

We gathered in front of the TV, counting down to zero with the voice from mission control. The shuttle took off and we were all mesmerized. The news camera panned away from the rising shuttle for 1-2 seconds and then all of a sudden, we heard the announcer say that the shuttle had "experienced a major malfunction."

The camera then went immediately back to the sky and all we could see was smoke. The announcer was fumbling for the right words, and then they finally replayed the view from the camera that had been filming the shuttle the whole time. The living room was silent as we stared at the TV in disbelief. There were no words to describe what we saw. For the rest of the day, we talked about how we couldn't believe what had happened. I also remember feeling very sad - a day off from school was never the same after that.

As I watched the Columbia shuttle attempt to land in 2003, my mind began to wander back to that day when I was in high school. It was like a bad dream. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Only this time, I was grown and the magnitude of the situation overtook me, and I started to cry. I called my friend's mom later that day and told her what I had been thinking about. She didn't remember that we had all been gathered in front of the TV for the Challenger launch and the tragedy that followed.

We reminisced for a while about that day, and then we talked some about the footage of the Columbia explosion that was being shown on TV at the time. And I remember feeling very sad, just like I did on that cold morning in 1986.
- Traci Polk, Warner Robins PAIN OF LOSS STILL FELTI was in the sixth grade in Elkhart, Ind., eating lunch in the cafeteria when the principal made the announcement that the Challenger exploded. The room was deadly quiet afterward. Looking back, I do not remember feeling anything, but now when I see the photos and video I can feel the pain of the loss.

Compiled by staff writer Chuck Thompson

Ellie

thedrifter
01-28-06, 07:00 AM
January 24, 2006
Space Program Disasters Help Chart Its Future
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

Anniversaries of the three most somber milestones in the American program of human spaceflight are clustered in the days ahead. Each in its own tragic way represents a pivotal moment in space exploration. The two most recent disasters continue to haunt the program with lost momentum and persistent doubts about its value and future direction.

Thirty-nine years ago, on Jan. 27, 1967, the three astronauts of Apollo 1 lost their lives in a fire on the launching pad. The training accident set back the successful attainment of the goal to land men on the Moon by the end of the decade, but did not prevent it.

Twenty years ago, on Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all on board, including a schoolteacher. The disaster was all the more stunning because it occurred in full view of the crowds at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and of millions watching on television. It was more than two and a half years before another shuttle flew.

Three years ago, on Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on its return from orbit, killing the seven astronauts. It was again two and a half years before a shuttle returned to orbit, and it encountered a potentially disastrous problem. Although the mission was completed safely, flights were again suspended, and are not expected to resume earlier than May.

At a news conference last week at Cape Canaveral, Fla., Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, acknowledged that "this is a time to think about those kinds of losses." He compared those experiences "surrounded by black crepe" with the many setbacks in the early days of air transportation.

"I think that is the perspective with which we have to look at our losses in spaceflight," Dr. Griffin said. "We are, as fallible and flawed human beings, trying very hard to learn how to do something very, very difficult to do."

But some experts outside the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say the program of human spaceflight has never really recovered from the Challenger disaster. Even before 1986, the shuttles had failed to live up to expectations as reliable and cost-effective reusable vehicles for carrying crews and cargo into orbit.

"The shuttle could never do what the agency tried to make it do, and so they traded off safety," said Alex Roland, a former NASA historian who is a professor of history at Duke University. "I don't blame the managers; they were presented with an impossible job."

The immediate flaw in the booster rockets that ignited the Challenger explosion was fixed, Dr. Roland and other critics say, but not the systemic engineering and management shortcomings.

"The proof is the Columbia accident," Dr. Roland said, noting that engineers had had warnings on prior flights of the fuel tank debris that damaged the shuttle wing and led to the craft's fatal disintegration.

"There was enormous pressure on the managers and they just kept flying with the problem, even though they could not explain why it was happening," he said. "The law of averages caught up on Columbia."

John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said human spaceflight had never recovered from the decision to build the program around the shuttles and then the International Space Station, the orbiting platform assembled and maintained mainly by shuttles.

"NASA is attempting now to recover from 35 years that in many ways were a dead end," Dr. Logsdon said. "That was not NASA's mistake, but the country's, the national leadership's."

It took two disasters - the Challenger and then the Columbia - to shock the White House and Congress into trying to redirect the program, Dr. Logsdon said.

Two years ago, the Bush administration announced an ambitious "vision of space exploration" plan to phase out the shuttles by 2010, while developing more reliable replacement vehicles based on the latest technology. The stated goal is to have them ready by 2012. Their main purpose is to return people to the Moon and, eventually, to take them to Mars.

Dr. Logsdon said he was cautiously optimistic. "All along, we should have been exploring and continuing the momentum of Apollo," he said.

Dr. Roland and other critics are skeptical. "The announcement was a piece of election year rhetoric," he said. "It's not going to happen, not the way it has started. All the big money for the program will have to come after Bush leaves office."

But advisers close to Dr. Griffin and a former agency official say the NASA administrator believes that the shuttle is a dangerous vehicle and is committed to finding a replacement and a new mission. After the Challenger, they recalled, there was no such new vision.

With the anniversaries of past setbacks, Dr. Griffin said, "It's a tough job, and the losses that we have sustained so far reflect the difficulty of the challenge and our limitations as human beings as we try to invent a new technology."

Ellie