Challenger
It was 25 years ago today. I happened to be at home on leave from the Army at the time. I didn't see the explosion live, but the TV showed it over and over, as they like to do.
Later that year I picked up the newest Jean-Michel Jarre CD "Rendez-Vous" and because I'm a big JMJ fan, I bought it without knowing what was on it. To my astonishment I found this beautiful piece as the concluding track:
(Note to the visually impaired: Sorry about the video embed, but the music is what's important. Visuals are mainly views of Earth from space.)
Translation of the subtitles, according to the YouTube entry:
The song has been composed to be played on a saxophone by Ron McNair aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
It would be the first song played and recorded in space.
The Challenger has been the second shuttle built, after Columbia.
It went to space in 1983, on April 4, for the first time.
Challenger was destroyed in the second minute of STS-51-L, the orbiter's tenth mission, on January 28, 1986. A defect in the fuel tanks caused the Challenger explosion. The explosion happened during the takeoff and all the crew members were killed, including the teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian person that participated on a space flight.
* * *
While on a training assignment in Florida the previous September, I was on the beach at Cocoa Beach when I saw the shuttle carried piggyback on the modified 747 to the Cape. Turns out I had seen Challenger's last successful "flight"
Later that year I picked up the newest Jean-Michel Jarre CD "Rendez-Vous" and because I'm a big JMJ fan, I bought it without knowing what was on it. To my astonishment I found this beautiful piece as the concluding track:
(Note to the visually impaired: Sorry about the video embed, but the music is what's important. Visuals are mainly views of Earth from space.)
Translation of the subtitles, according to the YouTube entry:
The song has been composed to be played on a saxophone by Ron McNair aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
It would be the first song played and recorded in space.
The Challenger has been the second shuttle built, after Columbia.
It went to space in 1983, on April 4, for the first time.
Challenger was destroyed in the second minute of STS-51-L, the orbiter's tenth mission, on January 28, 1986. A defect in the fuel tanks caused the Challenger explosion. The explosion happened during the takeoff and all the crew members were killed, including the teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian person that participated on a space flight.
* * *
While on a training assignment in Florida the previous September, I was on the beach at Cocoa Beach when I saw the shuttle carried piggyback on the modified 747 to the Cape. Turns out I had seen Challenger's last successful "flight"