NASA's week of horrible anniversaries
Today is the beginning of NASA's week of horrible anniversaries. On 27 January 1967, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee died in a launch pad fire during an early test of the Apollo system, then known as Apollo/Saturn-204, and later renamed Apollo 1.
On 28 January 1986, 73 seconds after lift-off, the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up, killing the seven-member crew of Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis. While I don't recall Apollo 1, I do remember Challenger: I was in my dorm room, and had a rock station on the stereo. The DJ broke in and said "Again, our top story: the space shuttle blew up on lift-off. Now, back to the music." Being both a space-nut and a staff member at the school newspaper, I ran down to the paper's office, and spent the next several hours reading the AP wire as it came in.
On 1 February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia, returning from a two-week mission, disintegrated in the upper atmosphere, showering pieces over the south central US, and killing the seven-member crew of Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon. This one, too, I remember. The day before, I was on an airplane, flying to Florida for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. I remember passing just east of Cape Kennedy, standing up to look out the windows on the other side of the plane, and pointing out the runway to the fellow seated by the window. "That's where the Space Shuttle is going to land tomorrow," I said. The next morning, I woke up feeling poorly, and didn't have the news on while I was dressing for the Bar Mitzvah. So when I got to the hotel lobby, my father said "Did you hear? Columbia broke up over Texas." My head was stuffed up, so I spent a few seconds trying to parse that statement into something about the nation of Colombia attacking the United States. Then I looked up at the television in the lobby, and realized what he was saying. At the time, I was very involved in the Artemis Project, so I was mourning not only the loss of the crew and the vehicle, but my fears that this would be a major set-back for space programs such as ours. It was a day of conflicted emotions, since all of that was at odds with the joy of the occasion for which we were in Florida.
On 28 January 1986, 73 seconds after lift-off, the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up, killing the seven-member crew of Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis. While I don't recall Apollo 1, I do remember Challenger: I was in my dorm room, and had a rock station on the stereo. The DJ broke in and said "Again, our top story: the space shuttle blew up on lift-off. Now, back to the music." Being both a space-nut and a staff member at the school newspaper, I ran down to the paper's office, and spent the next several hours reading the AP wire as it came in.
On 1 February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia, returning from a two-week mission, disintegrated in the upper atmosphere, showering pieces over the south central US, and killing the seven-member crew of Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon. This one, too, I remember. The day before, I was on an airplane, flying to Florida for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. I remember passing just east of Cape Kennedy, standing up to look out the windows on the other side of the plane, and pointing out the runway to the fellow seated by the window. "That's where the Space Shuttle is going to land tomorrow," I said. The next morning, I woke up feeling poorly, and didn't have the news on while I was dressing for the Bar Mitzvah. So when I got to the hotel lobby, my father said "Did you hear? Columbia broke up over Texas." My head was stuffed up, so I spent a few seconds trying to parse that statement into something about the nation of Colombia attacking the United States. Then I looked up at the television in the lobby, and realized what he was saying. At the time, I was very involved in the Artemis Project, so I was mourning not only the loss of the crew and the vehicle, but my fears that this would be a major set-back for space programs such as ours. It was a day of conflicted emotions, since all of that was at odds with the joy of the occasion for which we were in Florida.