Everyone knows where they were when they heard that Kennedy (pick one) had been shot, or when John Lennon died. I have vivid memories of when Reagan took a bullet. And I remember quite well hearing about the space shuttle Challenger.
It's been twenty-five years now.
I've been fascinated with space exploration since I was old enough to comprehend it. I was five when we landed on the moon. I know I wasn't up in the middle of the night to watch it, but I remember watching the next day. I collected the official Apollo patches for each mission. They came in loaves of white bread. My mother sewed them all onto a blue jacket that I treasured. I wish I still had it. Try getting something that cool with your bread now.
Apollo was man's crowning achievement. At least till the iPod. SkyLab and the shuttle were a sad denouement. I still followed closely, but the sheer boredom of it was hard to deny. We were spoiled.
In 1986, I was still a newlywed. We came home from morning classes at the university, and flipped on the TV, probably looking for The Price Is Right. Instead, we saw Dan Rather choking up, showing the same awful footage over and over. The event was less than an hour old. It was bound to happen sometime, given the quantity of launches and the mediocrity of the vehicle. Still, it was shocking, especially for one who held astronauts in such high regard. If I won the lottery, I'm not sure whether starting transition or buying a seat on a rocket would come first on my to-do list. Gawd, I'd love to go to space.
NASA still does cool things, like the Mars rovers, but space travel just ain't as grand as it was when I was a kid. Challenger brought that all back to me yesterday.
A wood and two roads
11 hours ago
When I was a child, designing spaceships and then writing stories about their adventures was my thing. I think I craved the fantasy of escaping from what seemed like a world full of hostile people. Luckily, my mother was a science fiction fanatic so there were plenty of books to prop up my obsession.
ReplyDeleteIn England, we had official Apollo stickers instead of patches, and they came sealed inside packs of sausages. I'd forgotten all about that until I read your post. Thanks for triggering my memories. :)
Frighteningly I think there's a 1 in 60 chance of "negative mission outcome" on the shuttle. Those odds are not good if you are riding the box of styrofoam bricks, strapped to the largest reservoir of flammable material in the civilan world.
ReplyDeleteFor all that I'd go up without hesitation given the chance.
NASA has a lot of faults but it still inspires.
PS The word verification was ... "he ness" (is blogger trying to tell me something?)
I remember sitting open-mouthed in my mother's Austin Allegro as I was being driven home from school, listening to the report on BBC Radio 4.
ReplyDeleteI know the surviving Apollo astronauts have expressed disappointment at the lost opportunity post-Apollo, they saw us being on Mars by now. But the technical achievements since should not be discounted. Mir and the ISS may seem unexciting, but if we are ever to boldly go we will have to be able to do so in craft that are able to withstand many years in space.