A rough week!
If you are a space geek like we are this date ends a rough seven day patch in the history of the United States space program!
It was just Friday, February first that we commemorated the lost of the space shuttle Columbia just ten years ago. And, it was the twenty seventh of January that we remember the loss of the three Apollo astronauts in a fire that consumed the interior of their capsule as they tried to exit the craft through the complicated procedures then in place to remove them from a highly flammable environment that was soon corrected so that it would never happen again. And, of course, it was the twenty eighth of January that we remember the space shuttle Challenger loss that took the lives of eight astronauts including Christa McAuliffe , the first school teacher into space.
It has been noted that the two space shuttle loses were related to the cold weather experienced at Cape Kennedy at the time of the launches that affected the performance of the craft and caused their demise. What is not so easily noted is the fact that the week beginning on January twenty seventh and ending on February third is just not a good time to fly manned craft into space as the disasters ranged from 1966 on through 2003 and seemed to be centered around temperature extremes in most of the cases. Florida is generally a warm place to fly from but winter does seem to drift south on some occasions and the lives of fifteen brave souls were snuffed out as a direct result of it. It has been rumored but not confirmed that there is an unwritten rule now in place at NASA that prohibits any manned events during a ten day window surrounding this crucial seven day period of time.
We were sixteen years old and attending a basketball game in the neighboring state of Missouri when we first heard about the fire at the Cape that had took the lives of three astronauts including Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury seven astronauts. Grissom had been the unlucky one who had his Mercury capsule sink out from under him after splashdown and he had never really ever lived that loss down. They found the capsule on the ocean floor and raised it a few years ago, reviving memories of the event, but Grissom’s name would be among the first to go on the memorial of those lost attempting to blaze a trail into space atop those glowing rockets that have marked the signature of east central Florida for so many years now.
Perhaps the most personal loss for us was the Columbia disaster that occurred just ten years ago on February first. Columbia was the oldest of the shuttles and she was regarded as the grand dame of the entire fleet. She had not been flown as often as some of the newer craft but it was always thought that she would end up at the Smithsonian Institutions Air and Space Museum when her flying days ended as the perfect representative for future generations of this time in the history of space travel. It was particularly hurtful for us to see the last shuttle flight end and the shuttles taken by air to their final destinations and to know that Columbia would not be among them. And, it was sad to know that the loss of Columbia just ten years ago began the long climax of the shuttle program that ended just last year. If the old lady had not been lost perhaps they might have flown a few years longer but they had fulfilled their goal of building a permanent station in space and so much more with their tremendous lifting capacity. We are not likely to see their kind again during our lifetimes unless one might be very young and the future of the whole program now appears to be turning on private enterprise to fill the gaps that a government overburdened with debt no longer wishes to maintain.
There has been progress in the private launches of spacecraft and one capable of carrying astronauts to the space station has seen two successful launches and a capture by the International Space Station (ISS) that included supplies that bodes well for the extended future of man in space. It has been noted by the Russians in particular that their only remaining relevance in space might be in jeopardy when these private contractors begin ferrying people into space as that is the only thing that the Russians can currently do that the United States cannot. The American efforts seem to always be plagued by these periods out of the ability to carry people into space when some astronauts decide that it is time to leave the space program and this causes a loss of continuity that is not always good for the program. There are plans afoot to take American astronauts either to Mars or to the asteroid belt but there are also problems with those efforts at much longer space journeys. Male astronauts aboard the ISS have experienced problems with their vision when they return from four to six month stints aboard the station and it is feared that this might jeopardize their ability to make these much longer journeys outside of the earths atmosphere. This might, however, create an opening for female astronauts who are not bothered by these vision problems! Space is a new world and the old rules and hierarchies seemingly might not apply there as they have for ages here on earth. And, so, as we remember the deaths of people such as Christa McAuliffe in 1986 in her attempts to be the first teacher in space, we might contemplate a time when only women can take us on these ultimate journeys and what lessons that might hold for all of us!
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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