34 Years Since Challenger

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This week has always been one of tragedy for US manned spaceflight. Yesterday marked 53 years since the Apollo 1 fire. Today marks 34 years since the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, and February 1st will be 17 years since space shuttle Columbia broke apart over Houston during re-entry. I was too young to remember the day, however, it is one close to me because my parents met at Stennis Space Center, NASA's test site, back in the early 80's during the birth stages of the space shuttle program. My father also worked at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on the shuttle fuel tank. He said the first fuel tank he ever touched while working there was STS-6, which was Challenger's first flight. He later switched career paths from mechanical engineering to computer science and left Michoud right before the tragedy took place. As I grew much older, Challenger's commander, Dick Scobee, became one of my heroes, along with the rest of the crew. In fact, it just so happens I am reading the memoir of June Scobee, his wife, right as we speak. President Reagan addressed our mourning nation that day with the following words: "The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them..." with the closing of that address perhaps being the most memorable -- "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" The last words are a reference to a poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr. entitled "High Flight." Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark or even eagle flew -- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. Do you remember Challenger? Where were you and what were you doing on that day?