Just to remember the loss of seven brilliant human beings.
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Cheers, Grace. I've wanted to post something on this all day, and couldn't find the words...
It took me back to the day the Challenger exploded. I had just come in from a doctor's appointment, 9 1/2 months pregnant with Number 1 son, and saw those awful plumes on the television screen...
Horrible for the families, and a bad blow to the US space program.
vch
Horrible for the families, and a bad blow to the US space program.
vch
I am saddened by this aswell I dont remember the challenger since i was only 2 but only by a day but i did do a study at school once and just 2 days ago i ended up reading a book on disasters which had the challenger in it.
7 people have made this world proud by giving us new things to think about when it comes to space, they have given us new discoveries that only an amzing astronaugt could give us. They risk their lives so we can get a better understanding of space and our own planet and now we have lost those 7 great minds. I really hope that nothing like this happens ever again, noone should have to go through that ever. May they rest in peace.
Yesterday was such a sad day.
I got to work at 9 AM and immediately heard that they'd lost contact wtih the shuttle. For the rest of the day, I refreshed CNN.com, getting more and more heart-wrenching details.
The world is in such short supply of heroes and role models, but for me, astronauts have consistently represented the best of the best of humankind. Smart, determined, phenomenally courageous, and worthy of great respect. They all work so hard for so long to get where they are.
In 6th grade, I watched the Challenger blow up while standing outside my classroom and looking up at the sky. Just watching the film yesterday of the shuttle breaking apart was enough flood me again with emotion. Such a tragedy.
I got to work at 9 AM and immediately heard that they'd lost contact wtih the shuttle. For the rest of the day, I refreshed CNN.com, getting more and more heart-wrenching details.
The world is in such short supply of heroes and role models, but for me, astronauts have consistently represented the best of the best of humankind. Smart, determined, phenomenally courageous, and worthy of great respect. They all work so hard for so long to get where they are.
In 6th grade, I watched the Challenger blow up while standing outside my classroom and looking up at the sky. Just watching the film yesterday of the shuttle breaking apart was enough flood me again with emotion. Such a tragedy.
My father worked for NASA around the time I was born (1972)... I grew up around stories of the Apollo missions (apparently nobody at my dad's tracking station slept for over two weeks during the Apollo 13 crisis), and the space shuttle captured the imagination of my whole family. We had scale models (like the model planes you can buy in kits) of the shuttle Columbia, both by itself and piggybacked on a 747 jet... and I spent months drawing pictures of that spacecraft, back in 1981.
Again, like others of you, I recall the tragedy of the Challenger disaster. I dreamt of it, the night it happened (I lived in Australia back then, and it was night-time there when we got that sad news... I guess I must have heard it in my sleep, on the radio I kept by my bed... when I woke up the next morning and found out it had really happened, well, it was eerie!)...
My husband was reading online news reports yesterday afternoon about the Columbia, and he happened to mention "Isn't it strange? Around this time of the year is when Challenger happened to go down. In fact, it says here that a few days ago, the Columbia crew held a memorial for Challenger..." - and right then I just lost it. I just started to sob my heart out for those seven brave souls... may they rest in peace...
Again, like others of you, I recall the tragedy of the Challenger disaster. I dreamt of it, the night it happened (I lived in Australia back then, and it was night-time there when we got that sad news... I guess I must have heard it in my sleep, on the radio I kept by my bed... when I woke up the next morning and found out it had really happened, well, it was eerie!)...
My husband was reading online news reports yesterday afternoon about the Columbia, and he happened to mention "Isn't it strange? Around this time of the year is when Challenger happened to go down. In fact, it says here that a few days ago, the Columbia crew held a memorial for Challenger..." - and right then I just lost it. I just started to sob my heart out for those seven brave souls... may they rest in peace...
Eeeww. Double post. I NEVER do that...
A very sad time. Uncannily, I put on Peter Gabriel's latest CD, Up, today and found myself listening to the last track, a lovely piano-led track called "The Drop". The words speak for themselves:
moving down the fuselage
toward the open door
catch you looking down outside
to see what lies ahead
one by one
you watch them fall
fall through cloud
one by one
you watch them fall
no idea where they're going
but down
where they've gone
where they've gone
watching as the sun goes down
i sit inside this plane
notice how the city lights
are like the nerves inside the brain
one by one
they're going out
you watch them dim
one by one
you watch them fall
and wonder where they're falling to
moving down the fuselage
toward the open door
catch you looking down outside
to see what lies ahead
one by one
you watch them fall
fall through cloud
one by one
you watch them fall
no idea where they're going
but down
where they've gone
where they've gone
watching as the sun goes down
i sit inside this plane
notice how the city lights
are like the nerves inside the brain
one by one
they're going out
you watch them dim
one by one
you watch them fall
and wonder where they're falling to
This is another tragedy that seems so surreal.
Asking yourself if it really happened and knowing it really did.
I, for one, wasn't "comforted" by Bush's words..in fact, I tried to NOT watch anything with him in it (as usual).
Asking yourself if it really happened and knowing it really did.
I, for one, wasn't "comforted" by Bush's words..in fact, I tried to NOT watch anything with him in it (as usual).
Rest In Peace, those gifted souls. May family and friends of those lost, find serenity in the honor they represented to humankind.
In watching all the coverage this weekend, and especially seeing interviews with the astronauts, it once again brings home the fact that astronauts truly are special people.
They are brilliant scientists, physically in top shape, and the thing that I noticed the most about them, is the sparkle in their eyes because they love what they do so much...
They know what they do is dangerous, but you can tell they love it to the core of their being. It's sad that this job they love so much can be so dangerous that they can be gone in the snap of your fingers....
May they rest in peace...
They are brilliant scientists, physically in top shape, and the thing that I noticed the most about them, is the sparkle in their eyes because they love what they do so much...
They know what they do is dangerous, but you can tell they love it to the core of their being. It's sad that this job they love so much can be so dangerous that they can be gone in the snap of your fingers....
May they rest in peace...
Deliberately not watching the coverage because it's only a matter of time before the media does more than what is tasteful. (May have happened already but I don't know.)
All I could think about is those 9 children who don't have dads anymore, and about the open letter one of the children of the Challenger astronauts wrote to comfort the children who lost parents in 9/11. She said that "you will have to watch your mom or dad die hundreds of times on TV and you'll never understand why they're doing it.
I turned off the TV.
Heroes in the sky. RIP.
All I could think about is those 9 children who don't have dads anymore, and about the open letter one of the children of the Challenger astronauts wrote to comfort the children who lost parents in 9/11. She said that "you will have to watch your mom or dad die hundreds of times on TV and you'll never understand why they're doing it.
I turned off the TV.
Heroes in the sky. RIP.
Shocking and very sad. It took me back to the Challenger too (I was a junior in high school). But what Ronald Reagan said then still rings true today-- they have "...touched the face of God."