Tragedy Strikes and Space Becomes Scary again

You don't always need an anniversary date to remember a tragedy. And 28 years ago was a tragedy for the United States Space Program that still has not recovered from it. Their Space Program has gone backwards. And then just as we thought it was starting to right itself, another Space Shuttle explosion and again we are relegated to sitting back and waiting.

Space appears no longer to be sexy, it appears to be boring, meaningless, and a waste of money. NASA no longer has any shuttles at all goimg up, the program has been scrubbed. They are now working on a new ship supposedly, but the fact remains that the US Government has it's own financial woes and it is barely giving NASA any money though it is a government program. And I get it. There are bigger things in the world to worry about but it still sucks. I am a space nut, I find space fascinating, and apparently there are plenty of people that still do. Space Telescopes are continuing to photograph gorgeous sights, land based telescopes are discovering millions of new planets, the Mars rover missions are still going strong. Next year 2015 we will get our first ever close up look of Pluto formerly known as the 9th planet, which in itself is a travesty, to me it is still a planet. We are sending probes to Comets, asteroids, we are continuing to discover things about Mars, and Mercury, and Ceres, and Saturn. We are planning tons of missions to planets. Just none that are going to be manned by humans. And that's fine. Because now a seperate entity is creating a media event about sending people to Mars, there is a competition that millions of people entered to be the first people on Mars, though they will never come back. The interest is still out there, it's just we are in a holding pattern, and it all goes back to January 28, 1986.

I was in 7th grade at Dumbarton Middle School. I remember it was lunch and me and a couple of buddies were eating and joking around when someone told us what had happened. I found out later that one of the teachers in the school was showing it to his class since Krista MaCalliff (sp) was going to be the first teacher sent into space. It was a big deal. She was not an astronaut, she was a teacher and she was chosen from a wide-ranging competition. So of course teachers wanted to watch it one of their own was going up into space, living her dream. But tragedy struck, Challenger exploded after take off did not even make it into space. All on board were killed. Later it was discovered to be a defective O-Ring that NASA had been warned about. So they shut down the program for what seemed like years. Now my friends and I did not believe it, this was before the internet, before everyone had cell phones so we had no way of checking to see if it was true. So we started joking about it, and kept saying it could never happen. And I still not believe it through the rest of my day. But i wanted to be sure so when I got home i turned on CNN and sure enough BOOM there it was. I was shocked. I could not look away from it.

It was a rough time for the space program, and shortly afterwards the jokes started coming. Tasteless jokes about the astronauts. And I will admit i laughed at some of them. But on retrospect from a 40 year old perspective, I probably would've smacked myself upside my head and told me to shut up. This was a tragedy, not something to joke about. To my credit, I stopped laughing at the jokes a few months later.

So now it is 28 years later. I see no mention of it on social media. Granted I have not been on Social media all that much today, but I assume we will see very little about it. Maybe more may pick up later this year when one of the cable channels premieres a docu-drama on the explosion. And of course in 2 years we will probably get the huge anniversary stories about it. 30 years. But it is still a tragedy, it is still something we should mention. It almost killed Space Exploration, it did however make everyone very cautious, overly cautious in some cases. I guarantee you. This does not happen, we are on Mars now. BUT it did happen and now NASA is saying we should have people on Mars by the 2030s, maybe by 2036 which would be the 50h anniversary of the explosion. 50 years it took us to get over it. But there is no guarantee on that. Never forget. Hopefully this will keep the story in everyone's mind and hopefully a bigger deal will be made of it in 2 years. By then we should have great pictures of Pluto, and maybe more info about other planets as well, maybe a new class of space vehicle will be created by then as well. Why not name the first one Challenger? It's an homage that would be nice. RIP guys, I know your families are thinking of you today. Just be aware that I am as well.

Space: the Forgotton Frontier

Got an email from my sister today. It was about the declining health of my Grandmother. The only one I have left. But after letting me know some news, she switched gears on me and told me she was lucky enough to see the Space Shuttle fly over her school on it's way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I thought that was kind of cool and it got me thinking about Space, and my own encounters with the Space Shuttle.

I remember the first time it launched, back around 82 I believe, maybe before. However my friend Michael Leavitt was either over my house to play or we had a sleepover that night. I think he just came over to play because I don't remember having too many sleepovers. Anyway we were playing the boardgame Clue on my dining room table in the house I grew up in when my folks called us into watch the launch of the first Space Shuttle. Space had always fascinated me and soon after that I subscribed to the space magazine Odyssey. It mesmerized me and excited me because I always loved space and space exploration. Found it fascinating. Still do now a days though there really is not too much of it going on.

Another Space Shuttle memory. I was in Middle School playing intramural touchball which was a very cool sport that was a combination of many sports that I don't think exists anymore. Anyway my team was awesome and we were playing on one of the lower fields of Dumbarton Middle School. When someone noticed something in the sky. It was a giant plane carrying the Space Shuttle. It flew over us to destination Florida I guess but it was a massive sight. Then 1986 happened.

I was still in Middle School at the time when January 28, 1986 happened. This day alone is probably what sent the space program reeling and it has never recovered. On that day the first teacher ever was going to rocket into space for a full shuttle mission thus giving ordinary people a chance to go into space. However tragedy struck and the shuttle exploded soon after liftoff killing all on board. The Shuttle missions were shut down for at least a year and a half while investigations went on. Now I was in the cafeteria when the rumor started circulating. Apparently one of the teachers was playing the launch in their classroom. Me and my buddies heard rumors that such a thing happened but we had no proof. So we started talking about how that was impossible. And that it never happened. Then we found out for sure it did. I don't think we got out of school early, but I remember going home and watching the constant replay over and over again.  I also recall on February 1, 2003 when Shuttle Columbia exploded as it was returning from space. I had it on with my wife in our apartment. I think we were on our way to her folks house for a visit when we put it on.  So I have lived through 2 shuttle disasters.

Now the Shuttle is gone. No more missions. And to be honest the missions were boring routine things. Nothing exciting like going to the Moon or Venus or Mars. Just orbiting the earth. And I guess that is fine, but the fact is we have not landed on the moon since the early 70s and we have a few robots and satelites visiting other worlds. But no real talk of of re-visiting the moon or going to Mars. And Space has now become boring. Our space program now is hanging on by a thread because of the situation in Washington and many people saying it is a waste of money to go explore Space when there are so many other problems to solve on Earth. I get it, I do. But we are explorers. Always have been. The Geeks and Nerds are the hot things now, and yet we cannot get money to explore or build new spacecraft. Or even look into new forms of fuel or types of travel so we can explore Space. And the excitement of space exploration is disappearing fast. Soon we will never do any exploring of space and that is sad.

I love space, I love Earth also, but I also believe we should get back to Space being the Final Frontier. Someplace mysterious and scary, and dangerous. I would like to see humans on Mars or Titan. I would love to see more exploration of our solar system. 2014 is going to be huge when we get our first views of Pluto which to me is still a planet, scientists be damned. That is exciting stuff man. i'd like to see more pics of Mars or Mercury, or Titan, all of which have satelites exploring them. I love space and hope that there are enough people out there to get us jumpstarted back on the space highway. Maybe when the aliens come in December 2012 we will then decide, hey maybe we should keep exploring space. Science fact is as interesting as Science fiction.