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RIP Columbia
Feb. 1st, 2003 03:25 pmI was in the sixth grade when the Challenger blew up. I was at home and my brother came running down the stairs and told us to turn on the TV.
I was at work today (still am) when the radio started reporting the news about the shuttle.
Child of the media that I am, I couldn't help but think of Apollo 13, which I know more of based on movies than on the reality of it, and the thought "They lost contact there too, right? It could be okay, right?"
Funny how things like this can turn us into children.
There were those who complained during 9/11 that people only cared because it was thousands who died. And you know what? That's not true. I cry for these 7 as I cried for those thousands. Because they were people and their lives were cut short.
I'm not enough of a scifi or even scifact geek to know much about the space program. I tend to approach these things from a different angle. I can't tell you exact facts about the space missions but I can tell you that they represent hope, they represent our future. I look at that female crew member and think - go us. I think of the Israeli crewman and think - you know, Star Trek wasn't that far off. Maybe out there we are all equals, and all this petty earth bullshit doesn't matter.
Sometime in the future we're all going to be going up there. Taking vacations, living on other planets, maybe even telling stories to our kids about what that "Earth" thing was that we lived on so long ago. And it's because of guys like this. People who literally went out there in the 21st century versions of those tiny boats that people used to cross the ocean and find new land and put their lives on the line just so that huge, terrifying emptiness of space could be visited, known, and made less scary.
Go them.
I was at work today (still am) when the radio started reporting the news about the shuttle.
Child of the media that I am, I couldn't help but think of Apollo 13, which I know more of based on movies than on the reality of it, and the thought "They lost contact there too, right? It could be okay, right?"
Funny how things like this can turn us into children.
There were those who complained during 9/11 that people only cared because it was thousands who died. And you know what? That's not true. I cry for these 7 as I cried for those thousands. Because they were people and their lives were cut short.
I'm not enough of a scifi or even scifact geek to know much about the space program. I tend to approach these things from a different angle. I can't tell you exact facts about the space missions but I can tell you that they represent hope, they represent our future. I look at that female crew member and think - go us. I think of the Israeli crewman and think - you know, Star Trek wasn't that far off. Maybe out there we are all equals, and all this petty earth bullshit doesn't matter.
Sometime in the future we're all going to be going up there. Taking vacations, living on other planets, maybe even telling stories to our kids about what that "Earth" thing was that we lived on so long ago. And it's because of guys like this. People who literally went out there in the 21st century versions of those tiny boats that people used to cross the ocean and find new land and put their lives on the line just so that huge, terrifying emptiness of space could be visited, known, and made less scary.
Go them.
