It was twenty years ago that the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. I was 10, and I was in 5th grade. I don’t even really remember if I was watching the launch with my fellow classmates or not. I don’t know if that’s because it was 20 years ago, or if something has blocked my memory of it.
I definately remember watching the TV later that night when I got home, looking at the replays of it on the evening news. It was an exceptionally sad day for me–even at 10 and younger, I watched the Shuttle launch every time. Each time it went up, it was spectacular. Even as a child, I understood that it was an amazing achievement of man and machine, yet without a knowledge of “the real world” much less engineering, I didn’t understand the risks and thus it made the whole experience a bit more confusing for a 10 year old interested in baseball and bikes.
It’s interesting to look back, see the improvements and adjustments made, and notice that a few years after Challenger, we were back flying the shuttles again. Arguably, any space travel has risks, and no matter what improvements are made, mistakes will be found, catastrophic events will continue, and the element of risk will not be eliminated.
It’s been 20 years since Challenger explode, and almost 3 years since Columbia disintegrated over the Western U.S. upon re-entry. Life is not without risk, and space travel is no exception to the rule. The best that can be done is to honor those that risked their lives in the interest of science, and to establish a culture of safety and caucious optimism to limit the chance of major malfunctions on future missions.
I was born in 1975, and soon after that, the Space Shuttle Enterprise made it’s maiden test-flight for aerodynamics, followed by the first flight by the first fully operational shuttle, Columbia in 1981. The remaining shuttles (Discovery, Atlantis & Endeavour) are due to be decomissioned after 2010, until then used soley to fix, maintain, and expand the ISS. In 2010, I’ll be 35. I will have lived through an entire generation of major space successes, and two catostrophic failures. I feel honored to have lived through its birth, its growth, and its presumed passing, when a new space vehicle will begin its life to continue Man’s reach for the stars.
For those that want to continue reading, both MSNBC and CNN have produced interesting and informative pieces celebrating and commemorating the Challenger and its crew. They write about the more human aspects of the disaster, not so much the events themselves. They also talk about myths that people might still believe as root causes of the accident. Below are the links.
CNN.com – Remembering Challenger
MSNBC.com – Twenty Years After Challenger
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God. – Former President Ronald Reagan.