Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger

[Echnaton]

Another startling visual from Columbia was the video of the breakup. WFAA, a Dallas TV station had a cameraman up early to record the flyover.  He recorded what was obviously the disintegration of Columbia with heartbreaking flashes as the orbiter broke into smaller and smaller fragments.

[ka9q]

At home in New Jersey, I was apparently one of only a few people to see the Challenger accident live on CNN. I had seen the STS-9 launch in person just over 2 years earlier, and I still tried to see as many on TV as I could. Only CNN still carried them live.

Since I didn't know what was going to happen, the really eerie part was the launch commentator's routine announcement of position and velocity right after the breakup. Evidently he was reading numbers off a monitor before looking at the TV to realize what had happened. The conflict between what I saw and heard was utterly surreal; for a few seconds I actually wondered which of my senses was hallucinating until the comment "obviously a major malfunction" put them back in sync.

I didn't hear about the Columbia disaster until I got a phone call from my dad. I had considered getting up to watch the entry, but I figured it was too far north of San Diego and the weather too cloudy to make it worth trying so I slept through it.


 

[Echnaton]

Major Malfunction by Keith Leblanc

[gillianren]

Ohhhh...I think I get it now...it's a condition that typically resolves itself after approximately 38 weeks then?

Well, they call it forty from when they start counting, but they start counting two weeks before onset, yes.

I remember my wife being not too pleased to find "ELDERLY PRIMIP" written prominently on the notes at the end of her hospital bed.

Hope all is going well for you.

Yeah, I'm fine.  I don't have the "PRIMIP" part, if I'm getting what it stands for right, but after almost sixteen years, I might as well.

Hmm.  Actually, I wonder if my daughter remembers Columbia.  Probably not; she was a bit younger then than I was for Challenger.  I may ask her, though.

[LunarOrbit]

I think your daughter would be fortunate to not have memories from 2001 and 2003.

[Not Myself]

I think your daughter would be fortunate to not have memories from 2001 and 2003.

Or any other year.

[gillianren]

It's one of the few things I regret about the adoption; I don't talk to her very often, so I never have talks with her about memories.  Or history.  Or anything along those lines.  I talk to her once a year, and it's mostly about what she's been doing over the previous year and how she's doing in school.

[ipearse]

The Challenger disaster was during the final year of my degree. I'd left the Poly (Polytechnic - now it's a University) during the afternoon as I had a gap in my lectures. Got back around 6 for an evening Electronics class and the topic of discussion as people were coming in was the explosion of a Shuttle. That was the first I'd heard of it. It was a real shock, especially when I finally saw the news late that night. You could see from the explosion on the video that no-one was going to come out of it. A very black day that was. Columbia I don't remember as vividly, but I will forever see in my minds' eye the vapour trails in the sky of the debris as it came down, and the reports of the finding of the debris. Given the number of flights and the miles flown, I often think it was amazing there weren't more incidents.

[Noldi400]

Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now, though my doctor reminding me that I am considered "of advanced age" in my appointment this afternoon didn't help.

If it makes you feel better, I was almost 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon....

The fact that I missed the Moon landings is pretty much the only thing that makes me wish I was just a little bit older.

Well, hey, maybe you'll still be around when they "really" land on the moon...

[Noldi400]

Ohhhh...I think I get it now...it's a condition that typically resolves itself after approximately 38 weeks then?

Well, they call it forty from when they start counting, but they start counting two weeks before onset, yes.

I remember my wife being not too pleased to find "ELDERLY PRIMIP" written prominently on the notes at the end of her hospital bed.

Hope all is going well for you.

Yeah, I'm fine.  I don't have the "PRIMIP" part, if I'm getting what it stands for right, but after almost sixteen years, I might as well.

Hmm.  Actually, I wonder if my daughter remembers Columbia.  Probably not; she was a bit younger then than I was for Challenger.  I may ask her, though.

Generally, first baby or first pregnancy.

Wow, finally a medical question. I know how you feel when you get to correct someone's grammar.

[gillianren]

Right.  That's what I thought it was.  I'm looking at this pregnancy as a science experiment; how much does it react like a first one, and how much does it react like a second?

[gtvc]

Challenger I was in High School in my country, when I returned home my father told me about Challenger he was listening the radio later we watch the international news in Tv, Columbia I was in Florida Fort Lauderdale.