Anything Left To Say?
Feb. 2nd, 2003 05:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteI've looked at my friends' entries. They've said it all. Or at least they've said enough. I can only say my feelings.
First, shock, as the rabbi announced it in shul, having heard it from a congregant with an alarm clock. Next came the speculation, the noise from people who thought that Stinger missiles could move that fast, the news that something may have gone wrong on takeoff. It didn't help that the rabbi, already reeling from a news story that his rabbinical mentor may have been part of a cover-up of sorts 15 years ago, made some melodramatic comments of his own. I suspect, of course, that a Trekkie may take this seriously when other rabbis don't
Then the long day of silence, compounded by the long if happy wait for news of Batya's sister impending third child. Somehow, I napped without trouble. Then shabbos at last ended, and we had news. News of a boy, and news of the accident.
More feelings. Relief of a strange kind that the cause was "just" an accident, but sadness coming closer as I learned names I should have known. I used to know the astronauts' names on every mission. Now, even my enthusiasm has lost something. But I knew Col. Ramon's name. I felt a sadness for the State of Isarael, battered so often by so much, and now this. Pride becomes sadness.
At the same time, the grief was not like it was for Challenger. Part of it was perspective. Alas, after 9/11 and before a war, this doesn't seem as huge, painful as it may be. And after Challenger, I always knew sometihng would happen again. I never stopped holding my breath for these missions, and I never trusted those heat tiles, and I never stopped wondering how small NASA's budget could be and still be safe. Beyond all that, I'm not 17 and innocent anymore. Challenger was the first national tragedy to hit me like that and I was young and not jaded. Jading helps you live, a little.
But still I mourn. I mourn the astronauts. I mourn the space program, likely to contract again. I mourn the future we might never see, as I wonder if space travel will ever be safe. And I mourn the Columbia, flagship of the fleet, a ship that probably put on more miles than any flying machine every built (aside from the Salyut and Mir space stations). I always hoped that Columbia would find its way to a museum, for the ages to marvel at. Alas, not to be.
I still remain hopeful that the space program will endure, but it will take time. The current president never once visited Johnson Space Center as governor of Texas. Money is tight, and we are in a time of great travails and tight budgets. But someday, the dreams will come true. Someday, we will make sure that the price these seven, and the Challenger Seven, and Grissom and Chaffee and White, paid is not in vain.
But for now, we mourn. But we still look the stars as the clouds part.
First, shock, as the rabbi announced it in shul, having heard it from a congregant with an alarm clock. Next came the speculation, the noise from people who thought that Stinger missiles could move that fast, the news that something may have gone wrong on takeoff. It didn't help that the rabbi, already reeling from a news story that his rabbinical mentor may have been part of a cover-up of sorts 15 years ago, made some melodramatic comments of his own. I suspect, of course, that a Trekkie may take this seriously when other rabbis don't
Then the long day of silence, compounded by the long if happy wait for news of Batya's sister impending third child. Somehow, I napped without trouble. Then shabbos at last ended, and we had news. News of a boy, and news of the accident.
More feelings. Relief of a strange kind that the cause was "just" an accident, but sadness coming closer as I learned names I should have known. I used to know the astronauts' names on every mission. Now, even my enthusiasm has lost something. But I knew Col. Ramon's name. I felt a sadness for the State of Isarael, battered so often by so much, and now this. Pride becomes sadness.
At the same time, the grief was not like it was for Challenger. Part of it was perspective. Alas, after 9/11 and before a war, this doesn't seem as huge, painful as it may be. And after Challenger, I always knew sometihng would happen again. I never stopped holding my breath for these missions, and I never trusted those heat tiles, and I never stopped wondering how small NASA's budget could be and still be safe. Beyond all that, I'm not 17 and innocent anymore. Challenger was the first national tragedy to hit me like that and I was young and not jaded. Jading helps you live, a little.
But still I mourn. I mourn the astronauts. I mourn the space program, likely to contract again. I mourn the future we might never see, as I wonder if space travel will ever be safe. And I mourn the Columbia, flagship of the fleet, a ship that probably put on more miles than any flying machine every built (aside from the Salyut and Mir space stations). I always hoped that Columbia would find its way to a museum, for the ages to marvel at. Alas, not to be.
I still remain hopeful that the space program will endure, but it will take time. The current president never once visited Johnson Space Center as governor of Texas. Money is tight, and we are in a time of great travails and tight budgets. But someday, the dreams will come true. Someday, we will make sure that the price these seven, and the Challenger Seven, and Grissom and Chaffee and White, paid is not in vain.
But for now, we mourn. But we still look the stars as the clouds part.
