Comments
Tritiac t1_j62u7d1 wrote
> I will make one more observation - if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space. It is a wonderful planet.
This is something that I think too many of us get lost in because Earth is all we will ever know--there will never be a more perfect place for us. It isn't out there far away in space, it's right here.
Anderopolis t1_j62x23n wrote
See it like growing up, as a Kid we are unseprable from our mom, but as we grow it we move on.
We still love our mom, and we will visits, and make phone calls, but one day, without really noticing, 'Home' becomes where we are, not where we came from.
Earth will always be special to us, but that does not mean we can't or shouldn't grow beyond her.
chaotic----neutral t1_j63bzrh wrote
Well, no. What they're saying is the exact opposite of that. Once we lose this place, we will yearn for it. It will forever be the only place we truly call home; our cradle. We're in the process of changing it irreversibly. The greatest tragedy of human existence is never knowing, and appreciating, what we have until it is gone.
papermulberries t1_j62lkvk wrote
Thank you for sharing this.
HumpaDaBear t1_j62vph7 wrote
He sounded so happy. What a memento.
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ggabitron t1_j62w9cc wrote
Wow, thanks for sharing. It’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming to read his perspective, so inspired and hopeful thinking about returning to earth, knowing what happened.
didyoueatmyshark t1_j63dw8w wrote
This is really beautiful. Thank you for passing it on.
TiredofFatigue96 t1_j64jjir wrote
Dammit, now I'm crying on my lunch break.
That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing!
Jdubshack t1_j64m3zh wrote
That last line was very simple but so moving. Thanks for sharing.
ColShvotz t1_j64svar wrote
Thank you for sharing this.
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graboidian t1_j61w7cc wrote
Story time: I joined the US Air Force as a teen in the mid eighties. I had just completed my Tech training, and had been assigned to my permanent base for for about three months when the Challenger disaster occurred. It actually hit me pretty hard, and I'm really not sure why. I spent the next day thinking about it, and trying to come up with something I could do to help. I finally realized there was nothing a lowly airman, thousands of miles away, could do, so I opted to write a poem. Mind you, I had never written a poem before (and actually, have never written one since that day). I found myself sitting in a Carrow's restaurant, alone, drinking coffee, and the words just came out. I don't think the poem was that great, but I thought at the time it was good enough to send a copy to the President of the United States.
For those that may be interested, here is the poem I wrote:
IN MEMORY OF "SEVEN"
We mourn the tears and the anguished cries,
of the families of those who have given their lives.
They cherished their country with infinite love.
This they have proven in the skies up above.
We'll share the emotions of grief and of sorrow,
but lest we forget these emotions tomorrow.
They were the ones chosen,
they were the select.
The Challenger crew,
Have earned our respect.
Yea, I know it's really not that good, but the words came from my heart as well as my head.
For those of you curious, I did receive a response from the White House.
Even though it was a pretty standard form letter, thanking me for my thoughts, I have saved both the poem and the letter, as it is a reminder of that fateful day, and how one can do something way outside their comfort zone when it's least expected.
yblame t1_j62a8rd wrote
It's lovely. I'll always remember that day. It was 1986 and before the time of cell phones and 24/7 news. I was young, but we all had to scramble around at work to crowd around the lab supervisor's little portable TV that she had in her office.
WrexTremendae t1_j62n1wc wrote
It is very strange what affects us deeply, and what doesn't.
For what its worth, even though the poem isn't truly anything spectacular in literary terms, it strikes me as being a very good thing for what it is. One human, trying to do anything to help another, trying to lessen the burden that one knows the other is feeling even when they could not recognise each other at all. Trying to lash out against the unfeeling cold that the world too-often seems to dish out to those who did not ask for it, who did not deserve it.
I hope you never feel the same need to write again, but don't be scared to try to write more poems. Even when erased afterwards, I find that getting words out of my head can help all sorts of emotions settle down.
writemynamewithstars t1_j63tzaf wrote
Thank you for sharing your work. I've always felt that the metric for poetry shouldn't be how sophisticated the language is - it should be if it can reach the reader and make them feel something. You wrote a good poem.
zero_clues t1_j616803 wrote
This is one of those holidays that seems super unimportant now, but will become a really important holiday in the future
demigodsgotdraft t1_j61nz10 wrote
Who's gonna be the first one to be spaghettified by a black hole? That's one unenviable first.
KTNH8807 t1_j61zkfh wrote
I bet over an extremely long time, all the matter that makes all of us up will be spaghettified eventually. So in a way, it’ll be all of us at the same time
therestruth t1_j62hshy wrote
It seems you just said "over an extremely long time... eventually" is equal to "at the same time". I don't get how that makes any sense.
pushpoploadstore t1_j62ic8u wrote
Everything everywhere all at once. Watch it. Take shrooms. Watch movie again. Rinse and repeat.
therestruth t1_j62l6fe wrote
It's definitely near the top of my list. Thanks. I like to watch good movies like that tripping first and then sober but if you suggest sober first I'll do that.
pushpoploadstore t1_j62np9b wrote
It’s all the same my fellow fungus!
17degreescelcius t1_j635mou wrote
I may also pop in to suggest Enter The Void
MasterYenSid t1_j64b4u7 wrote
Where do people get mushrooms and other fun things?? I can barely find melatonin. /mostly rhetorical
KTNH8807 t1_j63nujo wrote
Probably should have said “In” instead of “over” . Once we die, our matter that makes us up will stay with the earth, then once the earth is absorbed by the sun in its red giant phase it will stay with the sun, then the sun sheds its outer layers in a planetary nebula and leaves a white dwarf. THEN over a very very very long time after that, all that matter will be absorbed by a black hole.
therestruth t1_j64w4si wrote
Yup, that makes sense now. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
jeweliegb t1_j637y87 wrote
Black holes will have all evaporated.
We'll all just be part of the grim universe that's left: silent, cold, dark, empty (except for the occasional rather surprised Boltmann's heads), for eternity...
Sean-Benn_Must-die t1_j62gkgw wrote
Well it would take until the end of the universe so technically no one
Confident_Emphasis20 t1_j63ceee wrote
I've been spahghettified before but not by a black hole in space. Magic mushrooms and led zeppelin opened a wormhole in my basement. Robert Plant's voice weaved out of the speaker like a viper and settled on the floor. My silk robe gripped me tighter as I struggled to remove it. It fell ever so gently and slowly slid across the floor into the hole and I stretched inside along with it. I awoke in the ER with 6 men holding me down. Ankles. Sides. Arms. Pressed into the bed. I fought until I could not and then I cried as they injected my arm. I fell asleep again. I woke up on a dirt road and walked a mile in the dark home. I'm a traveler of both time and space.
In my time of dieing was the trigger
ADarwinAward t1_j638ocy wrote
Unless we find a traversable wormhole near earth that leads near a black hole, there aren’t any close enough for someone to get sucked in. The closest black hole we know of is 1600 light years away.
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NerdyLumberjack04 t1_j62mcqg wrote
It's weird that the three anniversaries are so close to each other. I wonder if future generations will see late January as an "unlucky" time to board a spacecraft.
lolwutpear t1_j62xxqz wrote
That's how they treat October 24th at Baikonur. Two separate accidents, three years apart. They don't launch on that day any more.
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OneWorldMouse t1_j626k5l wrote
The Atlantis exhibit in Florida has a memorial. I grew up with the shuttle. I had no idea what I'd see in there. It is haunting.
PutWonderful7278 t1_j62a4q6 wrote
They did an amazing job with the Atlantis exhibit and the memorials to the shuttle astronauts. My husband and I both cried.
heyhihay t1_j63a2wt wrote
Yah, it is perfectly designed st bringing tears. Woof.
Human_Canary735 t1_j62f1io wrote
That window frame is… something else.
rewddit t1_j64erju wrote
Even knowing it was there, it was still somehow shocking to turn that corner and see the flight deck frame and the Challenger fuselage, right there.
That whole building is incredible. The reveal of the Atlantis was a special moment for me, forever.
alancake t1_j62pp4r wrote
My son and I are Apollo nuts. Reading about the Apollo 1 fire is heavy stuff. Gus Grissom was the man everyone at NASA wanted and expected to be the first man on the moon. It's a miracle that anything went ahead after the crew died.
hgaterms t1_j641d1x wrote
Gus got a raw deal. His Mercury capsule sank and everyone blamed him for the failure. Then he gets the Apollo 1 seat and burns to death in a fire.
barneyman t1_j62wbrf wrote
Jan 26th is doing some heavy lifting
- this
- Australia Day
- India's Republic Day
- Holocaust memorial Day
Edit: added #4
sg3niner t1_j62gaqs wrote
Considering that the NASA leadership should've been charged with manslaughter for Challenger and Columbia, a day of remembrance is the least they could do.
Lieutenant_0bvious t1_j62er2q wrote
NASA has no one to blame but themselves for Challenger and Columbia.
Mad_Dizzle t1_j646opz wrote
It's easy to say that now. When you start at NASA, there's loads of employee training to do for a large number of reasons. One of these exercises that I distinctly remember was a sort of training scenario. They gave every one of us all this information, and we had to decide whether or not to greenlight the launch. Every single person in the group I was with chose to greenlight it. After that, they told us that was the exact scenario NASA leadership was in for Challenger. And we were all horrified.
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it_follows t1_j64hrkm wrote
So NASA leadership acted with the same aptitude as a group of new hires?
Mad_Dizzle t1_j64n8sp wrote
The point is that a lot of learning is done in hindsight. NASA leadership wouldn't make the same mistake today, and neither would I now, but what's done is done. We honor the fallen and hope to improve from their sacrifice.
dizforprez t1_j670t7g wrote
Was it really the exact same scenario? sounds like it was contrived to make a point.
Justonian12 t1_j62umiy wrote
I saw the Columbia take off when I was a kid and was obsessed with space. I remember seeing it come down on tv and was so sad.
Hyperi0us t1_j62nkng wrote
I was in Lake Tahoe when it happened, it was an incredibly crisp and clear early morning so you could hear the sonic boom as the shuttle traced the upper atmosphere directly over the top of Northern California on a trajectory down towards Texas. I'm pretty sure the initial breakup started directly over us and fireballed all the way into Western Texas.
It ruined my birthday...
LargeHadron_Colander t1_j64wfzh wrote
Well, happy birthday at least :)
PMilly77 t1_j6320zj wrote
20 years ago, I remember this like it was yesterday.
They did an amazing job and they deserve to have this day to be remembered.
Brief-Ad3374 t1_j63q805 wrote
The sad thing is that all three accidents occurred because of negligence.
dizforprez t1_j670juv wrote
Absolutely, should be a day of public shame for nasa. the way they attempted cover ups and then treated the deceased astronauts(and their families) was reprehensible.
For all nasa has done it is hard to have pride in that organization once you read all that went down in these cases.
carlossolrac t1_j63y9gu wrote
Astronaut Kalpana Chawla (KC) went to my university and the dorm she stayed in is now named KC Hall. Her husband donated a few of her stuff and they have them in the engineer building and the dorm in her remembrance.
"The dorm named after Kalpana Chawla who was a proud UT Arlington Alumna and astronaut crew member aboard the Columbia space shuttle sadly destroyed over North Texas in February of 2003.
Two unique features to this community are the KC Remembrance Wall that tells the story of Kalpana's extraordinary life story and the building's Time Capsule to be opened in 2034."
You can read more of KC here
tomi832 t1_j63s6h2 wrote
If you wanna hear a bit about the Israeli one, his family's sorrow didn't stop at his death.
His name is Ilan Ramon, and he was a pilot in the IAF before becoming an astronaut. He left behind his wife with 4 kids.
His eldest, Asaf, became a pilot just like him. In his last few months training to become a pilot, he flew an A-4 Skyhawk which had a problem and thankfully he ejected and survived, called it a miracle.
A few months later, while training for a mission, he probably had a black-out and died while crashing his F16, 6 years after his father died.
His close family lost two members in just a few shorts years, both from aerial accidents...
Corporation_tshirt t1_j63z6pw wrote
Watched it live on tv in high school when it happened. My algebra teacher got up and ran out the door and we all heard her and another teacher crying in the hall. I lived in South Florida at the time so we might even have been able to see it happen had we been standing outside at the time.
Our school helped raise funds for the Challenger Memorial in Miami.
Oliver_the_Dragon t1_j64dicg wrote
I have vague memories of our teachers (also South Florida) taking us outside in anticipation of seeing the landing but then taking us in without really explaining why we didn't get to see anything. I remember seeing it on the news later in the day.
GinsuVictim t1_j644nqh wrote
I was born in '77. I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. In second grade, we watched the Challenger launch because they were sending a teacher into space.
A few minutes later...
...I no longer wanted to be an astronaut.
therestruth t1_j62hmkh wrote
Well isn't that neat. I just discovered today is also the date I made my reddit account. RIP
CalligrapherDizzy201 t1_j63dn41 wrote
Didn’t the Challenger go down on the 28th of January?
NatWu t1_j641xta wrote
There is a small memorial to Kalpana Chawla at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she got her Master's degree. It's in Nedderman Hall on the first floor behind a little wall. It's free to visit and open to the public, although you will have to pay for parking.
capSAR273 t1_j63r8ey wrote
I was able to visit the Apollo 1 test site on the Cape Canaveral base a few years ago. The structure that held the capsule is still there, but is rusting and weathered from being near the coast. Very eerie to stand on this large flat concrete pad with just the support structure left.
wifespissed t1_j64d1qq wrote
How come Columbia always feels like it's totally overshadowed by Challenger even though it's more recent? Or is it because I was 10 when Challenger blew up and in my mid 20s when Columbia went. Did it hit me harder as a child maybe?
DredZedPrime t1_j64kjos wrote
Partly because Challenger was the first time something quite like that had happened in the American space program. The Apollo fire was on the ground during a training session, not even an actual launch, and by the time Columbia happened it was just a part of history that a space shuttle had already lown up once.
Then there's also the fact that the shuttles were still relatively new at the time of the Challenger disaster, and kids across the country were watching the launch live, partly due to a teacher being one of the astronauts, so it was kind of a publicity thing.
Columbia was still a tragedy and impacted many people greatly, but it just wasn't quite as unique a situation.
rodface t1_j64n7lk wrote
Perhaps it has something to do with how much physically closer Challenger was, and the images that were produced because of it. The Challenger vapor cloud is one of those images that is up close and visceral. Columbia's disintegration, not as much.
Sevren425 t1_j64wc6j wrote
My dad was fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn the morning Columbia broke up on re-entry. It was dark and he didn’t know what was going on at the time but said you could hear things splashing into the water.
superfluous_t t1_j65a731 wrote
As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wrote to NASA (from the UK) and told them this and asked if they had any pen pals I could write to.
I heard nothing back for quite a while. Continued following space and the challenger takeoff, as well as the disaster (my first memory of being glued to the news).
A few months later I received a large envelope sent 2nd class from NASA with a letter informing me they didn’t do penpals together with diagrams of the shuttle, photos of the shuttle and other takeoffs, and the various mission badges, but also a photo of the challenger crew (I think the same one as the thumbnail) I can only imagine it was sent before the disaster and due to 2nd class international took a while to get to me. It’s one of my most cherished possessions.
ktdotnova t1_j64q69e wrote
Coincidentally Kobe and others also passed on the Jan. 26 in a tragic accident involving air travel. RIP.
jrp55262 t1_j666ppr wrote
Has anyone noted that all of NASA's fatal accidents launched in January? Maybe they should take the month off...
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autistic_bard444 t1_j61n3lo wrote
one of the reasons gen-x is so jaded and dubious.
we set in classrooms and school libraries across the country
only to see tragedy
we were thrilled all morning
that ended after ~70 seconds
yet most of still dream of stepping into the dark void above
doom32x t1_j627tez wrote
And boomers watched their teachers lose their shit as they learned about JFK, they later watched the Whitman tragedy pretty much live, had readiness drills for nukes, 4 students were mowed down by the fucking National Guard, oh yeah, a war with over 55k dead men and boys, a large contingent of which was drafted. Millennials watched 9/11 live as we got ready for school or while we were in school depending on time zones. Our generation bore the brunt of the longest wars in American History and the great recession of 07-09 happened right as Millennials were establishing themselves as adults. Gen Z has had the ever looming climate change crisis starting to assert itself, readiness drills for mass shootings, and a pandemic that took literally a year and half of their lives at a very young age.
Every generation has their shit. Sorry for the rant.
BrattyBookworm t1_j64cfqk wrote
Right? Not to mention those who experienced the Great Depression, the world wars, etc. Significant life changing events are present in every generation.
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Analog_Astronaut t1_j646wsx wrote
This is like when Jim decides to have one birthday party for everyone in the office.
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jonjonjohnson101 t1_j63dgqf wrote
Is that Mark Wahlberg? Thanks for your sacrifices. If they could see what we've accomplished...
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hgaterms t1_j641jwp wrote
You mean the book "The Apollo Murders"? Where the crew of Apollo 18 have to land on the moon and stop the Russians from getting a rock.
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shotsfired3841 t1_j62khkh wrote
I share this from time to time when I think people might find it interesting. I had a relative on Columbia, Dave Brown. The day before the tragedy he sent an email to friend and family that I'll share:
Friends,
It's hard to believe but I'm coming up on 16 days in space and we land tomorrow.
I can tell you a few things:
Floating is great - at two weeks it really started to become natural. I move much more slowly as there really isn't a hurry. If you go to fast then stopping can be quite awkward. At first, we were still handing each other things, but now we pass them with just a little push.
We lose stuff all the time. I'm kind of prone to this on Earth, but it's much worse here as I can now put things on the walls and ceiling too. It's hard to remember that you have to look everywhere when you lose something, not just down.
The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space Imax movie that's really what it looks like. What really amazes me is to see large geographic features with my own eyes. Today, I saw all of Northern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, the whole country of Israel, and then the Red Sea. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.
The science has been great and we've accomplished a lot. I could write more but about it but that would take hours.
My crewmates are like my family - it will be hard to leave them after being so close for 2 1/2 years.
My most moving moment was reading a letter Ilan brought from a Holocaust survivor talking about his seven year old daughter who did not survive. I was stunned such a beautiful planet could harbor such bad things. It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the Earth for how great it really is.
I will make one more observation - if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space. It is a wonderful planet.
Dave