Godspeed, Columbia
They vault into orbit on top of several million
pounds of burning fuel. They spend days in the
near-absolute zero vacuum of outer space. They
return to Earth without propulsion on a
165,000-pound glider. It's difficult to imagine a
job that involves more danger. Despite the risks,
however, the loss of astronauts always comes as a
shock.
Perhaps catastrophic failures such as that of
this morning become national tragedies because
space missions—shuttle flights in
particular—have become so routine in their
ongoing success. More likely, it's because
astronauts are our latter-day heroes. In an age
when you can go anywhere on the planet within
hours, or send a message anywhere in the world
within milliseconds, space is indeed "the final
frontier." Our astronauts today are what Columbus
and Magellan were five hundred years ago. The
naming of Space Shuttle Columbia recognized
this.
We may mourn our heroes, we will certainly
remember them, but let us also thank them. They
boldly went into space in search of tomorrow. They
sought to discover the mysteries of the universe
and bring them home to the rest of us. They let us
touch the sky.
Though the crew of the Columbia was lost, their
spirits were not. They will be there when NASA
missions resume in the future. They'll be with us
as we make future discoveries. As our president
said this morning, "The crew of the shuttle
Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can
pray that all are safely home."
Godspeed, Columbia.
Seated in front are Commander Rick
D. Husband, Mission Specialist Kalpana
Chawla and Pilot William C. McCool. Standing are
Mission Specialists David M.
Brown, Laurel B. Clark and Michael P. Anderson, and
Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.
Development note: I've
noticed that this site doesn't look like it should
in Netscape Navigator. Rather than waste time
jury-rigging it to look right in a
soon-to-be-obsolete browser, I'll just add the
cliché "This site best viewed with Internet
Explorer."
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
|
|
