Tag: columbia

my weblog is one year old today. and i was 2–1 fenc­ing today.

But more impor­tant­ly, the Space Shut­tle Colum­bia dis­in­te­grat­ed on reen­try today. For no good rea­son, i have a strong emo­tion­al attach­ment to the space pro­gram and NASA. i did­n’t hear about this until long after it hap­pened. i hate it. when i was 5 back in 1986 i was watch­ing the TV when Chal­lenger went up in smoke. and already at that young age i had great admi­ra­tion for the explor­ers of space. and my mom was a teacher, and Christa MacAu­li­ffe was a teacher. the Chal­lenger became the first event that scarred myself, not to men­tion Amer­i­ca as a whole.

then the World Trade Cen­ter Tow­ers fell over. Scar num­ber 2.The Doppler radar of Columbi­a’s debris trail on reen­try.

and now anoth­er space tragedy. Scar num­ber 3. how some­thing so small can cause some­thing so destruc­tive just makes the event all the more painful. ahh, you few brave astro­nauts, sail­ing in the heav­ens. god shel­ter you. sail in the heav­ens and pro­tect your fel­low space cru­saders. the only way i can talk about this is to wax roman­tic. this pic­ture in par­tic­u­lar is rather haunt­ing. that streak.

it can’t all be hor­ri­ble though can it? why are there always scars, but so few moments of pure world­wide joy. the clos­est i can think of is the Fall of the Berlin Wall. what a great thing that was. prob­a­bly the only way we’ll know the world is get­ting bet­ter is when the uni­ver­sal goods start out­num­ber the tragedies.