The words keep coming...
Feb. 1st, 2003 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpIn a comment to my first post this morning, LJ friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deborahj said:
My emotional reaction was not one of helplessness. Once events began to unfold during the re-entry, there was simply no time for anyone to do anything.
Whether you're piloting a spacecraft or going down to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread, you're taking a chance. All other things being equal, the former is more hazardous. A couple of years ago, when I attended a Shuttle launch, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin cited the risks during a pre-launch briefing: one in several hundred for a Shuttle launch, one in about 20,000 for an infantryman in a combat zone, one in about 2,000,000 for an airplane passenger.
Re-entry is no piece of cake, either, as the vehicle you're in plows into the atmosphere at something like 25 times the speed of sound, and just about every law of physics is working in tandem with all the other laws, trying to rip your vehicle (and you) to pieces. The tremendous stress it puts on an airframe is about what you'd expect when attempting to do aerobatics in a Boeing 747, except that the Shuttle airframe is built to take such havoc.
No, my emotional reaction (looking back over the past few hours) has two components:
First, I feel a sense of loss, as I'd worked with McCool (I forget in what context, but you don't forget such a name) and Husband (in connection with STS-96, briefly), and even though we were not exactly drinking buddies, the loss I feel is personal.
Second, I feel a sense of foreboding with regard to the bureaucratic response to the tragedy. It's entirely possible that manned space flight may come to a screeching halt with the loss of Columbia, not to resume again until the Chinese get their program going, with the possibility that it may not resume again for the United States period (the engineers and other personnel who work in the space program are an insignificant voting block).
But there I go, being maudlin again, which cannot possibly be healthy. In any event, thanks for your comment.
Cheers...
deborahj said:Reading your Entry, knowing that this mattered and that others care and are present (however distant they may be) at this moment, helps ease the awful sense of human helplessness.More power to you.
My emotional reaction was not one of helplessness. Once events began to unfold during the re-entry, there was simply no time for anyone to do anything.
Whether you're piloting a spacecraft or going down to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread, you're taking a chance. All other things being equal, the former is more hazardous. A couple of years ago, when I attended a Shuttle launch, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin cited the risks during a pre-launch briefing: one in several hundred for a Shuttle launch, one in about 20,000 for an infantryman in a combat zone, one in about 2,000,000 for an airplane passenger.
Re-entry is no piece of cake, either, as the vehicle you're in plows into the atmosphere at something like 25 times the speed of sound, and just about every law of physics is working in tandem with all the other laws, trying to rip your vehicle (and you) to pieces. The tremendous stress it puts on an airframe is about what you'd expect when attempting to do aerobatics in a Boeing 747, except that the Shuttle airframe is built to take such havoc.
No, my emotional reaction (looking back over the past few hours) has two components:
First, I feel a sense of loss, as I'd worked with McCool (I forget in what context, but you don't forget such a name) and Husband (in connection with STS-96, briefly), and even though we were not exactly drinking buddies, the loss I feel is personal.
Second, I feel a sense of foreboding with regard to the bureaucratic response to the tragedy. It's entirely possible that manned space flight may come to a screeching halt with the loss of Columbia, not to resume again until the Chinese get their program going, with the possibility that it may not resume again for the United States period (the engineers and other personnel who work in the space program are an insignificant voting block).
But there I go, being maudlin again, which cannot possibly be healthy. In any event, thanks for your comment.
Cheers...
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Requiescat In Pace
Date: 2003-02-01 01:19 pm (UTC)My deepest sympathies to you for the loss of your personal acquaintances. I thought of you immediately upon learning of this tragedy and the title of your first entry said it all for me -- "Beyond Words."
Re: Requiescat In Pace
Date: 2003-02-01 01:31 pm (UTC)Cheers...