…where where you?
The crew of STS-51-L is as deeply engrained in a generation of our minds as it is the generation of my son, who watched the Twin Towers fall, or the day Columbia broke apart. Or my parents and grandparents watching the coverage of the Kennedy assassination. It was THE only news story at the time.
It’s one of those events where it doesn’t need a descriptor. You just KNOW.
“Challenger.”
And the images are conjured in your mind, instantaneously.
Somewhere, I have pictures where my grandfather had come out into the backyard and took a series of stills of it happening.
I was in high school, and being in Florida, there were plenty of days we could see the launches, even from the west coast, if the day was clear enough. That day, I was in class, but then it happened and I remember they wheeled out a TV in front of the library, and for the rest of the day, in all of our classes, they had the TVs on and we did nothing but watch the coverage.
It’s different, it’s personal when you are sitting there and watching it happen, versus reading about it in school or seeing a History Channel special.
While some people are fixated on Justin Bieber or the Kardashians, there are quiet heroes like these, working behind the scenes, who rarely get our attention until they hit a now-24/7 news cycle because…they died.
How sad is that?
These people should be household names. These people should be the ones trending. Not some bubble-headed pseudo-celebrity whose biggest achievement is taking a damn post-baby selfie.
Especially girls in our country should be pointed this way, kids should be told to hold THESE kinds of people up in high esteem. To aspire to learning and knowledge and not insta-fame via social media. To LEARN and grow as people and thrive on knowledge and not narcissism. Why are our astronauts and scientists not treated better than rock stars? They are the people who will pave the way to our future, sometimes with their blood. With their very bodies and lives. All to advance what we know.
Name me the last reality-show TV star who did that?
Oh, you can’t.
Thank you! Has it really been that long?
That morning was the first time I had the opportunity to actually watch a launch on TV. Imagine my shock . . . Then I went to work – I was a part-time TA at the local grammar school – to find that one of the teachers I worked with lost a cousin, Mission Specialist Ellison S. Onizuka, on that flight. It was an emotional day.
I will never forget that day…but then I have an eloquent reminder that the universe sometimes provides balance.
I gave birth that day to my first child. Almost 7 weeks early. I was working in the command center and suddenly alarms starting going off all around me. When I got up to investigate I discovered my water had broken. In the midst of the greater crisis I stood there as my own crisis played out.
The whole world suffered a tremendous loss that day. My husband, a high school educator had been talking for weeks about how important the inclusion of Christa MacAufille into the program was and the opportunity that it represented. Then it, and all of them were gone in seconds.
My memories of that day are all jumbled up. The television coverage, the discussions and the sorrow swirling around me. My room in the hospital was one of only 2 equipped with a television on the L&D floor so we invited anyone who wanted updates in to watch. Not exactly the birthing plan we expected with almost 30 people at times sharing the experience but to this day I remember the feeling of loss that ran through the group.
For me, I had a beautiful baby boy and he turned 30 today as well. And every year when his birthday rolls around I am reminded of those heros who left the world on the day he entered.