BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

February 01, 2003

In memorium: The Shuttle Columbia
: When I was a boy, my son's age now, I wanted to be an astronaut; so many of us did.
That is why the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia will likely affect my generation in ways that our children probably won't quite understand.
Astronauts were heroes to us.
Astronauts fought our enemy then with intelligence and technology, not guns.
Astronauts won their war; soldiers lost theirs.
Astronauts were the knights in our Camelot.
Astronauts explored our world just when we thought the exploration was done.
Astronauts made science cool. We would not have so much of the technology we hold dear today -- even this Internet -- had astronauts not inspired young people back then to devote their lives to science.
Astronauts made curiosity an act of bravery and devotion.
Astronauts were neat.
I remember lying in bed when I was a boy imagining that I was inside the Mercury capsule, surrounded by enough buttons to run a thousand radios, in control (thankfully, Tom Wolfe had not yet ruined that illusion). I went to the Smithsonian and held that artifact of my age in awe.
But the greatest accomplishment of science is when it manages to make the awesome routine and part of our everyday life and the astronauts did that, too.
I didn't become an astronaut. I didn't watch their launches or landings anymore. I accepted space travel and its rewards. Our children have, too. Astronauts are pilots. Astronauts are scientists. Astronauts are still neat. But astronauts aren't heroes anymore ... until they die.

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Observer: We were warned
: The Observer reports that we were warned that a Shuttle disaster was waiting to happen:

Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety issues had been addressed.
In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with Nasa for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'.

French astronaut: Ditto
: News.com.au reports:

A FRENCH astronaut who took part in an earlier US shuttle mission says Columbia should have been out of use long ago.
Patrick Baudry told French television he was "up in arms" over the disaster.
"I think the shuttle should have been taken out of use long ago," Baudry said.
"It's a magnificent machine that the Americans developed. But extremely dangerous."

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Respect
: For shame, Tom Brokaw. You wore some strange shirt meant for the Outback as you reported on the deaths of seven astronauts. Somebody could have fetched you a shirt and tie; somebody did for Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and your own Brian Williams. You looked disrespectful.

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The InstaTimes
: Glenn Reynolds has done a great job today giving us links of interest and import on the shuttle tragedy.
I was out for appointments this morning when it happened, and as a newsman, there's nothing worse than being unconnected when big news hits. I got on the phone with my great colleagues, who were, of course, already on the story.
But it occurred to me that in this blog world of one-man bands, you're either connected when the news comes or you're not. Reynolds was and he (and his audience) gave us the best of the wealth of the web.
I'm glad he was home.

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Ilan Roman
: From the Jerusalem Post's profile of astronaut Ilan Roman:

He began identifying himself as the son of a refugee father from Germany who fought in Israel's War of Independence, and a mother who survived Auschwitz. Ramon said that serving as his country's first astronaut was part of a "miracle" that stretched back 50 years.
Ramon was not an observant Jew, but said early on that he would eat only kosher food and try to mark Shabbat on board. ...
"This is symbolic," Ramon said. "I thought it would be nice to represent all kinds of Jews, including religious ones." He joked about affixing a mezuzah to the shuttle's door, but said it was up to the commander.

: See Rossi's verse in the comments.

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