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This morning, at approximately 9 AM ET, the space shuttle Columbia broke up upon re-entry into the atmosphere, on its way to landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
I didn't hear about it until the afternoon. We went to the Dayton Mall to have some pictures of Maria taken. Our appointment was at 2:20pm. My wife was sitting on a bench in the mall outside the store, with our daughter, who was in her stroller. I was at the G.Thanks store at 2 PM this afternoon, looking around. They happened to have one of the local radio stations on. At 2:05, the broadcast was interrupted by the address by President Bush. I walked out of the store after the address. I didn't tell my wife until after the photo shoot. When I told her, she started to cry.
My mind soon flashed back to the Challenger tragedy, which happened on January 28, 1986. I remember being very saddened by the event, and it took me about two months to recover. Since then, I've lived through the tragedy of 9/11, and now this. I will be sad for a while, but I think I will rebound much quicker. As sad as I am, I realize there was nothing I could have done to prevent this. Even if I said a prayer of good luck for the crew and a safe landing, it may have had no effect.
I also briefly thought about sabotage. Since one of the crew members was a colonel in the Israeli military, there was a lot of security concerns surrounding this shuttle flight. Could this have been the work of Al-Queda, the Iraqis, or one of the Palestinian terrorist groups? It seems highly unlikely at this time, but I won't rule it out completely.
How do I think it happened? I do not know. All I can do is speculate, based on the limited data that has been released. I have the greatest confidence that the NASA engineers will determine the root cause, and take action to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
The crew of STS-107 (this mission):
Rick Husband - mission commander
William McCool - mission pilot
Michael Anderson - payload commander
Ilan Ramon - payload specialist
David Brown - mission specialist
Kalpana Chalwa - mission specialist
Laurel Clark - mission specialist
I didn't hear about it until the afternoon. We went to the Dayton Mall to have some pictures of Maria taken. Our appointment was at 2:20pm. My wife was sitting on a bench in the mall outside the store, with our daughter, who was in her stroller. I was at the G.Thanks store at 2 PM this afternoon, looking around. They happened to have one of the local radio stations on. At 2:05, the broadcast was interrupted by the address by President Bush. I walked out of the store after the address. I didn't tell my wife until after the photo shoot. When I told her, she started to cry.
My mind soon flashed back to the Challenger tragedy, which happened on January 28, 1986. I remember being very saddened by the event, and it took me about two months to recover. Since then, I've lived through the tragedy of 9/11, and now this. I will be sad for a while, but I think I will rebound much quicker. As sad as I am, I realize there was nothing I could have done to prevent this. Even if I said a prayer of good luck for the crew and a safe landing, it may have had no effect.
I also briefly thought about sabotage. Since one of the crew members was a colonel in the Israeli military, there was a lot of security concerns surrounding this shuttle flight. Could this have been the work of Al-Queda, the Iraqis, or one of the Palestinian terrorist groups? It seems highly unlikely at this time, but I won't rule it out completely.
How do I think it happened? I do not know. All I can do is speculate, based on the limited data that has been released. I have the greatest confidence that the NASA engineers will determine the root cause, and take action to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
The crew of STS-107 (this mission):
Rick Husband - mission commander
William McCool - mission pilot
Michael Anderson - payload commander
Ilan Ramon - payload specialist
David Brown - mission specialist
Kalpana Chalwa - mission specialist
Laurel Clark - mission specialist
