Remembrance
I read the news today, oh boy — that NASA will observe its 50th anniversary on Monday by beaming a Beatles song toward Polaris, the North Star. The song, of course, is “Across the Universe,” but the 431 light years to Polaris isn’t even across the galaxy. Gotta start somewhere.
NASA launched the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958, and that’s the anniversary which is being celebrated.
While we’re celebrating, let’s take a moment to remember the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart on re-entry five years ago today.
Let’s remember the crew of the shuttle Challenger, which exploded shortly after launch on January 28, 1986 — 22 years ago last Monday.
And let’s remember the crew of Apollo 1, lost on January 27, 1967 — 41 years ago last Sunday. They died in a fire in the spacecraft during a “routine” test on the launch pad. Nothing is “routine” when you’re testing the limits of humans and their machines.
Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee
Challenger: Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe
Columbia: Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark
John Glenn, at a memorial service for Judith Resnik:
We hoped these past few days would never come. And for nearly a quarter of a century we pushed back the time we knew — intuitively — must sometime be, that day when despite all our best efforts, there would be a loss.
…
It has been my observation that the happiest of people, the vibrant doers of the world are almost always those who are using — who are putting into play, calling upon, depending upon — the greatest number of their God-given talents and capabilities. For them, curiosity is a way of life, and the quest for knowledge and the new is insatiable and exhilarating.
But it becomes many-fold more meaningful when put to use for a higher purpose, for something bigger than self, for a goal that calls on those individuals to dictate themselves to accomplishment for the betterment of our nation, and indeed for all mankind.
Let’s not forget all those, living and dead, who have given — and are still giving — their best for a higher purpose.
