Three days after my sixth birthday, the space shuttle Challenger exploded a minute after launch, killing all seven aboard including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Millions watched the launch on television that day. A shuttle launch was a big deal back then. We knew all the astronauts; they were heroes. Most of my friends and I wanted to be Sally Ride when we grew up.
Perhaps this is one of the factors that made it so intensely devastating. We all saw it happen. Millions of us experienced this explosion, even from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Saturday, seven days after my twenty-third birthday, another seven people died in a space shuttle. The Columbia shattered in reentry over Texas 16 minutes before its scheduled landing at Cape Canaveral. We didn’t see it happen, but it is still devastating.
Not just Americans mourn loss right now. The first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon was the payload specialist on the flight.
TIME Magazine science correspondent Jeffrey Kluger in an interview with TIME.com speculated that it was probably an aerodynamic structural breakup caused by the shuttle rolling at the wrong angle in reentry. Or, it could have been too many of the protective tiles fell off. Or, it could have been an engine failure leading to the ignition of fuel.
No matter what the cause, which I am sure we will find out as the week plays out, it is a tragic day for the space program, and for Americans in dire need of heroes in an unstable time.
President Bush said Saturday, “In the skies today, we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see, there is comfort and hope.
“In the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.’
“The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can pray that they are all safely home.”
Monday night I drove to Friendship, Maine. I wanted to show my friend Jan the most beautiful sky in the world. It was about 10:30 p.m. by the time we go there, and although the beach was covered in snow we could still hear the ocean. It was about 15 degrees out, but we stood there in the middle of the road listening to the ocean and looking at the sky.
There were more stars that cold night than I think I have ever seen. The thin winter air did not obscure a single one. The sky was so full it seemed to ache under the collected weight of the Milky Way. My heart hurt with the beauty. My eyes felt too small to take it all in, notice every intricacy of its worth.
Tonight the sky is cloudy, and even if it wasn’t the city obscures most of the stars. When I was a little girl I used to think about space and what it will be like when some day people live on Mars.
Tonight the sky is cloudy. It is warm enough to rain. And it rains. And our hearts all break for people many of us didn’t even know were up there.