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Watching Artemis II launch, I felt like a seven-year-old kid all over again. It was 45 years ago this month that the Columbia launched on the very first mission for the space shuttle system. I had wanted to finally watch real astronauts go up into space. The mission had been delayed a few times already and I didn't want to miss it. Finally, about ten minutes before time to head out to school at 8:30 in the morning, Columbia ignited and began its ascent. I couldn't tear my eyes off the screen but Dad said "Okay, it's up. NOW can we go?!"
I truly hope this will be a successful mission. I've harbored a lot of concerns about Artemis II. It would be such a shot in the arm for national morale... and the feelings of the world in general... if those four astronauts return safely.
History happened tonight. May this be only the beginning of the next adventure of man's journey into the cosmos.
I have a member of my family who was part of the team at Kennedy Space Center in 1986. On January 27th he begged the higher-ups not to launch Challenger. The space shuttle was clearly not rated for launch in such below-freezing temperatures.
My relative's pleas were ignored. We know what happened.
I confess that my own mind is not of the caliber of those who are engaged in America's space effort. My formal training is in history, not aeronautics and engineering. But I'm still begging you: do not launch the Artemis II mission tomorrow. In fact, don't launch it at all.
The vehicle has too many issues that are being ignored, just as Challenger's were ignored for sake of the chance to have a successful mission. The materials - especially the heat shield - are definitely not as sound as the ones that the Apollo craft were composed of. The life support system is untested. The rocket has leaked like a sieve so much during fueling that there is no telling what has been overlooked.
Look, few things would make me happier than to see Artemis II return to Earth with its crew of four having gone around the Moon, carrying people there for the first time in over fifty-three years.
I hate to tell you this though, but the NASA of today is not the NASA of the Sixties. The Apollo program was an unprecedented focused effort to fulfill President Kennedy's goal of landing man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. Almost the entirety of American industry played a role in making that happen. There has been no such similar effort in the more than twenty years since Artemis was conceived.
I believe that humans can be returned to the Moon. And that they can have a long-term presence there. But such a thing cannot be rushed. And that is what Artemis has always come across as being: a rush job. No offense meant to its designers and builders. And yes, I know that tomorrow is being seen as a day two decades in the making. But it's still too soon.
So I'm begging y'all, refrain from launching Artemis II tomorrow. Yes, daring to leap beyond the grasp of Earth is a magnificent endeavor. But it also must be thoughtful and considerate. And that isn't what I and others with better minds than mine are seeing is happening with this vessel.
Forty years ago today came the end of the childhood of my generation.
The space shuttle Challenger was blown to bits shortly after liftoff, taking with it the lives of seven of the best crew members that NASA has ever filled a mission with.
A few months earlier, I had read something fascinating: that those people who were old enough could remember where exactly they were when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then when they heard about John F. Kennedy being assassinated. And I wondered if there would ever be an event like that in my own life.
Challenger was such an event. The first of too many.
Yes, I indeed remember that day forty years ago as clearly as if it were transpiring today. I was eleven years old, going on twelve, in sixth grade at Community Baptist School in Reidsville, North Carolina. I had just sat down at the table with my lunch when two classmates told me that the space shuttle had blown up. I didn't believe them. It was a cruel joke, I thought. But they insisted that it happened. And then I looked around at the other tables and overheard a lot of the other students saying "exploded" and "shuttle".
I looked down the length of our table, at our teacher. I mouthed to her "Is it true?" She quietly replied yes.
Every school then, it seemed, had its resident science geek. At Community Baptist, that was me. Everyone knew that I was a nut for science. That I had a great interest in this space shuttle mission. STS-51-L was the flight that was carrying Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire school teacher, into space. There had been a lot of interested across the country and around the world in this mission. January of 1986 was peak time for those of us with an astronomy/space exploration bent. There was Halley's Comet come around on its every-76-years visit to the inner solar system. And a few days before the launch of Challenger there was the Voyager 2 flyby of the planet Uranus. Many students and teachers had been asking me what I thought about all of these events taking place. The Challenger mission was going to be the finest of all.
When we got back to class after lunch, Miss Martin confirmed with us what most had already heard. Our school had no television sets in the classrooms so I could only imagine what it looked like. A few hours later Mom picked my sister and I up from school. She had one stop to make before we got home and I was eager to see for myself. When we did get back, the very first thing I saw on the television, turned to the CBS affiliate in Greensboro, was an image of McAuliffe. That was followed by pictures of the other crew members.
And then Dan Rather played the footage. And I finally got to see the fiery fate of Challenger with my own eyes.
A short while later, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech live from the Oval Office. His remarks to the people of America, and especially the school children, is easily the greatest address by a president that I have ever heard...
I watched the speech. Dad asked if I'd like to help bring some firewood down into the basement. I told him yes, I would like to do that. Anything to get my mind off of the real world.
Tuesday, January 28th, 1986. The day that the youth of Generation X came to an end in the skies over the Atlantic off the coast of Florida.
Wow. Lots of history to be commemorated today. Now I'm being reminded that it was thirty years ago today that the first Space Shuttle flight - which was the orbiter Columbia - took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Here's footage of the launch...
I remember watching that! 'Twas knee-high to a grasshopper as they say. It was supposed to have lifted off a day or two before, but the launch was scrubbed 'cuz of technical problems. And I was about to leave for school that morning and really hoping that it would take off without any more delay and then... WHOOOOOSH!!! It was the first manned spaceflight that I ever got to watch live on television.
In case anyone's wondering why the external tank is white in this clip, the tank was painted on the first three flights of the space shuttle, but after that it was left its normal fiberglass-y orange: not painting the tank saved a lot of weight (and subsequently, fuel).
And unfortunately as everyone knows, Columbia was lost in that tragic re-entry accident over Texas in 2003.
But on this day, this blogger honors its maiden flight, and the inauguration of the Space Shuttle system.
Longtime readers of this blog know that one bit of history that I'm particularly fond of is Russian space exploration. Say what one might about the policies of the Soviet government during those early years, I can't help but have huge appreciation for the engineers and pilots who took part in that endeavor. It wasn't politics that drove those men and women: just good ol' human adventure and tenacity.
So that said, The Knight Shift salutes the memory of Yuri Gagarin, who on this day in 1961 became the first human to journey into space... and not only that but became the first person to complete an orbit of the Earth! His flight aboard Vostok 1 would be his only spaceflight. And unfortunately a few years later Gagarin perished during a training flight in a MiG 15. He was only 34 at the time.
I don't look at it in terms of nationalities. I much prefer to see things on a larger scale. Gagarin was the first human to leave the confines of Earth's gravity and atmosphere. And just think: a little more than eight years later, we were walking around on the Moon.
Kinda makes you wonder whatever happened to that kind of gumption.
But on this day, we honor Yuri Gagarin: the first man in space.
It's almost a half-century later... and we still don't have that personal one-man sub! Or domed cities on Mars. Or cars with interchangeable bodies. Or robots to decorate our Christmas trees.
