Today is my birthday, which also means that it’s the anniversary of the loss of the Challenger and its crew (and the beginning of the long drawn-out end of the Shuttle program). Hard to believe it’s been that long.
11 thoughts on “A Third Of A Century”
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Happy Birthday Rand. I wanted to offer a donation, but when I click to donate; it says your unable to receive donations. Come to think of it; I noticed this before, but maybe didn’t mention it. I still try to use your Amazon box from time to time. I appreciate the free ice cream, particularly at birthday parties; but I don’t mind sending gifts.
Thanks. I need to fix that. Haven’t touched it in years.
Go Fund Me…. 😉
Paypal* donation link, Patreon, or something. There is probably even a service that wouldn’t ban Rand for his extreme far right libertarian views.
* It’s out of service.
Happy Birthday Rand.
Re: Challenger
The children of Christa McAuliffe’s classroom are on average somewhere around 45 years old. On average married, with a mortgage on a 3-4br house and kids about to go to college or married. And for some outliers they may be grandparents by now.
For them it is now a sad memory, perhaps somewhat distant given all that has taken place in their lives since. As parents, probably gives them pause to consider as to whether they would have taken on that risk personally.
As for the rest of us….
The incident marked the end of the era of “space truck”, where crew could launch in a helmet and jumpsuit. To a more realistic “mission orientation”. Given the technology extant that was to the good. Given the orientation (reinforced by Challenger) that space was hazardous “exploration” that was to the bad. A replacement to Challenger was provided (Endeavour) but the process was never fully re-examined to see how well the technology matched the goals. In that sense, our response to the loss of Challenger failed to live up to its namesake.
Somewhat off-topic but an interesting read if you are a student of the history of US education…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/06/19/there-is-a-national-memorial-for-fallen-educators-and-it-is-about-to-add-10-new-names/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e5069e972e56
Happy birthday! I was too young to remember Apollo 1, but Challenger was my “JFK” moment.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday, Rand! Congrats on the house closing.
On a sadder note, I remember the news of Sputnik…
Happy B-Day, have an age inappropriate amount of fun.
Happy birthday, Rand!
I was born on January 2, 1958, after Sputnik 1 and 2 but before Explorer 1.
But Sputnik 1 and 2 were already defunct, so even though I was born after the start of the Space Age, there were no functioning satellites in orbit. That was a very brief moment in time.