Thirty Years Ago

Three decades ago the Challenger space vehicle exploded soon after lift off. All aboard were killed. It was a breathtaking moment that informed mankind that space travel was not a slam dunk certainty. Risks were involved. Good people would die and many more would risk everything to learn about and live in space. It was a frontier we thought we had in the bag. Instead we learned we did not.

Orville and Wilbur Wright took similar risks and they were only feet from the ground. And their flight path was only yards. But it was the beginning of something they only imagined and hoped for. Routine flight followed and at a speed we then thought impossible.

Today we know technological change is often in a blink of an eye. Think where we were a few years ago with cell phones – the brick, bag phone and a lot of other clumsy models! – we now take this progress for granted. Same for computers, of course, and computer assisted technologies that we don’t see or feel but benefit from all the time. Automobiles have a host of computers on board today that help everything from ignition to engine performance to entertainment systems, control features, braking and so much more.

Home heating and air conditioning is another system that uses computer assist in its 24/7/365 operation. Garage door openers, kitchen stoves, dishwashers, microwave ovens and refrigerators. Products we live with each and every day have computers embedded in them we cannot see or know about. But they are there. Doing their job and making life better for us.

Thirty years ago I was sitting in my university office deep in work, meetings and program development. A vendor dropped in for a service update and mentioned the disappointment over the failed space shot. I said “Huh?” and then he told me. I turned on a small TV and got the news. thirty years ago we didn’t have internet on our office computers. We didn’t have I-phones with internet hook ups and emergency news capability. We had to turn on the radio or TV in order to plug into CNN or one of the primary news stations.

And there it was, over and over again, the walk of the astronauts approaching their space vehicle, entering, blasting off and – exploding in a million pieces like stars of the heavens.

Breathtaking. Disappointing. Reality setting in that not all was possible without pain and set back.

There it was. Failure in capital letters.

Today I do not recall how much of a delay in the space program transpired at that time before we returned to space. I remember it was over a year while scientists and engineers dissected all the possible causes of the tragedy. Eventually they thought they had it nailed down. But even then they could not be certain and the astronauts who ventured into space the next time did so with tremendous trepidation. They knew the risks before, but not in just real terms. Now they did. They still took those steps toward their spacecraft and entered it, strapped themselves in, and allowed countless systems and people blast them into space.

There were tragedies and close calls afterwards, of course, but success followed success and we now are on our way to Mars, the Moon again, and whatever else mankind needs to explore to prove to himself that he can.

Thirty years ago I remember the people, the moments and the place when I learned the Challenger was no more. Do you remember this event? Does it register on you how far we have traveled intellectually, socially, and culturally?

And yet here we are in 2016 arguing over religions. How can so much change and yet so much remain the same?

Conundrums do exist if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of what still remains on our to-do list.

January 29, 2016