Let's all say a prayer..

[Aredubjay]

Originally posted by SVXRide
As a NASA employee at the Goddard Space Flight Center I want to thank everyone on this site for their thoughts and prayers for the Shuttle Astronauts. As a whole, the general population tends to forget just how dangerous space travel is (I was a Launch Service Manager for several Expendable Launch Vehicles - aka "big rockets" - for 8 years and had the unfortunate experience to see a few rockets (Pegasus, Connestoga, Delta, Atlas) fail on the way up). Every launch is a tribute to the brains and hard work of those involved -- it really hurts when people start making comparisons between Shuttle launches and Metro Buses (i.e., hey, no big deal, it's routine by now). Here's a test...ask people around you if they knew before the accident - 1. when the Shuttle was scheduled to land, 2. How long it had been in space, and 3. How many people were on the Shuttle.
-Bill

Bill,
Our hats are off and our hearts go out to all of you. We truly appreciate your work, and I'm fairly certain you all are of the "if one gets cut, we all bleed" fellowship. May we not forget, yet, may the wounds soon heal.

[blackbolt94red]

As a NASA employee at the Goddard Space Flight Center I want to thank everyone on this site for their thoughts and prayers for the Shuttle Astronauts. As a whole, the general population tends to forget just how dangerous space travel is (I was a Launch Service Manager for several Expendable Launch Vehicles - aka "big rockets" - for 8 years and had the unfortunate experience to see a few rockets (Pegasus, Connestoga, Delta, Atlas) fail on the way up). Every launch is a tribute to the brains and hard work of those involved -- it really hurts when people start making comparisons between Shuttle launches and Metro Buses (i.e., hey, no big deal, it's routine by now). Here's a test...ask people around you if they knew before the accident - 1. when the Shuttle was scheduled to land, 2. How long it had been in space, and 3. How many people were on the Shuttle.
-Bill



Bill, your so right, so many people today are unaware of miracles of flight that happen so often now. I vividly remember assembling around the one TV we had in our rather large grade school and watching Alan Shepard, Gus Grissum, John Glenn and the rest of the Mercury 7. As long as I live I will never think of what you and your co-workerd did and do every day as 'routine'. When did we become so complacient, so blase? I knew how many, how long and when due back because I searched it out, our news today is too pre-occupied with what they think we want to hear about over and over and over again.....to give the Shuttle launches more than a passing mention....what a shame. Now of course, its all big news, too many talking heads pontificating on and on about this and that, like they know....
I am so proud we (and other countries) continue to produce the caliber of people that are driven to do this, both in space and the thousands upon thousands on the ground that make it possible and so many other things that make one believe that there just might be hope for the human race............
sorry, I ramble on so............

[SVXRide]

BlackBolt,
Thanks for the words. One of the things a handfull of us try to do as part of our daily work is get out and spread the word as to what it means to work for NASA. There's nothing like watching elementary kids' eyes light up when you say you work for NASA. Seems to me that some of this magic is "lost" along the way as the kids grow up -- probably because we (NASA) are not allowed to advertise as we're a government entity. It's a shame that it takes a failure/disaster to bring the whole country's attention back on the Agency. It will be interesting to see how President Bush and Congress responds -- many of us are already getting concerned that they'll say all the right things to the public and then turn around and tell us to "fix" things using money already in the NASA budget. If this is the case, you can kiss a large percentage of unmanned space exploration goodbye for the next 5 to 10 years...

[sfsvx]

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
************************** (High Flight By John Gillespie Magee, Jr)

[sfsvx]

This helps me at times like this.

Hopi Prayer

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint in the snow.
I am the sunlight on the ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there,
I did not die.
For everything beautiful you see,
will bring a memory of me.

[SVXphile]

<Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth .....
.....and touched the face of God.>
(High Flight By John Gillespie Magee, Jr)

Now I know where the words came from. President Reagan used the first and last lines of that poem during his televised tribute to the Challenger astronauts.....Don

[SVXphile]

<Here's a test...ask people around you if they knew before the accident - 1. when the Shuttle was scheduled to land, 2. How long it had been in space, and 3. How many people were on the Shuttle.>

My grandmother....who was 90 in 1969 and living with our family in Tennessee, wanted me to explain to her how we were landing on the Moon. (Apollo 11) I had a plastic model of the Saturn 5....complete with command module and LEM. I took the pieces apart and did my best imitation of Walter Cronkite as I took her through the stages of the flight. She was fascinated by it all, and watched all the coverage on TV....

I think of her often, during times of space triumph and disaster, and how interested she was in spaceflight. Born in rural Indiana in the 1870's.....all the new inventions she experienced. The telephone, rural electricity, the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, computers....and landing on the moon. The Spanish-American War, WWI. WWII. Korea and Vietnam....the atomic bomb.

I wonder if we will ever see that degree of change again, within the span of just one lifetime.....Don

[LarryIII]

Originally posted by SVXphile

I wonder if we will ever see that degree of change again, within the span of just one lifetime.....Don

Don,

I think we are on the verge of an explosion of knowledge. With computers and the internet, information is diseminated to everyone much quicker than before. I think the pace of change and discovery will increase dramatically in the next 100 years.

[Ron Mummert]

The telephone, rural electricity, the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, computers....and landing on the moon. The Spanish-American War, WWI. WWII. Korea and Vietnam....the atomic bomb.

I wonder if we will ever see that degree of change again, within the span of just one lifetime.....Don [/B][/QUOTE]



Sure we will, Don. Just when I think I got something figured out on this dam' computer, Bill Gates decides I need an upgrade.
I need more lifetimes.

Ron.

[Aredubjay]

Originally posted by sfsvx
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
************************** (High Flight By John Gillespie Magee, Jr)

I have always loved this verse. WLAC in Nashville, TN (Now WTVF) used to play a stirring narration of it often during its programming -- accompanied by soaring music and shots of and from an F-4 Phantom II. I remember that, no matter where I was in our house, when I heard the music begin, I'd stop what I was doing and watch it. It has always touched me.