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On February 1st, 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia, NASA OV-102, disintegrated upon re-entry at the end of its 28th mission to space. The tragedy killed the seven brave crew members, in a moment of national sadness we’ll never forget.
Space travel has always been a feat of pride for humans. It shows how awesome we can be. We might be small in the universe but we’re capable of feats much bigger than us. It makes the moments of our successes in space more triumphant and the moments of failure intensely sad. I’ll never forget where I was when I heard about the Columbia disaster—I was working at a Starbucks in the Chevy Chase Pavilion.
May they rest in peace and forever be remembered for what they accomplished.
I would say “a moment of national sadness” was a bit over the top. Yes 7 brave souls died, but it was not the first time.
Anyway, I remember the Challenger disaster. Watching it blow up on live TV was a lot more upsetting.
Pretty much everthing thing in here needs to be read with an American viewpoint (unless it’s about Jessops or HMV).
Anyway, for some reason, Mario’s avatar makes me want to punch him in the face.
Kind of annoying that it says 10 years ago, then says “1st February 2003″…might be a bit picky but why wasn’t this run yesterday?
It’ll have been syndicated from the US site, probably didn’t get picked up till Saturday by the UK weekend team
They know what they’re signing up for, space exploration isn’t safe, it’s all good blaming people in hindsight but it happened, NASA wouldn’t willingly send people to their deaths. These people died doing what they loved to do and I don’t think seeing this happen to other people would deter them in any way…. in fact it didn’t.
People just need to get over it, people die, the population is increasing, there are plenty of other people to replace them.
Typical american drivel!