As a child – a space junkie even back then – I used to watch space shuttle launches with religious zeal. Compared to non-reusable capsules like Apollo or Soyuz the Orbiter looked like the first real spacecraft (like, you know, one from those science fiction books) which very well may be one of the reasons it was built the way it was built (because engineers read science fiction, too).
I broke the habit when Challenger exploded in 1986. I loved the Shuttle (still do) , but watching astronauts die in real time was a bit too unnerving for my taste, and with every new launch I was afraid that fatal accidents would happen again – as alas one did in 2003.
Luckily NASA was less afraid. After a major overhaul (a.k.a Orbiter Major Modification period) Endeavour was launched yesterday at 6:36 p.m. (about 0.30 this morning here in Berlin), and this time I was watching again live on NASA TV. This was, after all, one of the very few remaining opportunities to see a Shuttle launch.
One member of the Endeavour crew is Barbara Radding Morgan, who used to teach in elementary school and was the backup candidate for the NASA Teacher in Space Program during the Challenger Mission when her colleaugue Christa McAuliffe perished in the explosion.
If anybody ever deserved to go to space it’s certainly her – Barbara Morgan absolutely rocks. She completed the necessary training to become a ‘real’ astronaut and has been assigned as a full-fledged mission specialist to the ST-118 Mission (go read the Interviews at the STS-118 Mission Pages). If the world absolutely needs heroes I think astronaut teachers are the best kind we can get.
Camila Perry
reading science fiction books is the stuff that i am always into. science fiction really widens my imagination ,’`
Bedding Collections ·
science fiction books is the thing that i always read because it stirs my imagination _