My thoughts on the Space Shuttle

[Judy <judy@judyshapiro.com>]

Christine wrote:
> I was a sophomore in highschool when challenger blew
> up.  I was in art class rinsing out my brushes when I
> heard. I was so upset.   It was a flashback this
> morning and the first thing I thought of was 'not
> again'.  It was horrid.  They showed the footage over
> and over.  The cruel jokes at school about people
> losing their lives were horrid.

I found out about Columbia when my husband phoned to tell me.  (He had
gone over to our "new" house to do construction work.) Tom (my
husband) rarely gets upset about anything, but both of us are quite
upset about this. Tom feels that space exploration is vital for the
long-term future of the human race. In addition to the tragic loss of
the crew, we're afraid this will set the space program way back.  NASA
never recovered from the loss of the Challenger.

I remember hearing about the Challenger disaster; I had gone from my
office to the cafeteria in the building where I worked.  Everyone
there was standing in little clusters, talking in whispers. A radio
was playing and the announcer was saying how tragic it was that all
the school children had been there to see Christa McAuliffe and had
witnessed the disaster. That's how I knew something had happened to
the shuttle. 

As for the jokes people tell about disasters, I think sometimes they
are just a coping mechanism, rather than a sign that people don't care
about the disaster. I'm the sort of person who gets really upset about
tragedies that happen to strangers (I spent all of yesterday upset
about poor little Jacob Corpuz, the boy abandoned in Utah, because he
keeps talking about his "mommy" and it is likely that she is dead.)
But, I laugh at morbid jokes despite being upset -- or perhaps
*because* I'm upset. 

-- Judy