ajs@hpfcla.UUCP (01/29/86)
Shock... still wearing off. It will take a long time to put today's events in perspective. But life goes on, must go on. We've talked here before about shuttles being lost. It was easy to speculate about unlikely possibilities. Now that "if" has become "when", has become history, how can we keep the dream alive? To my surprise, the President's statement half an hour ago was crisp, magnificent, uplifting. It's worth repeating, and I hope it will be remembered. As he said, the future belongs to the pioneers, to the brave. One silver lining, however slim, is this irony (mentioned here earlier): The loss of an Orbiter frees us, at least a little, to replace it with something even better. If, that is, the space program can survive the shock wave rebounding from the nation, the terrible puncturing of the magic bubble. (Perhaps we can share perspectives, compare notes, on the reactions we see around us, in the weeks ahead?) It is doubly tragic that the accident was so rapid and unforewarned. (With the vehicle climbing at Mach 3, you can imagine the force of the explosion. The shock wave travelled FORWARD in only a few frames, a few thirtieths of a second. I suppose that even if the Orbiter had been blown clear, it would have suffered a catastrophic deceleration.) If only there had been more time, to get the Orbiter clear, to even attempt a landing or rescue, perhaps to salvage SOMETHING positive from the deaths and loss. If only... Alan Silverstein