Jud (moderator) said on February 1, 2003 21:51:

i was shivering all over when i saw the news :´((

Kiwein1 said on February 2, 2003 00:00:

Horrorable pictures!! Unbelievable!

rox-kuryliw said on February 3, 2003 15:01:

sad day in the US ? 15 people where killed in a train crash, 5 childen died in snow fall as couple of days. NO ONE HAS TALKED ABOUT THEM.??

no one’s life is more important than the other.
so why are nt these caes not in the main news.
the US is not anymore important than and other counties. it does make me cross

wendy said on February 3, 2003 20:04:

Last week,here was a girl who ran away from the boarding school in my town,together with her friend,behind the school is a trainrail,and they were playing on it “who dares to stand the longst on the rail,when there’s a train coming,wins” well,there was also a second train,and the the girl didn’t see it :(

LittleSpooky said on February 3, 2003 20:19:

Folks, don’t get upset because of what has happened to “usurp” other stories. These are things that happen. Unfortunately, the media has seen that the Columbia disaster is more important than the train accident(s) and so on down the line. Yesterday, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, 1 person was killed and 3 critically injured when the driver of the SUV decided to pass people (who were doing the speed limit). Unfortunately, one of our UTA busses was headed up the hill and the SUV plowed head first into the bus.

It’s news, but it’s like Third Page news to the Columbia disaster. This was the first disintegration upon re-entry that has ever happened in the US / NASA. I’m not saying that the other news isn’t note worthy, but this is a “first” in the history of manned space flight in the US.

I’m sorry for the loss of lives over the last 5 days, grieve and go on my friends.

zeeshan said on February 4, 2003 05:22:

Sad true but I guess more sad stuff for ME is news like people killd in TwiN Towers/Afghanistan and now soon-to-be-attacked Iraq.

Peace and lots of love to all around the globe.

Zee

zeeshan said on February 4, 2003 09:36:

agreed! you and I are thinking on the same lines!

Zee

Santi said on February 4, 2003 12:47:

When I started this thread I didn’t expect that all you were sharing my opinion, thought neither expected I that you were all against it. I just wanted to express what I felt, because this thing reminds me of one of my clearest memories of when I was a child, and I was really really shocked when the Challenger exploded in the take off.
I remember they cut the Kids-program on Spanish TV to show the images and talk about the Challenger, and personally before and after then my biggest dream always was to become an astronaut. Just think of what it means for a little kid of 7 to see this things happen... in his TV time...

That’s the only thing I wanted to express, and sorry everyone if I “forgot” there are other problems in the world, that more people die and so on. I know all that happens, and In fact I’m studying all the days in the University hazard related stuff, since I chose that. If you want a comparison, in one single flooding in Bangladesh more than 100000 people can die (have died some time)... that makes the 3000 or whatever the number it was people that died in New York due to the 09/11 look kinda “ridiculous”.

But I do believe sorrow is not a matter of numbers in the deaths, and I simply feel very sad because I felt very identified with those people since they are my heroes from my childhood. Just like when Ayrton Senna dead in Imola it was a big shock for everyone in Brazil at the same time lots of street kids are actually killed by the government. Or take Diana in the UK...
You feel sorrow for the people you feel closer, and that way is how it works. I’m sorry for the others but it’s not the same thing for me, and if you thing the media has left me brainless, it’s ok, I don’t mind. My only intention was to express what I felt.

@Lonely-girl: The space is just like any other thing. If Spanish kings had thought the same 5 centuries ago and they did have a lot of “problems” home, the world would still be half of what it is now (I simply don’t imagine myself not eating frites :D). And we all know (or should know at our age) that problems on earth have no solution, since humans are like they are. If you want a relation of thing that now are possible just because of space development or space race, just ask it or e-mail me, you would be really impressed of what we have achieved with that...

LittleSpooky said on February 5, 2003 05:07:

Santi: Don’t apologise for stating something that you feel.
*fade back to 1981*
April 12, 1981. After several years of excitement, Shuttle Columbia was about to launch, taking with her 2 men in order to see if a reusable space craft was possible. I was in school and our teachers loaded everyone up and put us into the Audio / Visual room (A/V) to watch the launch on tv. We were so excited to be able to witness this. Two days later, Columbia made a safe return after orbiting the Earth.
*fade forward to 2003*
Shuttle Columbia is up once more, doing some “routiene” mission work. Experiments in space have started to become a regular occurance. However, on her way up, the left wing gets dinged by a heat-shield tile. Everyone has decided that it was a minimal risk, and the mission continued.

Saturday morning, it all changed. Unfortunately, it was an end of an era for me. I’d seen the rise of Columbia, and the sad fall. People like Santi, who dreamed of going to the stars, and the children who attend Columbia Elementary either in Farmington, Utah or West Jordan, Utah are saddened by the loss of something that means so much to them.
While it is a sad day in US history, it is a sad day to those in Israel and India, who lost their own people in this as well.

So, Santi, thank you for sharing how you felt. Hope you don’t mind me scooting up next to you on that little platform and sharing what the loss has meant to me.

Santi said on February 22, 2003 22:08:

I think the e-mail sent by NASA to all their suscribers (I’m in their mailing-list) says what I meant much better than what I tried to explain :)

“Feb. 4th, 2003: At the dawn of the space age some 40 years ago, we always knew who was orbiting Earth or flying to the Moon. Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn. They were household names–everywhere.

Lately it’s different. Space flight has become more “routine.” Another flight of the shuttle. Another visit to the space station. Who’s onboard this time? Unless you’re a NASA employee or a serious space enthusiast, you might not know.

Dave Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.

Now we know. Those are the names of the seven astronauts who were tragically lost on Saturday, Feb. 1st, when the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107) broke apart over Texas.

Before the accident, perhaps, they were strangers to you. But if that’s so, why did you have a knot in your gut when you heard the news? What were those tears all about? Why do you feel so deep-down sad for seven strangers?

Astronauts have an unaccountable hold on us. They are explorers. Curious, humorous, serious, daring, careful. Where they go, they go in peace. Every kid wants to be one. Astronauts are the essence of humanity.

They are not strangers. They are us.

While still in orbit Dave Brown asked, jokingly, “do we really have to come back?”

No. But we wish you had.

The Science@NASA team, as does all of NASA and the world, extends heartfelt sympathies to the family, friends and colleagues of the STS-107 crew. Please see the NASA Home Page (http://www.nasa.gov) for more information on the Columbia Investigation.

–Tony Phillips, Ron Koczor, Bryan Walls, Becky Bray, Patrick Meyer.”

Santi said on February 22, 2003 23:39:

@Lonely-girl: “But I still think that it’s a waste of money if e.g. the US want to search after extra-terrestrian life (heard this morning in the news). There are still so many problems, wars, conflict to be solved. But I agree that people on earth are probably to selfish (me included) to really care about it... Sad but true”

About this you said, I think SCIENCE is the only way to solve all the problems, if it was just used the way it should be use. Every single country in the world (or at least most, even developing countries) has a budget for science, from their annual budget.

Science has the answer because new technologies make life easier and people live longer and in better conditions. In case you don’t know, this starving people situation has been brought by science too. Development in medicine during the past 20th century made life expectance longer and when applied to developing countries this is what we got, an exponential increase in the population.

But I still think it’s positive, it’s just a step. When science application is not followed by the awareness and good use of people is when it brings problems... it enters in conflict with tradition or other beliefs and it brings problems. Best example: Ireland and other very religious countries (like Islamic for example -and just FOR EXAMPLE) can’t hold such increase in the population and that is gonna bring the most serious problems in the history of humanity.

Biotechnology in good hands would be and is the next step, since it can bring better food. In good hands means “if we could forget about Monsanto, Novartis and alikes”. Next will be telecomunications and later transport, but all the steps of this staircase are being built over no foundation, since that is the awareness of people. But that is a task of science too and that needs to be invested in.

It’s sad that everything is focused on war, but it’s not just you, it’s many governments, if not all the governments. Well, except for Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino and Vatican that have no army, as far as I know. Why do I say this? Well, this leads to an interesting contradiction, but that’s human nature. Since all governments are interested in “security” they all spend most of their money in war. Their “science money” I mean. 50% of public investment in the USA goes to arms research. In the country where I live of the 17 private science projects financed with public money 12 are arms related.

Sincerely, I prefer my money to be invested in developing technics for the research of extraterrestrian life (that always bring knowledge in physics, biology, chemistry that could be applied in many other actual ways) than in developing technics for killing people, even if we don’t ever find an ET. I even think they don’t invest enough...

One more thing I wanted to say is that Mr. Bush should be ashamed of offering his condolences to the families of these astronauts. If this has happened it’s because they have been reducing the budget for NASA since he came to the power... because he’s obsessed with war and Saddam Hussein I suppose, and he sees “security” the most important thing. He even was told by technicians that the Shuttle program could be in risk, because of the lower money income. It’s sad that someone has to die like that...

Santi said on March 21, 2003 08:50:

They found the Columbia Data Recorder!! I hope this explains soon the accident and Space Flight comes to be again what it was :)

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/2020/shuttle030319.html

LittleSpooky said on March 22, 2003 09:50:

While it is sad that the disaster occurred, I’m pleased to hear that they found the Flight Data Recorder. Here’s to hoping they can figure it out. In some instances of plane crashes, they FDR was mangled and a lot of the Data was lost :o(