The Columbia Tragedy

On 1 February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up and disintegrated during re-entry. As President Bush stated: "Columbia is gone. There are no survivors." It is a sad day for the space program, for the American people, and for the nations of Israel and India, which had people who were citizens or born in their nations aboard.

Even in Southeastern Wisconsin the tragedy hit close to home as Dr. Laurel Clark had once been a resident of Racine, Wisconsin, and graduated from Racine's Horlick High School (the high school was named for a Racine resident named Horlick who invented malted milk; Dr. Clark was to have participated in Horlick's 75th anniversary this coming Fall).

After what seemed a successful sixteen day mission, the shuttle was sixteen minutes away from landing when contact was lost and visual evidence indicates a breakup. The coincidences of history are ironic. The date of launch for this mission? January 16.

This was NASA'a third failure that resulted in loss of life. My wife tells me my birthday is a bad omen for the space program. On 27 January 1967, my fourth birthday, an Apollo module caught fire on the launch pad and three astronauts died of asphyxiation. The shuttle Challenger exploded seconds into flight on 28 January 1986-one day after my 23rd birthday. On this February 1st I was reminded that it was 40 years ago when I had major surgery on that very date (yes, I was five days old). I'm sure there were other missions that were successful that took place on or near my birthday. It's simply that the coincidences of history are ironic.

And again, as we learned to our horror on September 11, 2001, nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed, nothing is routine. Accidents happen. Lives are lost. We can be happy and laughing one minute, gone from this earth the next. Relatives of Dr. Laurel Clark noted how it was eerie that they received an e-mail from her on Friday night. If the landing had gone without a hitch, the e-mail likely would have been printed out, saved somewhere, and forgotten. It is only eerie and momentous because of the calamity.

And once again the American president faced a nation in tragedy. He spoke the truth: "Columbia is gone. There are no survivors." He was blunt, but honest. What else can be said? (I recall one NASA official stating: "I knew we had a bad day." An understatement to be sure.)

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