The Challenge Ahead

"In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.' The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home."   -   President George Bush, February 1, 2003.

Not many people appreciate how close the Apollo 11 landing on the moon came to a national catastrophe in 1969. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were nearing the lunar surface, they were having difficulty finding an appropriate landing spot. The astronauts were running low on fuel. If they could not find a suitable place to land, they would have to eject the lower half of the lunar landing module and ignite the engines of the upper portion. This upper portion would return them to lunar orbit. There they could rendezvous with the lunar command module and return to the Earth without ever landing on the moon. Intent on landing on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin continue to search for a place, pushing the envelope of safety. When they finally landed on the surface, they only had seconds of fuel remaining.

If the lunar module had run out a fuel causing the it to crash on the surface, it is hard to imagine the enormous sense of tragedy the nation would have suffered, the bitter recriminations that would have followed, and the deadly sense of inadequacy that would have suffocated future exploration. In the contentious 1960s, the man's attempt to reach the moon was one of the few national endeavors that united rather than divided. All this might have been lost, if the lunar module had a few seconds less fuel.

The odds finally caught up with the space program in 1986, when an O-ring in a solid rocket booster was a little too brittle on a cold morning. If full view of television cameras, the shuttle Challenger exploded killing all on board. The event was a particular shock because it shattered the illusion of invincibility that the American manned space program had acquired.

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