A week to remember - Space Disasters

[Chairboy]

37th anniversary of Apollo 1 accident (January 27, 1967)


18th anniversary of Challenger accident (January 28, 1986)


1st anniversary of Columbia accident (February 1, 2003)


High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High into the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through the footless hall of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wingswept height with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The untrespassed sanctify of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[Replicant]

Jeez, was Columbia only one year ago?! Seems like longer!

I remember the Challenger disaster vividly.  I was entering a competition from a Computer & Video Games magazine - I was 12 going on 13 at the time.  I then saw a newsflash on TV about it and followed every single bit of news about the incident for the next year.  Tragic!

[gofaster]

I remember the Challenger explosion.  We could see the smoke clouds from the other coast.  Talk about emotional impact.

Columbia wasn't as much of an emotional trauma.  I hadn't really been following the mission as closely.

The recent Mars expedition got me motivated to do an outer-space theme scale model project.  I've been working on it since the Christmas holidays and it depicts a group of astronauts doing astronaut things on the surface of an unidentified moon/planet.  I finished the astronauts a week or so ago and just yesterday got the tile mortar and rocks cemented onto the display base.  

At first I was going to try and do it as the surface of the Earth's moon but recreating the craters proved to be beyond my skill level.  After seeing the Spirit's photos of Mars, I figured I'd try and make it a fictional scene of a future Mars expedition but I think it'll be tricky trying to get the right shade of orange/pink/red for the terrain.  So, it'll just be a generic fictional "men on a planet" scene.

For you modelers out there, I'm using the 1/72 scale Astronaut figure set from Airfix, now on sale dirt cheap at ModelExpo-Online.com ( here ).  The figures are soft plastic (bad for scratchbuilding) and have a seam line that needs some correction (too bad they're molded in soft plastic) and come in a variety of poses (2 figures per pose) and some equipment (lunar rover, something that looks like a smaller descent stage of the LM, and something that looks like a bucket with a joystick - 2 of each).

The display base is an AMT/Ertl model car case so I can keep the finished diorama covered and protected from dust.  The terrain is tile mortar mixed with white glue and water, with pebbles from my driveway pushed into it for a rocky surface.  Tile mortar has a tendency to settle flat, so the white glue helps it stay uneven and hilly.

If you want a Lunar Module and astronauts, I recommend the 1/72 Airfix Lunar Module kit which comes with the LM, some astronauts, and a couple pieces of scientific equipment.  It comes with its own base and is molded in hard plastic (making it ideal for modifications and scratchbuilding).  You have to supply your own foil.  Cadbury's chocolate bars are a good source for the foil.

[Scootter]

I lived in Tampa Fl. at the time and remember the cold clear day like it was last week. I was on my way to Apollo Beach to check on some houses I was building and stoped on the SR-60 causeway east of Tampa to watch the shot, I will never forget it.

[midnight Target]

I was teaching an elementary level science class at the time. We watched it, then I spent the rest of the day trying to explain.

Terrible.