From the WSJ Opinion Archives
'The
Columbia Is Lost'
This morning brought awful news: The space shuttle Columbia "broke apart
in flames 200,000 feet over Texas . . ., killing all seven astronauts
just minutes before they were to glide to a landing in Florida," the Associated
Press reports. President Bush addressed the nation at 2 p.m. EST:
All Americans today are thinking . . . of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country. . . .
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.
It was the second fatal accident in the history of the space shuttle program. On Jan. 28, 1986, 17 years ago this week, the shuttle Challenger blew up, killing seven astronauts, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. The Wall Street Journal paid tribute to them the next day:
"Give me a challenge," [President Reagan] said of them, "and I'll meet it with joy." Isn't that the way Christa McAuliffe will be remembered? A buoyant and brave young woman who never doubted for a moment that she wanted to go out there. And behind her and her six colleagues stood a long line of others, hoping for a chance as well. We suspect that line will be there today, and it will be there tomorrow.
Indeed they were there "tomorrow." The Washington Post has profiles of today's seven lost astronauts: commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, and mission specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon. "It's been pretty much a lifelong dream and just a thrill to be able to get to actually live it out," Husband said just before the flight.
This shuttle crew had a particularly international flavor. Chawla, a naturalized American citizen, was a native of Karnal, India; the Times of India reports that she "had done India proud when she embarked on her first space mission on November 19, 1997." Ramon was a colonel in the Israeli air force; as we noted last month, he was among the fighter pilots who destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981.
Reuters, always true to form, weighs in with a dispatch from Baghdad declaring that "immediate popular reaction . . . was that its [sic] was God's retribution on Americans"--as if there's such a thing as "popular reaction" in a police state. The "news" service quotes one Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi, identified as a "government employee," as saying: "God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us."
The last time America witnessed horror in the skies, it was the deliberate act of evil men, so the question inevitably arose this morning: Did terrorists destroy the Columbia? The answer appears to be no: "At this time we have no indication that the mishap was caused by anything or anyone on the ground," CNN quotes NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe as saying. Security on the ground had been unusually tight before this flight, for fear that Ramon's presence would make the shuttle a target for Islamic fanatics.
Early indications suggest that the shuttle's destruction may have originated in the left wing. The Washington Post reports:
During the launch day on Jan. 16, a piece of orange insulating foam on the Columbia's external fuel tank came off during liftoff and was believed to have struck the leading edge of the shuttle's left wing. The shuttle did not have a robot arm on this mission, so the crew was never able to actually look at the area where the foam hit.
The leading edge--the very front of the wing--experiences extreme heating during re-entry, as does the nose of the orbiter.
SpaceflightNow.com reports on a Johnson Space Center press conference at which shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore spoke, just after 3:30 EST this afternoon:
Diittemore says the first sign of trouble occurred shortly before 9 a.m. EST with the loss of data from temperature sensors in the hydraulic systems on left wing aerosurfaces. That was followed by loss of tire pressure measurements from the left main landing gear and structural sensors.
"Our journey into space will go on," President Bush declared. "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand." There's no word, though, on the immediate future of the space shuttle program. After the Challenger disaster, the shuttles went on hiatus for more than 2 1/2 years while NASA investigated what had gone wrong. On Sept. 29, 1988, the program resumed when the Discovery launched.
The Jerusalem Post notes that three astronauts remain in orbit on the International Space Station, and a shuttle (the Post says the Discovery, but the NASA Web site says the Atlantis) was scheduled to pick them up and return them to Earth next month. What if the mission is postponed? "An escape vehicle is attached to the ISS at all times," the Post reports. "A Soyuz capsule is docked to the station and, if necessary, could return the astronauts to earth."
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Mara Gold, Barry Kaplovitz, Ed Dressel, Darren Gold, David Sherzer, Robert LeChevalier and Marie Bourgeois. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Peggy Noonan: The Columbia's loss is a searing reminder of American heroism
- Review & Outlook: The Wall Street Journal on the Challenger disaster, Jan. 29, 1986.
- Ronald Reagan's Challenger speech.
