Word: columbia
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...inspiration to each of us." It would be cheaper and safer to explore space with cameras and computers rather than men and women. But something would be lost as well, something brave and passionate that was sent in the messages and shown in the lives of the Columbia crew, who knew better than most the risks they took...
More than half the crew were rookies, who seemed to delight in the surprises of space, highly disciplined engineers and doctors reveling in a place where rules are broken, where physics plays games--Look, my cup is floating. They swam through the Columbia's passageways like happy dolphins, thrilled with their good fortune, doing somersaults. This came naturally to David Brown, who in an earlier life was a tumbler and stilt walker in the circus and rode a 7-ft. unicycle before he settled down to be a flight surgeon and naval aviator. That turned out to be good training...
Shuttle missions are always a mix of symbol and substance; the Challenger had the schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe; Columbia had Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut and a decorated F16 pilot, whose mother and grandmother were Auschwitz survivors. He hoped that his adventure would be a happy respite from a hard winter for his embattled country: Israel could travel with him, to feel safe in a borderless universe. Even a Palestinian Authority spokesman had wished for his safe return. "We flew over Jerusalem," he said in an interview from space. "Israel looked so small and beautiful." He had asked Prime Minister...
...first space flight. Did she know the words? "Wild are the winds to meet you. Staunch are the friends that greet you, kind as the love that shines from fair maidens' eyes." Her friends and family had been waiting to greet her from the moment she left. After Columbia lifted off safely, Clark's brother Daniel Salton told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he realized he had been holding his breath for about 10 minutes. "Anyone who has watched [video of the] Challenger can't even hardly bear going through" the point where the Challenger exploded, her other brother...
...reunions were ready, the celebrations waiting at the Kennedy Space Center, where Columbia was due to land. In Spokane, Wash., neighbors of Anderson's parents thought maybe they were having a party Saturday morning, a day to celebrate their son's second space adventure, but then it was the pastor coming and a neighbor with groceries because the truth was on TV. The countdown clock in Florida had started counting back up, when the landing time had passed and the shuttle had not arrived. People watching in eastern Texas heard a crushing rumble outside, the dogs whined, and horses started...