On a cold January day
Jan. 28th, 2011 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexTwenty five years ago space shuttle Challenger lifted off from its pad in Florida. Seventy-three seconds later it exploded in an event that killed all on board.
People of my parents' generation talk about where they were when JFK or Martin Luther King were shot, and how clearly they remember that day. I remember this day like that. I was working in Austin, TX and was walking to a meeting in the office. Outside the conference room the VP's secretary had the television on to the live coverage of the launch. I, and several others, paused to watch the final countdown and that minute-plus afterward.
I remember that the TV showed that footage over and over. They had nothing else to show. I remember wanting them to stop showing it, as though somehow reality could be changed if they'd just stop it. I don't know why I identified so strongly with this crew. In retrospect, I realize I had bought into the hype that the presence of Christa McAuliffe somehow meant there was a way that ordinary people (like me) might some day get into space. If you don't feel that in your bones and in the pit of your stomach then I'm not sure I can communicate with you. The very first story I ever wrote unprompted and purely for my own pleasure was a grade-school fiction of myself being part of the first crew to go to Mars.
I also remember the hearings that followed. I was raised in a household where the Watergate hearings were on television in a marathon session and I've always believed that these commissions have no purpose other than to give liars a stage on which to lie, dissemble, distract, and cover their asses. The Challenger commission was the same. Day in and day out I saw numbing drones from NASA and Morton Thiokol and the government go on and on about how this was an "accident" and how nobody could have predicted blah blah. Which is crap, and was crap. To this day I believe that NASA launched against advice and under pressure (real or imagined) to have the astronauts in space for Reagan's State of the Union speech during which he was supposed to speak with them live.
And then, in the middle of this flying field of crap this sort of crazy-haired guy got ahold of the microphone and pulled a publicity stunt. As I would later read of him, Feynman loved the spotlight, and he loved stunts. But I didn't care then and I don't care now - his stunt blew apart the whole fake show. Nobody, seeing him hold up that little bit of rubber with the C clamp, could deny their eyes. Feynman became a hero to me and if you've ever heard me say things like "nature bats last" it's because of him.
Later, I would read the write-up by Edward Tufte (badly reproduced here: http://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html) that showed how the choice of presentation of information had obscured the key facts. I still use these charts in my UI Design course trying to teach students why getting the presentation right actually matters. Why doing it wrong can kill people.
When Challenger blew up I lost a dream, gained a hero, and renewed a sense of purpose. It's a crappy trade-off, but when I remember this day, as I try to do every year, I try to remember it not just as it happened then, but as it has affected my life since.
People of my parents' generation talk about where they were when JFK or Martin Luther King were shot, and how clearly they remember that day. I remember this day like that. I was working in Austin, TX and was walking to a meeting in the office. Outside the conference room the VP's secretary had the television on to the live coverage of the launch. I, and several others, paused to watch the final countdown and that minute-plus afterward.
I remember that the TV showed that footage over and over. They had nothing else to show. I remember wanting them to stop showing it, as though somehow reality could be changed if they'd just stop it. I don't know why I identified so strongly with this crew. In retrospect, I realize I had bought into the hype that the presence of Christa McAuliffe somehow meant there was a way that ordinary people (like me) might some day get into space. If you don't feel that in your bones and in the pit of your stomach then I'm not sure I can communicate with you. The very first story I ever wrote unprompted and purely for my own pleasure was a grade-school fiction of myself being part of the first crew to go to Mars.
I also remember the hearings that followed. I was raised in a household where the Watergate hearings were on television in a marathon session and I've always believed that these commissions have no purpose other than to give liars a stage on which to lie, dissemble, distract, and cover their asses. The Challenger commission was the same. Day in and day out I saw numbing drones from NASA and Morton Thiokol and the government go on and on about how this was an "accident" and how nobody could have predicted blah blah. Which is crap, and was crap. To this day I believe that NASA launched against advice and under pressure (real or imagined) to have the astronauts in space for Reagan's State of the Union speech during which he was supposed to speak with them live.
And then, in the middle of this flying field of crap this sort of crazy-haired guy got ahold of the microphone and pulled a publicity stunt. As I would later read of him, Feynman loved the spotlight, and he loved stunts. But I didn't care then and I don't care now - his stunt blew apart the whole fake show. Nobody, seeing him hold up that little bit of rubber with the C clamp, could deny their eyes. Feynman became a hero to me and if you've ever heard me say things like "nature bats last" it's because of him.
Later, I would read the write-up by Edward Tufte (badly reproduced here: http://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html) that showed how the choice of presentation of information had obscured the key facts. I still use these charts in my UI Design course trying to teach students why getting the presentation right actually matters. Why doing it wrong can kill people.
When Challenger blew up I lost a dream, gained a hero, and renewed a sense of purpose. It's a crappy trade-off, but when I remember this day, as I try to do every year, I try to remember it not just as it happened then, but as it has affected my life since.
