The Agonizing Tapestry in the Sky

The recorder keeps running, but the central processor stops. Space shuttle launches have become so routine they don’t get beyond the back pages of the newspapers anymore. Twenty-four consecutive successful launches. It must be relatively easy I guess. Ho hum.

So that wretched brilliant orange bulge in the picture-perfect vapor trail can’t be there. Yet it is. And the central processor stops.

But the wretched orange bulge gives way to a huge white cloud. Two orange-tipped white fangs grow out of the cloud and curve off and away toward the horizon as the two solid propellant boosters, their precious cargo now history, continue inanely until destroyed by the range safety officer.

A spreading tapestry of dainty smoke trails begin to reach toward Earth from that ugliest of clouds; fanning fragments of Challenger now succumbing to the gravity defied only moments earlier. They just keep falling, and the horrible tapestry just keeps growing; like a curtain coming down. The central processor at last begins to function. Challenger has exploded.

I just happened to be at the Kennedy Space Center that day on business having to do with some experiments that had returned safely from the previous mission. A dozen or so of us were watching the launch from a top floor men’s room that provided a better vista than many of the designated viewing areas. Since the voice of Mission Control is piped throughout most of the buildings there, we also had the audio part of the program. Just a pleasant break in Tuesday’s work routine; just another space shuttle launch. We’d go to the cafeteria for lunch after it was over.

Although one may witness many such launches, I find that I am always a little startled at the retina-searing brilliance of the rocket engines’ plume and the spine-rumbling, building-rattling power of the sound waves. The amount of controlled energy released during a shuttle launch is truly awesome. My attention invariably gets diverted momentarily to the birds of Merritt Island. They must have each witnessed dozens of launches; and they’ve never become used to the experience. Even the images of those awful minutes, burned now into my memory forever, have excited birds swooping in the foreground; the agonizing white tapestry falling against a clear blue sky out beyond.

Engineers are the medical doctors and dentists of mechanical, electrical, electronic, and hydraulic beings. Like MDs and dentists, they tend not to be very emotional. Emotionalism gets in the way of getting their jobs done. When that wretched orange bulge appeared, my colleague, Fitz muttered, “That doesn’t look good.” Someone next to me at the window had binoculars. He described what he saw in a professional monotone avoiding interpretations. There were lots of other technical comments there in the men’s room, but I can’t remember the rest right now.

The reality, finality of what had happened seemed to dawn on us slowly; as if it were being paced by the fall of that white tapestry curtain out over the Atlantic. People are not prepared with handy one-liners at such times. We drifted away silently, one by one. The birds, by now, had returned to their normal routines. Challenger’s final tapestry became fuzzy as it was borne west by the breeze. Within an hour or so, I suppose it had completely dissolved.

Fitz and I went back to our office just down the hall. I feel we both made highly professional attempts at conversation. We did not go back to what we’d been doing before the launch. Among other things we shared our initial thoughts about the probable impacts on America’s manned space program. After a while, I noticed we were just sitting and staring at each other. Without any idea why, I got up and went back to the window in the men’s room. Did I hope to see Challenger still on the pad? I honestly don’t know.

There were a few others already there. Staring. There was nothing to see. The only change in the vista from an hour ago was that Challenger was no longer on Pad 39 B. Yet we stood there. Staring.

I returned three or four times that Tuesday afternoon. There were always men staring out the window. The first time I went back, while I was alone for a moment at the window, the astronauts’ bus returned the families of Challenger’s crew to a door just below. I watched as they left the bus and entered the building. At that moment, somehow, all of me began to experience the impact of Challenger’s death.

Fitz and I had meetings scheduled that afternoon. Those meetings were held on schedule; and the work schedules reviewed in the meetings remained on schedule. Dedication or emotional escape? I just discovered I don’t care. I just discovered I’d rather be working with these people than be rich--in money. I don’t think I knew that before.

We in the space shuttle program spend so much of our time, it seems to us, in broken-field running through bureaucratic obstacles, in meetings to schedule and reschedule and to cost and recost everything we do, in filling out forms, in testing and retesting. Sometimes we get bored. Sometimes we get discouraged. Sometimes we think about retirement or changing careers. Sometimes we change careers. Sometimes we have heart attacks or strokes in our 30s and 40s.

I had a bunch of details to take care of in the office. They were delayed by watching one of the TV monitors most of the afternoon. That time spent brought no more than confirmation that noone else in the world yet knew anything more than we did. So it was after 6 p.m. and getting dark as I crossed the nearly deserted parking lot toward the rental car.

Kennedy Space Center is big. It takes 20 minutes or so at 55 m.p.h. to reach the gate from the building I left. When I drove in that morning, it took much longer because there were hundreds of expectant cars and campers parked and parking along the causeway. Now, in the gathering darkness, there were only the birds.

Beyond the gate, as you drive south, you pass through the communities of Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach and Melbourne. There are lots of traffic signals. These are not very classy towns by the standards of some. Since I’ve come to know their people, they’re very classy by my standards.

As I drove and waited at traffic lights, it gradually dawned on me that many of the hundreds of lighted billboards strewn in front of businesses of all kinds along Highway A1A had changed. Instead of hawking the wares offered by their owners, they now held such messages as, “God Bless the Families of Challenger’s Crew,” “God Bless The Crew of 51-L,” “We Mourn The Loss,” and so on.

There is something here that is very special, very American. We must not lose it. We must not fail to appreciate it. Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Ellis Onizuka, Ron McNair, Judy Resnik, Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, and Challenger painted a tapestry in the sky that reminds us that the job is not easy, not routine, not safe. Now, and there must be no question about this, it is imperative that we get on with that job. Yes, even longer days. Yes, even more days of the week. Yes, even more weeks of the year. And yes, even more years. Now we owe it to them as well as to ourselves.

JOE A. HANSON

Altadena

Hanson works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.