Heavens: worth the risk

by Eve Stenson

When a friend asked early Saturday afternoon, "You heard about the space shuttle?" the presumption was that I had, and I could feel my widening eyes indicating otherwise. I had those few intervening seconds to prepare myself, before he explained that the Columbia had broken up upon reentry, and the fragments of the ship and its astronauts were scattered across Texas. The initial tone of his voice had sufficiently indicated the tragic gravity of the news to follow, but equally telling was the question itself. After all, nobody "hears about" the space shuttle missions anymore.

These days, the trips into orbit seem routine; they are numbered – the Columbia’s last flight was STS-107 – and receive little notice from the public. Occasionally, if a launch is delayed on a slow news day, or if one of the astronauts is a "first" someone (first black woman, first Isreali, etc.), then it’ll make the evening broadcast. Otherwise, it’s considered business as usual. We forget that it’s a very risky business.

They say that a few decades ago, both schoolchildren and working adults would interrupt their daily routines to gather around the TV at liftoff, amazed and thrilled by the height of man’s achievement and audacity, by the daring with which his he tested and overcame odds that seemed destined to keep him Earthbound. They watched NASA’s failures and its successes, the latter epitomized by Apollo 11 and the multi-million-viewer live broadcast of those first few steps on the moon.

When Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins returned to Earth as heroes, President Nixon congratulated them on a successful mission. Thirty years later, it became widely known that he had a second speech prepared, one that he never had to give. It began, "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace."

The memo was entitled "In Event of Moon Disaster," and reflected the possibility that the lander, low on fuel, would not be able to get the two astronauts off the surface of the moon. (Collins remained in the control module during the landing.) The speech would have continued, "These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding."

This had been the purpose of STS-107 – not to carry supplies or additions to the International Space Station, but to conduct more than 90 microgravity science investigations. It was for this quest that the Columbia’s seven astronauts chose to risk their lives, and lost.

A high school classmate asked me if I knew any of them, since I interned at NASA Glenn Research Center the past two summers. I didn’t; NASA’s awfully large, and I’m sure I have more degrees of separation from the Columbia’s crew than a great many people who’ve never set foot into any of the space centers.

I did "know" one of the experiments, though. My boss during the summer was the project scientist for Critical Viscosity of Xenon 2, and it was one of the projects I researched and summarized when I rebuilt the Microgravity Experiments division’s "complex fluids" website. It’s a tenuous connection at best, but maybe that’s why I was so struck by this particular tragedy?

Or perhaps it’s analogous to the way The Perfect Storm had a profound impact on a friend who is studying to become a marine biologist; "astronaut" is one of the more fantastic entries on my list of "things to be when I grow up." Tantalized by space and our quest to explore it, I never understood the claim that if God had wanted man to fly, he would have given us wings. I always wondered: if he hadn’t, would he have given us dreams?

It is not purely a pioneering spirit that motivated the Columbia’s mission; more practically, those experiments sought to "combat prostate cancer, . . . improve crop yield, . . . provide stronger foundations for structures in areas where earthquakes, floods and landslides are common," to name only a very few. Yet, some of my classmates still claim that these pursuits fail to justify the loss of life that occurred Saturday morning. Funny how you never hear "it wasn’t worth it" when things go right.

They seem to be saying that accepting a risk is only valid if that danger is never manifested. Yet, doesn't that betray the very magnitude of the choice? To evaluate a risk means to seriously consider the worst case scenario, and then ask whether the cause in question merits the price that is at stake. To decide that it is, is a commitment of enormous magnitude – but is rendered meaningless if that decision is rescinded when payment comes due.

It is a very short-sighted gambler who refuses to come to terms with the possibility of losing. To make a wager is to accept both gains and losses. You cannot place a bet conditionally, "Red 13, but only if it wins." The crew of the Columbia was not so blind when they bet against their lives.

We’ve all seen photographs of Earth from orbit, seductively veiled by slowly-revolving wisps of clouds. But have you ever envisioned looking out a window – holding onto something nearby, so that you don’t float away while you gaze in wonder – and witnessing that view for yourself? I have; it’s a sight I would very much like to see before I die.

So had John Glenn, who at the age of 77 considered it worth a second look. He recalled to The New York Times, "You try and imagine in advance what it is going to be like, and it is better than anything you could possibly imagine."

Even as I mourn the Columbia astronauts, a part of me feels envious. They have done what I, as yet, can only dream of. It cost them their lives, but they knew the risk before they set out; they thought it was worth taking that chance.

I believe they still would.

(published in The Ram, 6 February 2003)