From: John Seidts (jseidts@astory.com)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 21:20:36 PST
Sorry for those who don't think this is appropriate for this list. I think
it is.
I was quite upset about the whole thing, and find myself thinking about it
quite a bit these few days. I spent all weekend at the airport where I am
finishing up my private pilot's license, much of it putting new cabinets
into our FBO building so we can use the space more efficiently to educate
more pilots and youngsters who are interested in aviation. All of us felt
very touched by the tragedy.
Presently, I am finishing up my degree in Russian Linguistics, and am
beginning the courses for a Physics degree. Lots of what I thought of this
weekend involved my future, and my desire to combine my skills in Medicine,
with my language skills, with my training in Physics to build an interesting
career for myself, hopefully somewhere in the Aerospace industry. It is
very hard to explain how I wound up with such a varied background, or why I
chose it. But it suited me, and it has offered me lots of opportunities
that I otherwise would not have.
The space program in the US has developed in much the same way, but on a
grander scale. We took the work of the early Natural Philosophers, and the
works of the industrial scientists of the 1800's, and Orville and Wilbur,
and Werner Von Braun, and put it together up through the moon shots and the
shuttle program. Out of this has come the internet, which we are using to
build our small (but very important) MV community here, tang, cell phones,
etc. In this community, I have met Gene Pantano, Gordon McMillan, Steve
Dussetschleger without ever meeting them face to face. I mention them
because they are so far and so near at the same time. I may never get to
Scotland, but I have been there to see Gordon's Carryall and Command Car.
In a very small, but extremely important manner, meeting them has broadened
my visions of my world, and because their lives have in some way touched
mine, I have become a more humane person (or at least I believe so).
The space program in the US, ESA, Russia, and in the near future China has
brought all this to us. It gets harder to fight for the small bits of
ground here on Earth when space looms so large and inviting to us, as a hope
to our population problems, our resource shortages, and of course to that
great drive in all of us- to explore.
So to end this meandering letter, let me say that Columbia hurts us where it
really hurts- our dreams. My God, if I may use the phrase, what tragic loss
of nearly pure aspiration? What science, ideas inspired, hopes conjured,
and certainly spirits lifted by the sight of humanity's achievment have been
lost in that terrible accident? I don't know. But I certainly will be
thinking about it as an American, and a citizen of the world today and
tomorrow and for many days to come. In no small way do we owe our present
standard of life in the US to the Space Program. And I believe our
continued technological growth as a world culture will be intimately tied to
our progress in space. Just an opinion, but I believe it to be true...
Columbia, I remember you...
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