Memories
Stephen R. Savitzky
flames. Overhead the stars are blazing, bright, hard, and pitilessly
cold. He draws his cloak closer about him; a shabby, dark-green,
shapeless thing, dusty around the edges. Is there still a trail of
smoke dimming the stars? It seems unlikely, twelve hours later. But
memory puts it back, the widening white brushstroke Columbia drew on the
blue sky over Texas.
It was only Tuesday last that we remembered Challenger, seventeen years
ago.
"I woke to the news on NPR, a little after six this morning. It must
have been the first report: 'contact with the shuttle has been lost...'
Something like that. I spent most of the morning alternating between
watching the news on TV and listening to NPR while reading it on the
Net.
"Later in the morning I went for a walk, down to San Jose's municipal
Rose Garden about a mile away. I spent a long time looking at the patch
of Royal Amethyst -- it stands just inside the entrance nearest my
house. I often go there when I'm sad or troubled. There's a calm about
the place, and the memory of Amethyst Rose watches over it in a way I
don't need to understand.
"After the second press conference I went out again, for a longer walk
along Los Gatos Creek -- my usual weekend route -- and wrote a new verse
to "Keep the Dream Alive", the song I wrote for Challenger and her crew.
Seventeen years ago, almost to the day.
"Now there are two smoke trails etched on my memory: Challenger's
twisted tower and Columbia's brushstroke. Two crews of seven, two sets
of grieving families. Two sets of shattered dreams."
He sits, staring into the flames. Eventually he will walk away into the
night; somewhere else he will sing the old song with its new verse, and
follow it as he often does with "The Mary Ellen Carter". The stars over
the desert will still be bright, and cold, and far away.
--
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Mean Green Dancing Machine
Stephen R. Savitzky <st...@theStarport.org> wrote:
>
>He sits, staring into the flames. Eventually he will walk away into the
>night; somewhere else he will sing the old song with its new verse, and
>follow it as he often does with "The Mary Ellen Carter". The stars over
>the desert will still be bright, and cold, and far away.
And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2003 by aa...@pobox.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste." --Steve Jobs
Stephen R. Savitzky
> In article <x7d6mb1...@moseisley.thestarport.org>,
> Stephen R. Savitzky <st...@theStarport.org> wrote:
> >
> >He sits, staring into the flames. Eventually he will walk away into the
> >night; somewhere else he will sing the old song with its new verse, and
> >follow it as he often does with "The Mary Ellen Carter". The stars over
> >the desert will still be bright, and cold, and far away.
>
> And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
> With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
> Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
> And like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
(Final chorus)
Rise again, rise again,
Though your heart it be broken and life about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend
Like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!
Rowan the Gypsy
> night; somewhere else he will sing the old song with its new verse, and
> follow it as he often does with "The Mary Ellen Carter". The stars over
> the desert will still be bright, and cold, and far away.
Out of the corner of your eye you catch sight of a polychromatic
whirlwind coming your way. As it comes closer it resolves itself
into a Gypsy dancing in a haze of twirling scarves which catch
the light and reflect a lightshow of color. The whirling is a
little less than even, as though the dancer is trying hard but
her heart just isn't quite in it.
The Gypsy hums and whirls and conjures a scarf between her hands.
As the silken fabric slows between her hands it irridesces in all
the shades of dawn, rosey pink, pale yellow, clear blue, with
the highlights of the just past dark, indigo, purple, deep ochre
and colors almost un-nameable. This is a scarf of healings and
new beginnings. If you shake it three times, it will become just
the size for a comforter and it is filled with warm goose down.
She drapes the comforter over her friend and offers him a cup
of tea. Her tear-streaked face shows that her own equilibrium
has taken a beating. It is so hard to see dreams go up in smoke.
The Gypsy sits down and stares sadly into the fire.
Stephen R. Savitzky
> She drapes the comforter over her friend and offers him a cup
> of tea. Her tear-streaked face shows that her own equilibrium
> has taken a beating. It is so hard to see dreams go up in smoke.
>
> The Gypsy sits down and stares sadly into the fire.
"Thank you", the Mandelbear murmers gratefully. He snuggles into the
warm comforter and sips his tea. "Tea is particularly appropriate.
Kalpana Chawla was Indian, after all. I was particularly struck by the
fact that her name means 'fantasy' -- you could also translate it as
'dream', as in a vision of the future. She was _living_ her dream,
coming all the way from a small town in the Punjab, learning to fly,
studying aeronautics, becoming an astronaut.
"It's odd; I don't seem to be as appalled this time, not glued to the TV
as I was in '86. I don't think it's just that I'm older, or that recent
events have hardened me. Maybe it's just the recognition that these
things happen. We should be no more surprised by another shuttle
accident then by another earthquake. _Of course_ the shuttle is
dangerous; exploration has _always_ been dangerous, ever since someone
in what we now call Africa ventured down the nearest river on a log to
see what was around the next bend. It is, and has always been, worth
the risk.
"It's OK to grieve. We all need to pause, and honor the dead. But then
we have to move on. It's what they would have wanted. The best way to
honor the dead is to carry on their work.
"I hope we'll learn from this: replace the shuttle fleet with something
safe and reliable; make going into space -- low orbit, for now -- a
matter of routine, not adventure. Let the adventurous ones tackle the
_next_ goal, as they always will, and leave the hotels in low Earth
orbit to the business travelers and tourists."
He sighs, and shakes his head. "No, the dream's not over. Not unless
we kill it, and even then it will come back, like grass in the
springtime. Unless we kill ourselves, or our civilization -- both of
which are possibilities. So's the next asteroid collision: that's what
_really_ bothers me, that we might fritter away our best chance for
survival until the universe gets fed up with us and gives the
cockroaches a turn.
"But barring bad luck or abject idiocy we'll be back in space, sooner or
later. I really did hope to spend my retirement in orbit, though."
He sighs again, and sips his tea, gazing up at the stars. Somewhere in
the Punjab, a mother is naming her newborn girl Kalpana.
Mary Mark Ockerbloom
> later. I really did hope to spend my retirement in orbit, though."
Merrigold offers hugs all round to those mourning the shuttle explosion.
"I had a really odd reaction to it, though -- I spent a lot of the day,
while I was herding cats (oops, that should be kids), rereading bits of
Gene Kranz's book 'Failure is not an option'. It's his recounting of
the time he spent as a Flight Director in the space program, including
the launch-pad explosion that killed three astronauts, and the
recovery of the Apollo-13 crew. It's very immediate and personal
writing; not smoothed out and prettified -- I *really* recommend it.
But it talks a lot about how risky exploration is, and gives you a
real feel for how on-the-edge a lot of the earlier work was.
I'm not sure why I found that comforting, but I did."
"Our reach exceeds our grasp, yet we keep on reaching for the stars."
Elimloth
> "Thank you", the Mandelbear murmers gratefully. He snuggles into the
> warm comforter and sips his tea. [...]
> "It's odd; I don't seem to be as appalled this time, not glued to the TV
> as I was in '86.
Wrapping his silver/grey cloak about himself to shield him from the cold
night, Draco reflects on Mandlebear's comment. "I too wasn't glue to set (I
do not watch network TV), but I have been following the score of news
reports, reading how safety experts have been warning of this possibility.
Yet, I know anything that is run very close to maximum tolerances is bound
to fail sooner, not later. For that has been the space shuttle's doom; to
lift itself above the earth's embrace, many systems are run near their
breaking point. Then, to return to land other systems are pushed to the
limit. The heat tiles are delicate, like an egg shell. A few too many cracks
and it is over. The rapid computer dance of the control surfaces is another
system that keeps the shuttle's reentry on the knife's edge of safety. We
don't know yet, but failure of either of those two critical systems would
have doomed its safe reentry.
> "I hope we'll learn from this: replace the shuttle fleet with something
> safe and reliable; make going into space -- low orbit, for now -- a
> matter of routine, not adventure.
"That has been my hope all along. The severe underfunding has just about
stopped research and development of new craft or new propulsion systems. I
had high hopes for the aerospike engine before it was cancelled. The shuttle
is a very old design, the shuttle fleet is aging past acceptable risk, and
it is ever so expensive to maintain or fly. We really need something better,
something with higher inherent safety. Maybe this jolt of reality will get
us moving again.
> "But barring bad luck or abject idiocy we'll be back in space, sooner or
> later. I really did hope to spend my retirement in orbit, though."
"Interesting you mentioned that, Mandlebear. I have hopes to look down at
the planet from a lofty orbital hotel, though given our ever so slow
progress in launch technology, I begin to doubt such things will take place
in my lifetime.
> He sighs again, and sips his tea, gazing up at the stars. Somewhere in
> the Punjab, a mother is naming her newborn girl Kalpana.
"I join you in that thought," says Draco. He takes sip of Long Life tea.
Draco