On January 28, 1986, the whole television-receiving world watched in a stunned platter of popcorn and soda astonishment when the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off. Amongst the seven member crew was school teacher, Sharon Christa McAuliffe. Exploding only 73 seconds after lift off the accident was a set back for the space exploration program, not to mention any plans the crew had on their return.
Haunting memories of Challenger resonated through again on February 1, 2003, as the families and viewers aware of the actual expedition watched as the space shuttle Columbia lost all sense of coherence and fell victim to the harshness that is re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Final crew of Space Shuttle Columbia
Lost in the scattering sky with the other six was first timer Laurel Clark. Along with the human crew of astronauts were a batch of spidernauts who had been bred with school and university student enthusiasm at Melbourne Zoo.
These two accidents might not have been an ideal attempt to forge a new syllabus for the adaptive minds of school kids into discovering more about space exploration. Shock and trauma often do against breeding new and receptive thoughts in the minds of the new future.
Swimming in this world of political correctness no news agency or churned representation of such failed to point out that the recent launch and subsequent successful return of two astronauts and a cosmonaut were manned.
Not seven. And neither of them on their maiden voyage.
Written on Monday, 5 May 2003