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First weblogs, 2002–2003

Remembering Columbia

in Random Bytes

Shortly before my 10th birthday on April 12, 1981 the United States launched its first space shuttle mission - STS-1. Like most 10 year olds, I wanted to experience every exciting ounce of the event. I'll never forget bounding out of bed and rushing to the kitchen to grab my cereal so that I could sit in front of the TV and watch as much of this amazing event as possible. Turning on the TV, I was disappointed to find that none of the news networks had started coverage yet. I'm still not sure what I was expecting to see at 4:30 in the morning on broadcast television. Much of the other detail is lost to the fogginess of time, but I'm still left with a very palpable sense of excitment, pride and tremendous hope for humanity as a result of putting that wonderful mixture of people, technology and science into outer space. All of this was heightened by earlier delays in the launch schedule.

See this post as it first appeared on the original site.

1 comment

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  1. Dan Halloran, February 2, 2003

    Ross,

    Thanks for your great post.

    I shared your excitement for STS-1 when I was a boy. I was lucky enough to be at Edwards Air Force base here in Southern California at the end of that flight to watch Columbia make its first landing.

    I've watched liftoffs, landings and spacewalks over the internet for years. The server is very busy right now, but you can usually watch NASA TV using Windows Media Player and the URL below. (There are also Realplayer streams available somewhere.)

    My parents are lucky enough to get NASA TV on their cable TV system. Whenever I'm over there I bore anyone else in the room by watching earthviews or Shuttle tracking or whatever else is on the air.

    I wasn't watching live yesterday morning (it was 6 AM here in Los Angeles.) When my daughter woke me up at 7 AM to watch Blue's Clues, she was upset because it wasn't on ... I'm glad she didn't seem to really understand the news (she loves astronauts and space ships.) I'm also glad she didn't ask me why I was crying -- I couldn't imagine how to explain to a girl not even 3 years old.

    Thanks again,
    Dan