Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 16:04:27 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re:  Columbia
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 01:39 PM 2/3/2003 -0500, Michael Walsh wrote:
>This from the just arrived Ansible:
>
>_COLUMBIA_. It's hard to find words for the new Shuttle disaster of 1
>February, but Ken MacLeod provided this epitaph:
>`Husband, McCool, Anderson, Brown, Chawla, Clark, Ramon.
>Komarov, Grissom, White, Chaffee, Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev,
>Resnick, Scobee, Smith, McNair, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Onizuka.
>`These names will be written under other skies.'

There's an article in the Style section of today's Post about what it's
like to fly in the shuttle.  I'll quote the beginning of it, but folks
should read the whole thing.

Elspeth

Space Odyssey, 2003
On Board The Shuttle: Experiences Of Life at Its Apogee

[Graphic] Sunrise as seen from the crew cabin of Columbia on Jan. 22. Says
Tom Jones, who flew on four shuttle missions: "You take an hour out of your
sleep to float by a window with your camera." (Nasa/getty Images)

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 3, 2003; Page C01

They probably had just witnessed the most incredible light show out the
windows -- like flying through a pulsing red neon tube or a storm of cotton
candy.

Their arms were feeling heavier and heavier, after days of weightlessness.

The ground was whizzing past, as if someone were yanking a topographical
map beneath them. They were close to that point high above Texas where
Florida becomes visible in the distance.

And, say veterans of previous space shuttle missions, the crew aboard
Columbia Saturday morning was in that final phase of the flight when a
certain routine kicks in -- computers do much of the work -- and there is
time to relax a little. Thoughts race toward home ahead of the speeding
craft, and linger on those gathered at the runway for a big welcome.

"You're excited about having the mission completed, and you're anticipating
going home," says Rick Hauck, veteran of three missions who commanded the
Discovery in 1988 on the first shuttle launch after the 1986 Challenger
disaster. "No matter how spectacular a space mission is, your thoughts are
always at home."

No two shuttle mission are alike -- there have been 113 since Columbia was
first launched in 1981 -- but veterans describe common experiences that
seem woven through many flights. They can picture themselves in those
final, mundane-seeming minutes before Columbia's sensors began to fail and
the craft disintegrated. They can imagine what it was like in the hours and
days before.

"I'm sure the crew [of Columbia] was just in awe of what was being seen
outside the windows," says Tom Jones, veteran of four missions, including
one on Columbia in 1996 that lasted nearly 18 days, the longest ever. "I
have the sense this unfolded so rapidly they didn't have a chance to . . .
worry about it."

  © 2003 The Washington Post Company