February 03, 2003
SPACE-AGE HEROES: It's hard to
SPACE-AGE HEROES: It's hard to think of anything to say about Saturday's NASA tragedy that hasn't been said already. Seven people died in the service of humanity, and all are deserving of our honor and respect: Ilan Ramon, William McCool, David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, and Michael Anderson.
One of the astronauts, Ramon, was a legitimate Israeli national hero: son of Auschwitz survivors, veteran of '73, and leader of the strike team that destroyed Iraq's Osarik nuclear reactor in 1981 (an act which may have altered the course of world events as much as any in the past quarter-century)- a man whose foray into space two weeks ago was greeted with Mel Brooks-esque headlines of "Jews in Space"- it sounded so funny, so triumphant back then...
What this means for the future of NASA remains to be seen, but what's undisputed is that this tragedy will bring more attention and appreciation to the space program than it has gotten in years. Tuesday Morning Quarterback himself, Gregg Easterbrook, has earned much notoriety in the past few days since he essentially predicted this event in 1980, and now he's back with a similar piece for Time; Charles Krauthammer took a different approach, in a Weekly Standard piece that I imagine must have been written before Saturday's crash.
And, of course, the only other remaining question remains: could it have been terrorism? The scientists all say no, but it's hard to disregard all the coincidences- this particular time in history, with an Israeli aboard, who participated in the '81 attack, the crash taking place over Palestine, Texas... perhaps it will be definatively proven that it was not, but until then I'll remain at least somewhat skeptical.
