tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post96583651648762771..comments2024-03-04T04:08:39.755-08:00Comments on The Fies Files: Scobee Smith Resnik McNair Onizuka Jarvis McAuliffeBrian Fieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16347700145666751363noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-65222983984930267232011-01-30T05:06:34.280-08:002011-01-30T05:06:34.280-08:00(Everything I just wrote Walter Cronkheit expresse...(Everything I just wrote Walter Cronkheit expressed simply by taking off his glasses.)Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16807727819590358834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-71151239071964873602011-01-30T05:02:21.849-08:002011-01-30T05:02:21.849-08:00Following 9/11, some reporter got in trouble for s...Following 9/11, some reporter got in trouble for saying publicly that it was fun to cover -- he didn't use the word "fun" but I forget what word he did use - exhilarating or exciting -- or maybe he just said, "This is why we go into this business."<br /><br />Well, it is all of those things, up to the moment when you are finished and the adrenalin seeps out and you start to feel it, not as a journalist, but as a person. It's hard to explain how you can be the one without losing sight of the other, and it's essential that you do that, but if one dominates the other at the wrong moment, either way, you've blown it.<br /><br />I suspect that, if you did go back and read it, you'd be proud of the little goober.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16807727819590358834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-43614629041799166332011-01-29T09:28:52.198-08:002011-01-29T09:28:52.198-08:00California's big. Vandenberg was about 400 mil...California's big. Vandenberg was about 400 miles away and we were just a wee little newspaper. I've ridden Amtrak (the Coast Starlight) past what I guess would have been the Vehicle Assembly Building and it's impressive and sad. What could'a been.<br /><br />Yeah, "Go at throttle up" clenches me every time. All I can say about the Shuttle design is that a lot of smart people thought it was a good idea at the time (and others didn't). Costly lessons.Brian Fieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347700145666751363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-7961212844173473382011-01-29T08:37:32.541-08:002011-01-29T08:37:32.541-08:00The "local angle" I could think of for c...The "local angle" I could think of for central California was the immediate end (before it even began) of California-based manned spaceflight. I guess it wouldn't be obvious that day, but the loss of Challenger closed the door on USAF Shuttle launches from Vandenberg. A shame, too - - they were about 80 days out from their first launch. <br /><br />Would have been interesting to see a Shuttle polar flight - - that mission was why the Air Force championed the Shuttle's outsized engines, giant cargo bay, and of course the external tank piggy-back design that doomed the crew. <br /><br />The anniversary reminds me lately about how there are still two, or possibly three more flights. I wish these ships were already parked in museums somewhere. No one who watches these launches feels comfortable to the "go at throttle up" calls to this day, and it's been a quarter century. I realize there's an inherent risk to space exploration - - it's the *unnecessary* risks that scare me.Jim O'Kanehttp://www.TVDads.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-65202691575746037442011-01-28T20:49:54.307-08:002011-01-28T20:49:54.307-08:00I think you could take the word "space" ...I think you could take the word "space" out of the last sentence and it would still be true.Sherwood Harringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575868746160608731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-4903933503235491962011-01-28T20:47:11.325-08:002011-01-28T20:47:11.325-08:00Yeah, that's right. Interesting synchronicity....Yeah, that's right. Interesting synchronicity. I recall that Voyager discovered a bunch of new Uranian moons that some wanted to name after the Challenger astronauts. I felt pretty churlish trying to explain why I thought that was a bad idea. <br /><br />I loved the Voyagers. Maybe the biggest bang for the buck in the history of space exploration.Brian Fieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347700145666751363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1568334561722760329.post-7322160182916503952011-01-28T15:10:48.442-08:002011-01-28T15:10:48.442-08:00I'd bet that what was foremost on your mind th...I'd bet that what was foremost on your mind then, right up to the hour of the disaster, was the Voyager 2 encounter with Uranus. Closest approach -- head-on to the system, not edge-on as with Jupiter and Saturn -- was only four days earlier, and the puzzling results were still in the very earliest stages of interpretation, but, understandably, after the 28th it was almost as though the encounter never happened.Sherwood Harringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09575868746160608731noreply@blogger.com