Saying thanks to the Challenger crew

Shattered
Merritt Island, FL
December 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

34 years ago yesterday, a shining example of the best technology humans could create blew itself to pieces in the cold, blue skies above the Florida coast.

The Space Shuttle Challenger accident was a turning point, the end of an era when we believed technology was largely invincible. It opened our eyes to human factors, and taught us they mattered as much as - or perhaps more than - the greasy bits.

I was privileged to visit the Kennedy Space Center last month, and was moved by the memorials to the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia crews. Seeing the wreckage was hard, and more than anything drove home just how thankful we should be to those who choose to explore on our behalf.

I've never believed in simply lamenting what's been lost. There has to be a takeaway, some good from the bad. 17 astronauts died for a reason. Progress always demands sacrifice, and we can't use risk as an excuse to stop pushing for more.

We've come so far since each of these tragedies. We've (largely) learned from each of them and fed that knowledge into future space systems. We just marked 20 years of continuous human presence in orbit, in a vehicle larger than a football field, built and maintained by experts from many nations. SpaceX and Boeing will soon launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. Mega Moon and Mars ships are already being built. The very seeds of humanity's eventual expansion beyond Earth are starting to bear early fruit. And they were planted by the crews of these three ill-starred craft.

So as I stood on the other side of the glass and lingered over the shattered remnant of a ship that once carried our hopes into the heavens, I found myself wishing her crew could somehow know that their journey didn't end on that awful day over the Atlantic. Thanks to them, we've gone further than we ever could have dreamed.

It seemed appropriate to whisper a quiet thank you before I headed for the exit.

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