"To Touch The Face of G-d"

So, a couple of days ago was the anniversary of the Challenger disaster. Jan 28, 1986. It was a day that I let pass by, until I read my friend Gabe's blog and a very personal story he shared about "The Day The Spacemen Died" (I encourage everyone to click the link and read). I am indebted to Gabe for writing about this, and causing me to explore my memories of that day.

For me, the Challenger disaster was that day in my life whereas I'll remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was in Mrs. Rosenhouse's 3rd grade class at the Hebrew Day School in Sunrise, Fl. We normally went outside to watch the space shuttle launches - as Gabe mentions, you can see shuttle launches with the naked eye from most of Florida. It was widely covered in the months leading up to the launch, most especially because of the inclusion of teacher Christa McAuliffe in the crew.

I was brought up on sci-fi (which did wonders for my popularity in high school). My father - who did some work as a contractor with NASA on the Apollo missions - brought me up on everthing that had to do with space and technology. I remember sitting on my Dad's lap and watching weekend Star Trek marathons on Channel 6 from Miami. I remember him expounding on every different facet of how every piece of equipment worked on the show. He was fascinated (and still is) by efficiency...how do you make things work more effectively and efficiently...his license plate for years was '6 Sigma', a mathematical representation of the concept of approaching perfect efficiency.

One of my favorite memories as a child - my Dad took me to McDonald's and we picked up a Happy Meal for me. We walked a few blocks over to the circus - at the time, for those Ft. Lauderdalers reading this, it was off of Sunset Strip and University. We saw the circus, and I even remember getting one of those facachta circus tiger-lights that crashes out once you use it for more than 5 minutes (basically, it was the carnival-goldfish of flashlights).

Anyway, once the circus was done - as if that was not enough for a 5 year old - he took me to the Broward Mall movie theater to see "Return of the Jedi". I had seen Star Wars and Empire on my friend Jonathan's vcr (he was the first one on the block to get one...we were number 2). I remember being amazed by it from the first time I saw Princess Lea's Consular Ship fly across the screen of Jonathan's 25" Zenith (and confused why the villain was called Darth and not Dark Vader, since he was draped in black).

With a tummy full of McDonald's goodness and after seeing about 20 clowns jump out of a car ("Dad - you're an engineer, so how do they get them all in there?), I sat in awe of this movie. Retrospectively, it has been bashed (see Clerks) as a bunch of muppets running around, but - hey, you know what? It was the most amazing thing I had seen...I would never reduce Yoda to a mere muppet (I distinctly recall trying to figure out why his voice was so similar to Grover). Plus - Wicket ended up becoming Willow Ufgood.

In any case, I was hooked. I was amazed by anything that had to do with space, whether it was an inter-ethnic exploration of space on the Enterprise or fighting the Empire. When I would play with all my toys - Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks - it was usually me creating some kind of a space adventure for them.

Which brings me back to January 28, 1986. It was one of the few launches we did not go out and see (I don't know why, but I assume because it was so cold that day) but I really wanted to. I knew the time that the Challenger was going to launch, so I got permission to go to the bathroom. I walked outside and saw the smoke column ascending skyward. Then, it stopped, and what I can only describe as a 'poof' of smoke became visible, and then what looked like tentacles streaming downward. I remember running back to class, and I must have looked stunned. I sat down, speechless. A couple of minutes later, the Principal came in, spoke briefly to my teacher, who then told us what had happened, and let us know that our parents were coming to pick us up from school.

I don't know if I can adequately express what it was like for me as a child feeling his first sense of loss. I was glued to the tv, much in the same way that people would be following 9/11. I remember Ronald Reagan's prolific words "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" to "touch the face of God."

Not long after the explosion, the tv show "Punky Brewster" (the first time I remember having a crush was on Soleil Moon Frye. I still boycott the Emmys for failing to acknowledge her contribution) had a special episode dedicated to the tragedy. As it turned out, it was the last show of the series, as NBC cancelled it shortly after. In the episode, Punky and her friends watched the launch in Mike Fulton's class. Punky and her friends - Sherry, Alan, and Margot (how's that for a strong memory) are traumatized. Punky had wanted to be an astronaut, but her dream was devastated with the Challenger explosion...until she gets a special visit from Buzz Aldrin. Although the episode received high ratings, NBC would, in the following weeks, decide cancel the show. I don't know what Soleil Moon Frye is doing nowadays, but I hope she knows how important that episode was to a generation of kids who still recall it twenty years later.

While a student at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I took a course on the historiography of the Holocaust, i.e. how the Holocaust is reflected through the historical and social narrative. My professor one day posed a question - what was the "JFK" moment for us, as young Americans...how did we remember tragedies? She later admitted to thinking we would recall either superficial pop-culture moments, or we would answer with individual memories of personal tragedies. She was taken aback when each and everyone of us said "Challenger".

Years later, another tragedy. I was a new employee with the Consulate General of Israel in Miami, in charge of 'Hasbarah' - pr, in a sense. I was scheduled to speak at a students seminar in Aventura, and instead of focusing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I broke news to the assembled students of the tragedy that had unfolded as I was driving to the conference - the loss of the Columbia, with Israeli Astronaut and hero of the Israeli 'Osirak Mission' - Ilan Ramon.

Although our economy is worse than it ever has been and people are suffering financially like never before, I have to say that one thing that should absolutely not be cut from government funding is the space program. Beyond the philosophical musings of this blogger, space exploration is vital for human continuity. One of my favorite sayings from the Star Trek:TNG series (indulge my sci-finess for just another moment) was Q speaking to Picard in the series finale: For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. *That* is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

Z"l - May their memories be for blessing:

Rick Husband

Willie McCool

Michael P. Anderson

Laurel B. Clark

David M. Brown

Ilan Ramon

Kalpana Chawla

Francis "Dick" Scobee

Michael J. Smith

Judith Resnik

Ellison Onizuka

Ronald McNair

Gregory Jarvis

Christa McAuliffe