NASA Remembers

Today NASA remembers the 17 daring and courageous  astronauts who lost their lives during America's space program. Several NASA centers including Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida are holding observances for employees, family, and the public. 

Strangely, the loss of NASA personnel all happened days apart in the winter of different years (e.g., Apollo 1 fire - Jan. 27, 1967; Challenger explosion after liftoff - Jan. 28, 1986; and Columbia breakup upon reentry - Feb. 1, 2003). 

I was working at Johnson Space Center during the Challenger explosion and knew well several of the crew. Ron McNair's children went to the same preschool as mine and we chatted often when dropping off and picking up. Others, I worked with on mission planning. As everyone involved in the space program can agree, these deaths were personal losses. We shopped with, went to church with, commuted with, and served with these NASA heroes. I was still living in Clear Lake, TX when the ill-fated Columbia spacecraft and crew were lost. Grief revisited - for me and the nation.

Unfortunately, we often forget how dangerous space exploration is, but the rewards are multiplied a hundred fold or more via NASA science, medical, materials, and engineering spin offs. To me, these lost colleagues lived extraordinary lives and deserve our thankful remembrance. Go science!

Asteroid Day

I was out-of-town for the celebration, but just to catch up, June 30th was designated as Asteroid Day. It was created in 2015 to "bring together scientists, artists and concerned citizens to raise awareness of the hazards of asteroid impacts and build support for solutions that might avert disaster from the skies."

Museums and science centers around the globe host a ton of events and use the associated publicity to highlight STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and art events concerning the Earth and environment.

The June date aligns with the 40 meter wide asteroid that hit Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 and leveled 2,000 km of forest. The energy released has been estimated at 185 times that of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Not trivial, but by comparison Krakatoa's 1883 eruptions (4 over four hours) were so loud, they could be heard 3,000 miles away in Perth, Australia. The final blast was 10,000 times more powerful than the one unleashed by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 

So, fingers crossed, only asteroids of the smaller, gentler kind will feel the gravitational tug to visit Earth anytime soon. In the meantime, we will keep working on ways to dissuade them and their larger cousins. Go science!