Saturday, February 1, 2003....ouch

It was a normal morning around the McDaniel house in the Dallas suburbs. My wife was out and about, my daughter had a chocolate milk mustache, and I was lying on the couch watching her...watch cartoons. Then my windows shook and my alarm on my car went off. It sounded like the whole block fell into a sink hole." What the heck" I muttered? My daughter took another drink of chocolate milk and I surveyed our property. Everything seemed in order. Like I have said before, we live in the most boring neighborhood in all of America. I found nothing unusual.

So I took back to my perch on the couch and watched my daughter giggle and mimic the television. As soon as a commercial came on, I turned the channel to check the days weather so I could decide if I was going to moto practice that afternoon at Mosier Valley. Needless to say, my attention was deverted from the days weather and my daughter....to one of complete horror.

My heart ripped as our local Dallas/Ft. Worth channels kept showing the Space Shuttle Columbia shred into pieces just 40 miles above my house. At first I didn't even realize it had broken apart in Texas, or over the Dallas area. I didn't put the two together, that they were showing footage shot by our own TV crews? Then it dawned on me! I was horrified, saddened and confused. I thought, " Oh Lord not again, I just remember sitting in Mrs. Deputy's 8th grade Algebra class watching the Challenger explosion like it was yesterday". As the morning progressed, I realized that I had heard the sonic boom that the doomed Columbia had delivered as it dove into the atmosphere at 12, 500 mph. Even at that point, I was hoping against all hope, science, logic, common sense, that somehow the 7 astronauts were able to eject. You just don't like to automatically think the worst, even though in the back of your mind you know that to be the case.

As the morning turned into noon, I was glued to the TV. I cried and sobbed as the reports kept coming in, each one more bleak than the last. People were already finding debris in their front lawns, and Air Force helicopters were flying overhead all day. The electronic highway signs read, " Please report all Shuttle Debris to the local authorites". That was very surreal. It's a funny thing living here in Texas, we are all very close to the Space program. Nasa itself is only a 3.5 hour drive from my house. It was just very sad.

I soon realized that out of the seven astronauts, 6 of them were married, and 5 had children. That is when I put myself in their shoes for those last horrific 90 seconds when they realized that they were doomed, and there wasn't one damn thing they could do about it. They were all eager to get home and see their families. Can you imagine your last 90 seconds on earth? Can you imagine looking out of the window of your spacecraft and see the left wing fall off? At that point, you know that you just died. You have 90 seconds to reflect on your past, even though you don't because you are in a panic mode. You have 90 seconds to scream, hold your breath, close your eyes, squeeze your cockpit seat. 90 seconds of pure hell. Pure hell.

Knowing that, we also know that each of these heros are very well aware of the risks they take. They are strapped to an experimental, rocket powered aircraft with 28 missions under her belt. A Southwest Airlines 737 does 28 flights every 2 days. These astronauts are very special people. They are hands down some of the brightest minds in the world, doing a job that not many people have the drive to do. I guess for an astronaut, going out in a ball of flames at 17 times the speed of sound is just about the way they would want it. That is what I tell myself anyway.

I pray for the families and for their kids. None of these astronauts will ever be able to get up on Saturday morning and drink chocolate milk with their kids again. But on the other hand, their kids know that their parents were some of the most elite, heroic people in the world. It's a trade off, but only at a different level that someone like myself could never understand.

God bless the Columbia crew, their families, and God Speed to all of them.

Now then let's fix the problem and get our asses right back up there and continue what these wonderful people were doing...... moving forward.