I am in shock having just woken up to hear of the tragedy - it happened around 3 a.m. our time and I have mixed feelings about having made the decision not to watch the re-entry coverage owing to the lateness of the hour after earlier planning to do so. As you will have seen from my posts I have followed the shuttle quite regularly on NASA-TV and observed it visually several times. So it seems almost like loss of some family- I had gained a great love and respect for these wonderful people with their great skill, sense of humour and their willingness to help others interested in the space program . I introduced several people to the program thru encouraging them to observe visually or on NASA-TV and it will no doubt come as a shock to them but also they will no doubt have greater respect if they see one of those lights dash across the sky. My heart goes out to the schoolchildren who had experiments on board and will find that both the astronauts they admire so much have gone and that the experiments have gone with them. Practical things we can do: (1) Sign the guestbook at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/feedback/guestbook/ with our condolences. (2) Notify NASA of any visual observations- posting them in here is interesting but it is important to give NASA any information you can. (3) Spread the word to anyone in the possible area not to touch any debris and to report it to NASA (or if in that area perhaps offer to contact NASA for them if they find any.) NASA has issued a warning that it may be dangerous to touch, and there will sadly be the temptation for people to "souvenir" fragments. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/releases/2003/03-030.html (4) Support the kids at any school we know of who were involved with the program. Others may be able to suggest other ways of assisting but those are the ones that spring to mind for me. Robert. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 01 2003 - 14:48:19 EST