Posted on 02/02/2003 4:34:22 PM PST by knak
From the souks of Baghdad to the salons of Left Bank Paris or Hampstead, it is taken as read that America is soft - a cry-baby braggart, whose pampered citizens run for home at the first sign of real danger. Such sneering critics have clearly not met James M Heflin Jnr, chief flight director for the space shuttle Columbia's 28th, and final, mission.
Addressing the media just after the loss of his seven-strong crew, Mr Heflin did not ask anyone to feel his pain or wonder if a space shuttle would ever fly again. "This is a bad day," said Mr Heflin, with the frankness of his native Oklahoma. "I'm glad that I work and I live in a country where, when we have a bad day, we go fix it."
America has had more than its fair share of bad days since September 11, 2001. To a degree that Europe seriously underestimates, America has felt like a nation at war ever since the Twin Towers fell.
As with every nation at war, the symbols of national mourning have become horribly familiar to Americans: the Stars and Stripes at half mast, the stiff-legged honour guards, the addresses by President George W Bush, looking resolute, but always slightly haunted by the weight of all he knows.
The loss of the Columbia was the last thing that America - or Israel, for that matter - needed right now. But unless something very strange caused the disaster - sabotage, gross negligence or a terrorist bomb - it will not change the way that America thinks about itself.
In that respect, the Columbia is very different from September 11, and even the first space shuttle disaster: the Challenger explosion 17 years ago.
Back in 1986, when the Challenger exploded seconds after take-off, all America seemed to be watching. The space shuttle was still new technology, its every launch covered live on television.
In particular, excited schoolchildren were following the real-life adventure story of Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher plucked from her classroom to be an astronaut after a nationwide competition. For a whole generation of American children, the Challenger disaster became their Kennedy assassination - they will always remember where they were when they witnessed it, their first public horror.
After Challenger, Americans had to ask themselves: are we the great technological nation we thought we were? Is this dream of a reusable spaceship just that, a dream of fatal hubris?
Such doubts were followed by anger when investigators discovered that the disaster had been avoidable - a failure of tiny O-ring seals that engineers had warned about, just hours before Challenger's lift-off.
Whatever turns out to have caused the Columbia failure, nothing can change the fact that it was a routine event - the spacecraft's 28th mission, and the 113th space shuttle flight. So blase has the public become that most Americans were probably unaware that the seven astronauts were even in space.
The television networks had to scramble for footage on Saturday - only MSNBC, a minor cable news station, was planning to broadcast the landing at Cape Canaveral.
Immediately after Challenger, Nasa's fear was that the public would lose heart in space travel, deeming it too risky and too expensive. Nasa chiefs were sacked and replaced, repeatedly, as the agency struggled to prove that safety came before every other mission.
In recent years, Nasa succeeded almost too well. The agency resorted to gimmicks to attract interest: John Glenn, the former astronaut turned senator, was dragged out of retirement to become the first pensioner in space.
To the disgust of veteran Nasa hands, the media became more interested in the Russians and their brainwave of renting out seats to space tourists. The biggest "space" story for some time was the saga of Lance Bass, a pop singer with the boy band N'Sync, whose dreams of going into orbit fell apart in a seedy mess of money wrangles as Russian officials and sponsors squabbled over cash down-payments.
Russia's new openness provided another reason to ignore the world of space exploration. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of superpower rivalry, the space race was over. The sight of cosmonauts and astronauts co-operating was moving the first few times, but a relay race without competitors is poor sport for most spectators.
With no disrespect to Colonel Ilan Roman, a brave man as well as the first Israeli in space, his celebrity at home was proof that space is now the obsession of a second wave of nations, as they watch their first citizens head into it.
China, a country whose list of problems is exceeded only by its prickly nationalism, is pouring billions into a space programme. If all goes to plan, the first manned Shenzhou, or Heavenly Vessel, will carry Chinese taikonauts into orbit in the next couple of years.
Space exploration is no longer a question of make-or-break national pride for countries such as America and Russia. They have proved they can do it. As Beijing's first heroic pioneers circle the Earth, they will have achieved what? Bringing China to the same point of technological achievement that Yuri Gagarin reached in 1961.
As Mr Bush noted in his address to the nation: "Space flight has come to seem almost routine. It is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket." After more than 100 safe flights, it was "almost routine", while still being incredibly dangerous.
Americans understand this. They will want to know what went wrong on Columbia, and will be merciless if the tragedy is declared to have been avoidable. But astronauts are not ordinary citizens. Their deaths are no less tragic, but - like test pilots or deep-sea divers - they live with shorter odds than the rest of us. That is one reason we salute them.
It is also why America, just hours after the disaster, was already returning to normal in a way that would have been unthinkable after September 11. After that blow, America was plunged into unprecedented mourning: sports games were cancelled and comedians wondered when they could ever crack jokes again.
For America's entertainment barons, it was business as usual within a few hours of the Columbia disaster. At 4pm on Saturday, the CBS television network cut short a Nasa press conference to move to the scheduled Bob Hope Chrysler Golf Classic.
September 11 changed the way Americans had to think about their homeland. They were no longer protected by the oceans. Death could be sent by far-off fanatics to strike them in their offices and homes. Columbia, for all its horror, is not a tale of death striking a place of civilian tranquillity. Yet there is one important link with September 11.
September 11 did not shake Americans' faith in themselves, but it did shake their faith in outsiders. It is impossible to overstate how Americans were angered by reports of Palestinians celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers, or the news that America was being mocked by football crowds in Europe.
The American media were quick to begin tallying messages of sympathy from foreign leaders this weekend, many from nations opposed to war with Iraq. They were equally quick to report the first crowing comments from Iraqis in the streets of Baghdad.
After the Challenger disaster, the then President, Ronald Reagan, addressed America's children, in a speech repeatedly aired this weekend. "The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave," Mr Reagan said.
American hearts have been battered over the past 18 months. But America's enemies would do well to understand that bruised hearts are not the same as faint hearts. Americans had a bad day on Saturday. But they have not given up on the future. They'll go fix this.
They'll learn that soon enough..........
Another Clinton legacy.....
This sentence could have ended right here. America has had more than its share of bad days because of its great tradition of courage and pioneering spirit. No other nation on earth puts as much on the line as the U.S. does. As a Canadian, I can only thank God that this great nation to the south is what it is. God bless America.
This sentence could have ended right here. America has had more than its share of bad days because of its great tradition of courage and pioneering spirit. No other nation on earth puts as much on the line as the U.S. does. As a Canadian, I can only thank God that this great nation to the south is what it is. God bless America.
Canadian dittos bump.
I see it as more their reaction to our reaction to 9/11
The lamestream media don't help, either, with the way they cover events, encouraging people to tear up on camera and rooting around constantly for tear-jerking angles on stories. Many of those newscasts find their way onto international airwaves and influence how we are perceived abroad just like violent and sleazy movies and television shows do.
It's true, too, that they love to cover the little street memorials where people go to grieve publicly. Quiet church-goers are not on their radar screen.
I was amazed, although I shouldn't have been, that the 11:00 news spent forever around the people and flowers and put off as long as they could showing Bush addressing the nation. You can see why other nations would believe that the country consists of mournful women and children. Of course, many would not hesitate to destroy these women and children.
LOL
Yes, he does.
I also recommend "Citizen Soldiers"- an account of the Bataan death camps and the first special forces deployment- and "The First Heroes" by Craig Nelson- an account of Doolittle's raid on Tokyo following Pearl Harbor.
We owe it to the people who gave us our freedom: Never Forget.
BUMP
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