We all remember where we were and how we felt when we saw the Twin Towers collapse in New York. Some of us are old enough to remember exactly the moment we heard of John Kennedy’s assassination. And, in between, many of us remember the first moment we realized that the Challenger Shuttle had gone down. I feel a unique pain even now as I think about it.

Space used to be a different place. It presented us with challenge and promise. A young president had looked at the moon and said that we would go there, regardless of the difficulty. On the television we could hear a very American James T. Kirk intoning “To boldly go where no man has gone before….” We looked up to the sky with wonder and optimism. And the United States had a national space team – NASA. We all felt that when the US space program got rolling we could conquer anything. And for a while we did.

From the time that Alan Sheppard first burst through the upper layers of the atmosphere, we were on our way. Televisions all across the country would be tuned in for each rocket launch. We watched at school, at work, or at home. We all held our breaths as astronauts went through tense moments when things didn’t work out exactly right. But each time, we succeeded. Success followed success, until we got almost bored of our apparent invincibility. We had experienced space-program tragedy before – particularly when we lost Grissom, White, and Chaffee in a training accident in preparation for the launch of Apollo I – but we had never lost an astronaut in space. Until 1986. Until we lost them all, only 73 seconds into the mission.

And, you know, it hasn’t seemed the same since. We’ve had many subsequent missions, most of them successful. We’ve had subsequent tragedies. But many of us just don’t look up to the sky with quite the same degree of optimism that we once had.

I now live in Cape Canaveral. I look out my window and see the Vehicle Assembly Building. With binoculars I clearly see the current Space Shuttle pointed to the heavens. But when I look close, it’s an old spacecraft – a vehicle about to be retired, and one not to be replaced soon. When I read the local papers and talk to people around me, I hear first hand of NASA jobs evaporating in the morning sun. Our national space team seems to be giving way before competitors from Europe and Asia.

I know we can’t go back in time, but I would like to go forward with something like the spirit we had back then. Let’s set a new goal. Let’s do something in the spirit of John Kennedy’s words when he said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard….” When those Challenger astronauts embarked on their mission, they never saw themselves as participating in the end of a process; rather, they saw themselves as making great strides along a path that would never end – as long as hearts beat and spirits breathe. – Bob Tatum

I know this isn’t directly about music, but it does arise from that deep well of feeling that gives us the desire to share in whatever way we can.

To share your point of view, click on the title, scroll down, and let it out.

2 Comments to “SongTravelin’: 01.28.11 – It Seems like Only a Lifetime Ago”

• January 28, 2011 at 10:07 am
  Laurence says:

  I’m not crying over NASA. It’s just another way the US government wastes money. If we had been saving our money and paying down the debt instead of trying to pick up rocks on the moon, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.
• January 29, 2011 at 6:46 pm
  Catie says:

  This blog is thought-provoking and touching. Thank you for sharing your musings with all of us who took the time to read what you had to say. You wrote about many of the things I have been thinking. Thank you.