Author Topic: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger  (Read 19676 times)

Offline BazBear

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #15 on: February 01, 2013, 11:04:19 PM »
Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now, though my doctor reminding me that I am considered "of advanced age" in my appointment this afternoon didn't help.
If he was in grade 5 in '86, he must have been about 11 y/o, and hence you were about 9. I was 21. If you two are of advanced age, I must be positively ancient at 48 y/o! :)
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline LunarOrbit

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Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #16 on: February 01, 2013, 11:05:20 PM »
Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now

Glad I could help. :)
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth.
I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth.
I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Offline Donnie B.

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #17 on: February 01, 2013, 11:08:29 PM »
I think you got your disasters mixed up.

Oh, gorramnit, I did. 

Note to self: never fly in a spacecraft whose name starts with 'C'.

Offline Sus_pilot

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Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #18 on: February 01, 2013, 11:49:15 PM »
Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now, though my doctor reminding me that I am considered "of advanced age" in my appointment this afternoon didn't help.

If it makes you feel better, I was almost 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon....

Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #19 on: February 01, 2013, 11:52:51 PM »
Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now, though my doctor reminding me that I am considered "of advanced age" in my appointment this afternoon didn't help.

If it makes you feel better, I was almost 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon....

The fact that I missed the Moon landings is pretty much the only thing that makes me wish I was just a little bit older.
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth.
I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth.
I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Offline BazBear

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #20 on: February 02, 2013, 12:39:42 AM »
Okay, I've realized now that LO is, indeed, older than I am.  By a whopping two years.  I feel somewhat less old now, though my doctor reminding me that I am considered "of advanced age" in my appointment this afternoon didn't help.

If it makes you feel better, I was almost 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon....

The fact that I missed the Moon landings is pretty much the only thing that makes me wish I was just a little bit older.
The landing of Apollo 11 is one of my earliest memories. I was shocked and disappointed that Neil and Buzz were unarmed, because as a 4 1/2 y/o, I just knew there had to be space monsters on the moon.  :D
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline Not Myself

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #21 on: February 02, 2013, 01:05:45 AM »
Where were you when the diasters occurred?  What are your memories?

I was living in the US for both of them.  I don't think there is a causal relation in either direction there.

For Challenger, I remember someone down the hall in the office building where I was tuning his radio into the coverage.  For Columbia, I slept in that day, and then turned on the television news, which at that point were reporting that contact had been lost, and they showed people waiting for the landing getting back into some kind of shuttle bus, and being taken away somewhere.  Then a while later, they started to show the Chinese New Year fireworks display in the sky.
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Offline gillianren

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #22 on: February 02, 2013, 01:42:54 AM »
If he was in grade 5 in '86, he must have been about 11 y/o, and hence you were about 9. I was 21. If you two are of advanced age, I must be positively ancient at 48 y/o! :)

I would have been nine for Challenger.  My birthday is in December, so I spend most of the year screwing up math in my head.  On the other hand, since I was born in '76, I never forget how old the country is.  And if LO were in the same situation in which I'm considered "of advanced age," that would be a whole other medical excitement.
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Offline BazBear

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #23 on: February 02, 2013, 02:20:36 AM »
If he was in grade 5 in '86, he must have been about 11 y/o, and hence you were about 9. I was 21. If you two are of advanced age, I must be positively ancient at 48 y/o! :)

I would have been nine for Challenger.  My birthday is in December, so I spend most of the year screwing up math in my head.  On the other hand, since I was born in '76, I never forget how old the country is.  And if LO were in the same situation in which I'm considered "of advanced age," that would be a whole other medical excitement.
My apologies Gillianren. Recently I've heard several people younger than myself (some even in their 20s) complain that they're getting/feeling old, and I didn't realize that in your case it was due to a medical condition. :(
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline Not Myself

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #24 on: February 02, 2013, 04:47:28 AM »
The fact that I missed the Moon landings is pretty much the only thing that makes me wish I was just a little bit older.

Or you could just wish that it took a few years longer to make the landings.
The internet - where bigfoot is real and the moon landings aren't.

Offline Sus_pilot

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Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #25 on: February 02, 2013, 07:54:36 AM »
If he was in grade 5 in '86, he must have been about 11 y/o, and hence you were about 9. I was 21. If you two are of advanced age, I must be positively ancient at 48 y/o! :)

I would have been nine for Challenger.  My birthday is in December, so I spend most of the year screwing up math in my head.  On the other hand, since I was born in '76, I never forget how old the country is.  And if LO were in the same situation in which I'm considered "of advanced age," that would be a whole other medical excitement.
My apologies Gillianren. Recently I've heard several people younger than myself (some even in their 20s) complain that they're getting/feeling old, and I didn't realize that in your case it was due to a medical condition. :(

Same here,  Gillianren. 

Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #26 on: February 02, 2013, 10:44:12 AM »
Well I'm pretty sure Gillianren's 'medical condition' in which she is considered 'of advanced age' would indeed cause great excitement were Lunar Orbit to be in the same condition! :)

As to the subject of the thread, I was 6 when the Challenger disaster occurred. I don't recall any specific feelings about it, though I do remember seeing it on Newsround (it might even still have been John Craven's Newsround at the time: obviously for non-UK residents this will mean very little...).

I lived in Cambridge at the time of the Columbia disaster. I was sitting in my room watching Star Trek: Voyager when a caption appeared on the screen saying 'breaking news: shuttle tragedy', so I immediately switched to Sky news and saw the footage of the breakup.
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Offline gillianren

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #27 on: February 02, 2013, 12:31:51 PM »
My apologies Gillianren. Recently I've heard several people younger than myself (some even in their 20s) complain that they're getting/feeling old, and I didn't realize that in your case it was due to a medical condition. :(

Well, at the moment, it's more that I am old to have this particular medical condition.  It means I'm at higher risk for a few issues, because my body isn't supposed to be doing this much past thirty.  Being thirty-five or older is actually in the medical literature as "of advanced age."  As my doctor has easily fifteen or twenty years on me, he laughed at me about it, and he sympathized that the books for laymen (only, you know, not so much men . . . ) insist that it's "middle age" if you're my age. 

Of course, I also have scoliosis in my back and arthritis in my knees.  And my in-person peer group is for the most part five years or more younger than I am, and most of them were exposed to pop culture late.  Combine all of that, and I pretty much always feel old.  It's just that, at the moment, it's official.
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Offline BazBear

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #28 on: February 02, 2013, 12:32:27 PM »
Well I'm pretty sure Gillianren's 'medical condition' in which she is considered 'of advanced age' would indeed cause great excitement were Lunar Orbit to be in the same condition! :)
Ohhhh...I think I get it now...it's a condition that typically resolves itself after approximately 38 weeks then? :)
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline gwiz

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Re: Ten years since Columbia, 27 years since Challenger
« Reply #29 on: February 02, 2013, 12:38:08 PM »
Well, at the moment, it's more that I am old to have this particular medical condition.
I remember my wife being not too pleased to find "ELDERLY PRIMIP" written prominently on the notes at the end of her hospital bed.

Hope all is going well for you.
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