HOW DID WE MISS OUR REAL HEROES?Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
We didn't want to believe it. We woke up Saturday morning, heard the news, and got that horrible, sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs. We didn't want to believe it. Not again. Please, not again. The members of the crew of space shuttle space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. Columbia - like the crew of Challenger, which exploded on Jan. 28, 1986 - were the best we had. The right stuff. Real-life heroes. And now, they're gone. And, like a lot of people, I'm feeling more than a little guilty. I didn't even know Columbia was scheduled to come home Saturday morning, didn't know that it had been on a 16-day scientific mission. It never made my radar screen. Like most people, I knew all about the Super Bowl, knew the stock market was in the tank, knew the networks were rolling out more stupid reality-based TV shows. I knew about a lot of useless things that don't add up to a hill of beans today. I didn't know Columbia was coming home. Like everyone, I knew Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (born April 28, 1937, Tikrit, Iraq—died Dec. 30, 2006, Baghdad) President of Iraq (1979–2003). He joined the Ba'th Party in 1957. Following participation in a failed attempt to assassinate Iraqi Pres. was causing trouble again. I knew that Shaq, Kobe and the rest of the Lakers were having a bad season, and the the names of the actresses and actors favored to win Academy Awards this year. But I didn't know the names Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson Michael Anderson is the name of:
I had no idea who they were before Saturday morning - before they died. What's wrong with this picture? How can our heroes - the men and women we're counting on to lead us into the great beyond and explain what's really going on out there in space - not be household names? They are starring in the greatest reality show in the world, but most of us don't tune in anymore. We used to. We used to know all the names All the Names (Portuguese: Todos os nomes) is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. It was written in 1997 and published in English in 2000 in an award winning translation by Margaret Jull Costa. - John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride. We used to name schools after them. Used to name our kids after them, too. But not anymore. Walter Addison of Van Nuys said Saturday we've taken the successes of the space shuttle for granted. He's right. We have. ``It's become commonplace, even though it's incredible,'' Addison said. It is incredible, but only when we have disasters like this does it become incredible enough for most of us to notice. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said it best. ``The American people have started to think that flying the space shuttle is like getting into a car for a Sunday afternoon drive, but it's anything but that. Space flight is risky business.'' We saw that seconds into the Challenger launch 17 years ago, and we saw it again Saturday morning when Columbia disintegrated just 15 minutes from home. Space flight is still very risky business. But Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool and Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; Hebrew: זרוע האויר והחלל, Zroa HaAvir VeHaḤalal Col. Ilan Ramon were willing to put their lives on the line to do that risky business for us. Why? This is what Cmdr. Anderson - who traveled to Russia's Mir space station in 1998 - had to say about it. ``I take the risk because I think what we're doing is really important. For me, it's the fact that what I'm doing can have great consequences and great benefits for everyone, for mankind.'' That's the way real-life heroes talk. |
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