2000: Early in the morning sunlight...

"T-minus 10...9...8...7...6...we have main engine start...4...3...2...1... and liftoff, liftoff of the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower."

"Houston, Challenger roll program."

"Roger; roll, Challenger."

        Early in the morning sunlight
        Soaring on the wings of dawn
        Here I'll live and die with my wings in the sky
        And I won't come down no more

"Good roll program confirmed.  Challenger now heading downrange...  Engines beginning throttling down now at ninety-four percent; normal throttle for most of the flight, a hundred-and-four percent...  We'll throttle down to sixty-five percent shortly...

        Higher than the birds I'm flying
        Crimson skies of ice and fire
        Borne on Wings of Steel, I have so much to feel
        And I won't come down no more

"...Engines at sixty-five percent.  Three engines running normally.  Three good fuel cells.  Three good APUs...  Velocity twenty-two-hundred-fifty-seven feet per second.  Altitude 4.3 nautical miles.  Downrange distance three nautical miles...

        Sail on, sail on
        I will rise each day to meet the dawn
        So high, so high
        I've climbed the mountains of the sky
        Without my wings, you know I'd surely die
        I found my freedom flying high
        I've climbed the mountains of the sky

"...Engines throttling up; three engines now at a hundred-and-four percent."

"Challenger, go at throttle up."

"Roger; go at throttle up... uh-oh--"

"One minute fifteen seconds.  Velocity twenty-nine-hundred feet per second.  Altitude nine nautical miles.  Downrange distance seven nautical miles...

        Floating on a cloud of amber
        Searching for the rainbow's end
        Earth so far below me; I'm here alone
        And I won't come down no more

"...Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation; obviously a major malfunction...  We have no downlink...  We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.  Flight director confirms that.  We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point..."

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This "interweaving" of poetry and history, of mythology and reality, forms the heart of my memories of the Challenger disaster.  On the very day that it happened, as I watched the news coverage I found myself becoming aware that I was "hearing" music in the back of my mind.  Only once I turned off the television well after midnight did I realize that the music playing in my head was Kansas' "Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel."

As those who have been members of the PotSW and Kerry Livgren mailing lists for a while will remember, each year on the anniversary of Challenger's final flight I have posted a memorial message to the lists expressing my remembrance of the disaster in terms of the lyrics to the song "Icarus."  Whereas in previous years' postings I have concentrated on the lyrical connection between "Icarus" and the Challenger, I have also wanted to express how for me the music of "Icarus" dovetails with the disaster as well.  To that end, this year I have developed a new web site featuring multimedia samples of the "audio-visions" that play in my head when I listen to "Icarus."  My new site, "Early in the Morning Sunlight," may be found at http://www.datamanos2.com/challenger/multimedia.html.

A recent visitor to my "Icarus Rising" web site wrote that he had not even heard of the Challenger before he visited my site.  My hope is that my humble efforts will help to keep the memory of the Challenger 7 alive and so help to ensure that their mission indeed continues.