2004: Space Trilogy

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." 

Virgil I. Grissom 
Command Pilot 
Apollo 1 
 

Every year on January 28th for the past several years I have made it a point on the various mailing lists to which I subscribe to post a memorial message in honor of the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger, who perished so publicly on the morning of January 28th, 1986.  Last year, four days after the 17th anniversary of Challenger's loss, the perils of manned spaceflight again became painfully evident with the loss of the shuttle Columbia in the skies over Texas.  On the day Columbia fell, a friend e-mailed me and said, "Now you've got a double anniversary to commemorate every year, January 28th and February 1st."  I thought about it and wrote back, "No; it's a triple anniversary: Columbia on February 1st, Challenger on January 28th... and Apollo 1 on January 27th." 

Challenger's crew was the first to die in flight in the history of America's space program, but they weren't the first American crew to die in their spacecraft in the line of duty.  On January 27th, 1967, 19 years and a day before Challenger fell, astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White perished inside their command module when a flash fire consumed the interior of the capsule during a preflight test.  Unlike with Challenger, NASA and the press made little of the accident in public, with the result that the loss of Apollo 1 tended to be regarded as a "forgotten" disaster by most Americans.  I myself didn't even know that there had been an earlier loss until after Challenger fell, but even so I, like many others, tended to ignore the astronauts of Apollo 1, remembering them in passing only because the anniversary of their deaths came only one day before that of the "more important" Challenger disaster. 

Columbia's loss changed all that, for me at least. I found myself drawn to memorialize the astronauts of Columbia as I had those of Challenger both in my annual e-mail memorials and in my "Icarus Rising" Web site, but even as I worked to develop a Columbia memorial site the awareness of the "forgotten" Apollo 1 disaster ate away at the back of my mind.  The three men who had died aboard their spacecraft in 1967 had been no less dedicated and had made no less of a sacrifice than those who had later died aboard Challenger and Columbia, yet I, like many others, had long treated their memory as an afterthought.  I decided that, if I were in good conscience going to honor the memory of the astronauts of Challenger and Columbia, I could no longer ignore the crew of Apollo 1. 

In light of the triple anniversaries of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia on January 27th, January 28th and February 1st, I have developed a new "Space Trilogy" site at http://datamanos2.com/trilogy.html.  This site expresses something of my inspiration and motivation for honoring these fallen astronauts and serves as an introduction to my three memorial sites: 

"Icarus Rising... A Memorial to the Crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger" at http://datamanos2.com/icarus_rising.html; this site interprets the Challenger disaster through the Greek myth of Icarus and features the song "Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel" by Kansas; 

"Phaeton Descending... A Memorial to the Crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia" at http://datamanos2.com/phaeton_descending.html; this site interprets the Columbia disaster through the Greek myth of Phaeton and features the song "The Traveler" by Kerry Livgren; 

"Apollo Burning... A Memorial to the Astronauts of Apollo 1" at http://datamanos2.com/apollo_burning.html; this new site explores both humanity's yearning for a sense of home in the universe and the legacy of the Apollo moon program through the lyrics and music of "One Dark World" by Kerry Livgren. 

In these days of remembering the astronauts of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, the important thing is not that I or anyone else has created a memorial in their honor; the important thing is their dedication to furthering humanity's understanding of all creation, even to the point of sacrificing their own lives for the sake of a goal larger than themselves.  They are the ones who were pulling us forward, striving to better our lives at the cost of their own.  We, the remainder of mankind, can but follow in their footsteps and remember, for as long as we remember... 

...their mission continues. 
 

Please visit the Dataman Space Trilogy at http://datamanos2.com/trilogy.html.