News: space shuttle has crashed

It's official I live in a media void! The first I heard of this was right here on the BB. The kids have been watching nick toons all morning. I find it very disturbing that the shuttle was the first isreali in space was aboard.

Bill

 

The reports say that remains have been found in Jasper County (where my parents live). That could explain the tremendous explosive sounds they heard (my father is nearly deaf and it woke him from a sound sleep). The nose section could have broken up and landed nearby.

Pray that God will have mercy on their families and comfort them in their unspeakable grief. God can bring great good out of this tragedy, and Christians need to be at the leading edge of this work.

 

The press c. is delayed to an indefinite time.
I reported this story on http://www.hardtruth.net
front page.
Gina

 

Profiles of 7 Astronauts Aboard Shuttle

Commander Rick Husband, 45, was an Air Force colonel from Amarillo, Texas. The former test pilot was selected as an astronaut in 1994 on his fourth try. He made up his mind as a child that that was what he was going to do with his life.


"It's been pretty much a lifelong dream and just a thrill to be able to get to actually live it out," the married father of two said in an interview before Columbia's launch, his second spaceflight.


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Pilot William McCool, 41, was a Navy commander from Lubbock, Texas. He graduated second in his 1983 class at the Naval Academy, went on to test pilot school and became an astronaut in 1996. This was the first spaceflight for McCool, who was married with three sons, ages 22, 19 and 14.


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Payload commander Michael Anderson, 43, was the son of an Air Force man and grew up on military bases. He was flying for the Air Force when NASA (news - web sites) chose him in 1994 as one of only a handful of black astronauts. He traveled to Russia's Mir space station (news - web sites) in 1998.


The lieutenant colonel, who lived in Spokane, Wash., was in charge of Columbia's dozens of science experiments.


"I take the risk because I think what we're doing is really important. If you look at this research flight and if you really take an opportunity to look at each experiment ... the potential yield that we have is really tremendous," he said.


He added: "For me, it's the fact that what I'm doing can have great consequences and great benefits for everyone, for mankind."


___


Kalpana Chawla, 41, emigrated to the United States from India in 1980s and became an astronaut in 1994. At the time, she wanted to design aircraft — the space program was the furthest thing from her mind.


"That would be too far-fetched," the engineer had said. But "one thing led to another" and she was chosen as an astronaut after working at NASA's Ames Research Center and Overset Methods Inc. in Northern California.


On her only other spaceflight, in 1997, she made mistakes that sent science satellite tumbling out of control. Other astronauts had to go on spacewalk to capture it.


"I stopped thinking about it after trying to figure out what are the lessons learned, and there are so many," she said. "After I had basically sorted that out, I figured it's time to really look at the future and not at the past."


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David Brown, 46, was a Navy captain, pilot and doctor. He joined the Navy after a medical internship, then went on to fly the A-6E Intruder and F-18. He became an astronaut in 1996. Columbia's mission was his first spaceflight.

When asked in a recent interview about the risk of flying in space, Brown, who was single, said: "I made a decision that is part of my job, I would incur some real risk as a routine part of my job when I joined the Navy and started flying ... airplanes off of ships, particularly airplanes off of ships at night. And I think that was a decision that I made some years ago and the decision to go fly in space is just an extension of that.

___

Laurel Clark, 41, was a diving medical officer aboard submarines and then a flight surgeon before she became an astronaut in 1996. She had been on board Columbia to help with science experiments.

"I think my family has a fairly practical and pragmatic view of this whole thing, and that's that the actual launching into space is much more dangerous than any of the other security concerns," said Clark, who lived in Racine, Wis., and was married with an 8-year-old son.

She added: "There's a lot of different things that we do during life that could potentially harm us and I choose not to stop doing those things."

___

Ilan Ramon, 48, was a colonel in Israel's air force and the first Israeli in space. His mother and grandmother survived the Auschwitz death camp, and his father fought for Israel's statehood alongside grandfather. Ramon fought in Yom Kippur War 1973 and Lebanon War 1982.

He served as a fighter pilot 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, flew F-16s and F-4s. He was chosen as Israel's first astronaut in 1997, then moved to Houston the next year to train for shuttle flight.

His wife, Rona, and their four children — ages 5 to 15 — live in Tel Aviv.

Before Columbia launched, Ramon had repeatedly said he was not nervous or afraid about his safety aboard the space shuttle.

"I think the only thing that will worry me is the launch sequence and the systems and the launch, being launched on time. The tenseness is there because everybody wants to be launched on time with no failures. That's it. Once you're there, you're there," he said in a recent interview.

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NASA: http:/www.jsc.nasa.gov/bios

 

A pastor called into Fox News and said two (but I didn't catch the names) were members of his church there & talked about how they knew and how they loved the Lord Jesus Christ! (Wish I'd paid closer attention. )

This is very sad for all of us.

And another sad thought is about the people who are up there on the International Space Station. We need to pray for them, too. It would be horrible to be thousands of miles from earth knowing this happened.

May God comfort the hearts of all of us who grieve, especially the families of those who were lost.

 

Bad, sad tragedy. It's a dangerous business and every effort goes to prevent something like this but it's amazing that it doesn't happen more. Sitll, no less tragic for those killed and their families. AMEN that we should be praying for them.

It will be interesting to see what the cause was. I agree that it's a very small chance of foul play but we should keep an open mind.

 

I hear the speculation of some on here, but let us remember it is only speculation and speculation by those of us who do not have 1st hand knowledge breed dangrous rumours. Rumours will not help your nation, they will in time become the weapon of terrorist organizations to bring you down. Forget the wild speculation and concentrate on praying for those suffering through this

yours, Jon.

 

Just talked to my parents and they said that authorities are still finding body parts in Jasper County.

A portion of a head, a portion of a torso (could not tell if male or female), an arm, a hand, and other gruesome remains.

The good news is that they have found so much debris so quickly. The East Texas people have been quick to contact authorities and help search for bodies and debris. That part of Texas is heavily forested and it will be difficult to search, but many of the locals know the forest and can help the government with recovery.

 

Thank you, Squire.

 

This is much to sad for words, all we can do is hope all seven were saved and now in Gods arms. We need to pray for their famlies and the ones searching esp the ones who find parts of human remains. In Christ Love

 

This is truly a sad event. I do not think that terrorism had anything to do with it, but time will tell.

The space shuttle operates on the cutting edge of technology. All it takes is the smallest error at the wrong time, such as re-entry,to cause a catastrophic event. At least they probably did not suffer.

 

I think Pres. Bush was very eloquent in his speech to the nation. He said they did not make it back to earth, but we can pray that they made it home. Amen, Prez!

A man that works for my dad came into work this morning at 8 am Central. He stood in the parking lot and watched the shuttle explode. He also saw the smoke and debris trail. Mind you, Houston is about 150-175 miles from where the explosion occured!

It amazes me that this was seen and heard by so many people from so far away.

I won't pray for the 7 who died. They don't need our prayers anymore. But, their families will need God to be with them during this time. Let us pray for their family and friends.

Being in Houston, it is like we all lost someone we knew. I think that everyone in theis city is connected with NASA in one way or another. I know a few people who work at the Space Center. It is like we have lost seven of our own.

These people lived, worked, played, and prayed right in our backyard. Lord, help us all make it through this time of crisis.

In answer to a question earlier, the church where 2 astronauts were members was Grace Community Church in Clear Lake (southside Houston).

I also have many family and friends in the areas where the debris was/is hitting. Let us pray that they will all be okay after seeing the things that they have seen. Amen.

God Bless you all and God Bless America. Bro. James

 

I thought that was a good touch to his speech about making it home, which hopefully makes people think about exactly what that means.

 

Be sure to check out the Presidential Prayer Team's Memorial to the Crew of the Columbia. I pray that God will draw the families of the these brave men and women close and be a source of comfort that goes beyond all understanding.

Presidential Prayer Team

 

Last week a military helicopter crashed and the news was very brief. Little ws said about the mourning families of the helicopter crew.

In our morning paper it said "nations treasure" was aboard the shuttle referring to the crew.

What were the crew of the helicopter? Just disposable military personnel? They had families, they were putting all on the line for their country, yet because they didn't wear space suits and get national, no international, glory for doing a job they were put on the back burner of the news media and swept under the rug after the report. Kinda like ho hum some more military people died.

My point? Why is there so much hoopla over the death of seven astronauts, but so little said about the death of our service men? Are those who put there lives in danger to prserve out freedom not "national treasures"? Are they not important enough to have a news conference to satisfy the news medias hunger for "facts". Most of Saturday was taken up by the media going over the gory details of the shuttle disaster. Pictures were being shown over and over. Disgusting! May the families of the astronauts find peace and comfort, but does anyone care about the families of our young men who wear the uniforms of our military?

By the way, many can recite every detail of the shuttle disaster, how many even now what kind of helicopter crashed? How many died? What branch of the service was it?

Yes the shulltle crash was a tragedy, but so was the helicopter crash. Let's not get carried away with the frenzy of the media, hungry for sensationalism.

 

While I agree with much of your point, I certainly hope you understand the difference between the Space Shuttle System and a helicopter. Many nations have helicopters, a number of companies build them, and they are used by both the military and civilians for all kinds of uses.

The Space Shuttle System is a unique method of taking persons and payloads into earth orbit (and potentially farther) as well as the primary transportation system for the International Space Station. It is still on the cutting edge of applied technology after 20 years and with the astronauts is a symbol of the United States and her people in a way that a single helicopter and crew are not.

The human lives lost in both situations are a tragedy, but the astronauts put their lives on the line in a much more risky way than standard military people do.

Thanks for your perspective!