Space #MusicMovesMe

 It's Monday, and it's time for music! 

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers?

We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)   We have occasional theme weeks, but you are welcome to ignore the theme and use music of your choice.  Why not join us?  You don't have to sing, or play an instrument.  All music lovers are welcome.   

This week's theme is:  You Pick.

The movie Project Hail Mary was released on March 20.  I have not read the book (yet) but I have been interested in science fiction since I was around 10 years ago.  I've read another Andy Weir book, The Martian, and loved it.  It wasn't just because the book was originally self published on Weir's blog but because...well, because. I'm also a big fan of the alternate history series For All Mankind, which supposes an alternate history based on the Russians getting to the Moon first.  However,  I'm only partially through season 2 and my 90 day trial to Apple TV is almost over.  (Please, commenters, no spoilers!) I may have to start spending money to watch the rest of this series.

But anyway, this (and a couple of Project Hail Mary playlists on You Tube) have inspired me to create a space themed playlist for today. 

First up is this iconic song by Harry Styles, Sign of the Times, adapted by Geek Music for the Project Hail Mary trailer.  Truthfully, I like the original better, but, this does fit the space theme.

Elton John and Rocket Man.  

No space theme can be complete without David Bowie's Space Oddity. 

Or, it's unofficial sequel Major Tom (Coming Home) from Peter Schilling. Fun fact I just learned the other day is that this song was originally released in German.

I'm ending with Pink Floyd and Brain Damage/Eclipse Dark Side of the Moon, even though these aren't songs about the dark side of the moon.

And that's a wrap!

Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me. 

The Challenge of the Challenger

Every generation has its defining moment.

For mine, it was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  For my son, it was September 11.  For this upcoming generation, I'm thinking it will be the lockdown months of the pandemic.

For a different generation, it was the explosion of the Challenger on January 28, 1986, 37 years ago yesterday.

On January 28, 1986 the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded, on live TV, 73 seconds after its launch.  All seven crew members, including a civilian, were killed.  Tragically, the explosion was caused by an O Ring failure - something so small caused something so big.  A local company, IBM (yes, IBM originated locally where I live) helped with the investigation as they built the computers on the flight.

At one time, the space race was an extension of what we called the Cold War between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, which is where some irony came in.

For years, we had to pay Russia to transport our astronauts to the International Space Station.  Now, we are able to do it ourselves once again, thanks to SpaceX.

We mourn all those who died, but Christa McAuliffe, the teacher from New Hampshire, is the one I really think about the most.  She was selected out of 11,000 applicants for the opportunity to participate. She was going to teach lessons in space.

Now, in her native New Hampshire, McAuliffe is honored with her own day each January 28.  There are scholarships and sabbatical programs in her name.

There is even a commemorative coin minted in her honor, distributed in 2021. On the coin is a quote from McAuliffe: "I touch the future.  I teach."

It turns out one of my Facebook friends knew her sister.  That's the wonder of the Internet, that, in ways, we are all connected (for good or bad). 

I will always remember this day, January 28, 1986, for another reason.  My father had died suddenly days before, and I was numb with grief. On January 28, I was finally back at work. My office got a call from a client, telling us of the disaster.  None of us could believe it - and this great grief cut through the grief and numbness of the previous days. 

I cried.  I mourned.  I mourned for my father, the astronauts, and our country.

The explosion of the Challenger challenges us all.  We must not give up space. And, more importantly, we must not give up the fight to make teaching a career that both attracts and retains (and treats fairly and with respect) those who teach the generations that will determine our future one day.

The Search for Miss Kelly

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a news item featuring the "search for Miss Kelly", a woman attending the University of Connecticut who had applied for astronaut training.  NBC news has a copy of a rejection letter from February of 1962 where NASA said "We have no existing program for woman astronauts...nor do we contemplate any such plan..."  Of course, in 1963, the Soviet Union launched the first woman into space but it took many years for the United States to catch up.

We don't know if Miss Kelly ever fulfilled her dream in some other way.  NASA did not officially hire female astronauts until 1978. 

As of the time I blog this, Miss Kelly has not been found.  But, interesting, I saw that this Miss Kelly letter had been published online in 2013 - nine years ago.

Back in 2020, I wrote this about women in the space program, and something I was never taught, even as I watched launches live in my 1960's elementary school classrooms:
"I grew up in the 50's and 60's, a time when we were in a space race with the Soviet Union.

All the astronauts were men.  The people in the control room were men.  That's the way it was back then.

Little did I know about the female "computers", who, starting as early as 1939, helped to put airplanes in the air and, eventually, the United States into space.  No one talked about them.  No one taught us about them in school, even in the science oriented high school I attended in New York City in the late 1960's.

No, NASA's face was totally male. 

I did not pursue a science career (I was never able to conquer mathematics) but the space program always remained of interest to me.

Some of these computers, not machines, but humans who did their calculations by hand, were women of color.  They rode to work in segregated buses, consigned to the back.  They worked in segregated rooms.  Some had to go to the bathroom in a different building than they worked in.

In those days, a "computer" was a human.  Machine computers were primitive, and not trusted for many calculations.

Eventually, a book called "Hidden Figures" told some of the stories of three female computers of color..  Among them was a woman by the name of Katherine Johnson, who did the calculations for some of the first Mercury missions and Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the moon, among many other accomplishments.  She retired in 1986.

In an interview several years ago, she humbly said "I did the best I could".

Fast forward to 2017, when spouse and I traveled to Columbia, South Carolina to view the total eclipse of the sun.  

At the museum where we saw the eclipse, there was a NASA trailer and a long line to get in.  We saw their display and, at the end, were invited to the Langley, Virginia NASA facility where Katherine Johnson and others had worked, for an open house that October.  They only hold the open houses every five years, and this one was special - their 100th anniversary.   Health permitting (Ms. Johnson was in a wheelchair by then), Katherine Johnson was planning to attend.

But my elderly mother in law's health was starting to fail, and we could not make the trip."

We never did see Katherine Johnson.  She passed away in 2020. 

I've still kept my interest in the space program, and I'm aware there is a hope of seeing a woman on the moon by 2025.

Now, to see if we can find Miss Kelly.  Maybe this time, we will.

The New Space Race

I wonder how many SF writers foresaw all the twists and turns of our space program.

I grew up during the space race with the USSR years. We would watch space launches, on TV, in our New York City elementary school classrooms.  When I was about 10, I read my first SF novel,    I was in high school when we landed on the moon and watched, live, as Neil Armstrong took his first blurry steps.  He wasn't blurry, of course but the picture on our black and white TV was.  I heard his first words.

When my son was growing up, we would get space race videos out of the library and watch them with our son.

Now, as a senior citizen, I think about how far we have come.  Today, a nearly 71 year old man and a small crew went up to the edges of space in a private aircraft, and landed safely in a spaceport in New Mexico.  He said "I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars."  He dreamed and trained and trained some more. I wonder if he ever dreamed of being in what many are calling a "billionaire's space race."  To me, it's sometimes grown men acting like small children in a schoolyard, taunting each other with "my spaceship is bigger than yours." (or has more windows, goes faster, or whatever).

Some say Sir Branson should have spent his money on fighting climate change or some other Earthly endeavor.  Or that fine, he got his wish, and now, let's move on.

But I continue to ponder. There's a lot about this I'm not (in all honesty) comfortable with, such as the extensive taxpayer funding of the Spaceport America facility where the Virgin Galactic launches take place. (Will the everyday person ever see a return on that investment, or will space become a playground, and eventually, a possible refuge for the rich?)  But, on the other hand,  space has to be part of our future.  If these billionaires don't move us forward, who will?

So now, the next installment will be July 20, when Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin take their turn.

35 Years and 73 Seconds

On Friday, January 28, 2011, I wrote the blog post "Another 25 Years Ago Moment".

Now, 10 years later, it is the 35th anniversary of the defining moment for an entire generation.  For me, who grew up with the space program, it is a sad anniversary in so many ways.  I missed it because of a couple of prescheduled blog hops, so I am late (with apologies).

On January 28, 1986 the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded, on live TV, 73 seconds after its launch.  All seven crew members, including a civilian, were killed.  Tragically, the explosion was caused by an O Ring failure - something so small caused something so big.  A local company, IBM (yes, IBM originated locally where I live) helped with the investigation as they built the computers on the flight.

At one time, the space race was an extension of what we called the Cold War between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, which is where some irony came in.

For years, we had to pay Russia to transport our astronauts to the International Space Station.  Now, only in the past year, we are able to do it ourselves once again, thanks to SpaceX.

We mourn all those who died, but Christa McAuliffe, the teacher from New Hampshire, is the one I really think about the most.  She was selected out of 11,000 applicants for the opportunity to participate.

I will always remember this day, January 28, 1986, for another reason.  My father had died suddenly the week before, and I was numb with grief.  I was back at work. My office got a call from a client, telling us of the disaster.  None of us could believe it - and this great grief cut through the grief and numbness of the last week.  I cried.  I mourned.  I mourned for my father, the astronauts, and our country.

Ronald Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger explosion.

Here's some recent information on the husband of the late Christa McAuliffe, the one civilian on that 1986 flight.

Here, three of her students (who became teachers themselves) are interviewed.  Would they have gone into teaching if they hadn't seen their teacher die, live on TV?  I wonder.

One of my readers (who lives in Florida) told me of the Florida commemorative license plate (some call them "tags") issued after this tragedy, and sure enough I found it online.

It's ironic in a way - in a way the Challenger explosion (which put a two year pause on the space program) led to the eventual creation of SpaceX.  So, in a strange way, we have gone full circle.

Now, 35 years later, let us rededicate ourselves to getting back into space, pandemic and all.

Thank You For Flying SpaceX

Today, a United States space capsule touched down in the Gulf of Mexico, completing a journey that started some two months ago.

The last time a United States capsule touched down in water was 45 years ago (July 24, 1975, to be exact).  Many of my readers weren't even alive then.

For a time, we used space shuttles flown by Americans, but the program had two disasters - two too many, and at least one partially caused by cost cutting.

Then, for many years, our former enemy, Russia, had to take us back and forth.

Now, our space exploration can finally continue, in a joint partnership between NASA and private industry.  When the astronauts touched down into the Gulf, a ground person said "Thank you for flying SpaceX."

It reminded me of the old "Thank you for flying Lufthansa" joke about a plane that had to ditch in the ocean, and which I won't repeat here.

But you do have to admire pilots for their absolute cool.  If you have a few minutes, check out this video.

Back to SpaceX, what makes this even sweeter is that one of the two astronauts in the capsule, Doug Hurley, grew up in my local area.

What is a bit sobering is that the recovery crew all had to quarantine for two weeks and were tested for COVID-19 before being allowed to participate in the recovery.  It is good and right that we continue space exploration during this time, but these astronauts, as fate would have it, had to parachute into a corona virus hotspot.

I hope this program does not get sidetracked while we on Earth try to figure the pandemic out.

She Did the Best She Could

I grew up in the 50's and 60's, a time when we were in a space race with the Soviet Union.

All the astronauts were men.  The people in the control room were men.

Little did I know about the female "computers", who, starting as early as 1939, helped to put airplanes in the air and, eventually, the United States into space.  No one talked about them.  No one taught us about them in school, even in the science oriented high school I attended in New York City in the late 1960's.

No, NASA's face was totally male. 

I did not pursue a science career (I was never able to conquer mathematics) but the space program always remained dear to me.

Some of these computers, not machines, but humans who did their calculations by hand, were women of color.  They rode to work in segregated buses, consigned to the back.  They worked in segregated rooms.  Some had to go to the bathroom in a different building than they worked in.

In those days, a "computer" was a human.  Machine computers were primitive, and not trusted for many calculations.

Eventually, a book called "Hidden Figures" told some of the stories of three female computers of color..  Among them was a woman by the name of Katherine Johnson, who did the calculations for some of the first Mercury missions and Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the moon, among many other accomplishments.  She retired in 1986.

In an interview several years ago, she humbly said "I did the best I could".

Fast forward to 2017, when spouse and I traveled to Columbia, South Carolina to view the total eclipse of the sun.  

At the museum where we saw the eclipse, there was a NASA trailer and a long line to get in.  We saw their display and, at the end, were invited to the Langley, Virginia NASA facility where Katherine Johnson and others had worked, for an open house that October.  They only hold the open houses every five years, and this one was special - their 100th anniversary.   Health permitting (Ms. Johnson was in a wheelchair by then), Katherine Johnson was planning to attend.

But my elderly mother in law's health was starting to fail, and we could not make the trip.

Yesterday, we lost Katherine Johnson, aged 101.
May she rest in peace.