Seven Astronauts

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the horrible disaster in the skies over Texas, when seven lives were lost in the Space Shuttle Columbia while re-entering our atmosphere.

I wrote this poem February 2, 2003, the day after it exploded almost exactly 17 years after the tragedy with the Space Shuttle Challenger. I still remember where I was when I watched the Challenger explode on January 28, 1986. Both explosions were deeply traumatic, and both included members who made history, not just in the explosions, but in breaking glass ceilings and paving the way for astronauts, explorers and scientists in the future.

Space Shuttle Columbia tribute poster
Graphic design credit: NASA/Amy Lombardo.
NASA publication number: SP-2010-08-163-KSC

Seven children once gazed up at the stars
And wondered what it was like up there.
Over Israel, India and the United States,
The skies looked down on them
Seeming to call to them

Seven children grew up
Dreaming of what they would do
They became pilots, doctors, scientists, colonels

They watched in horror
As the Challenger blew up
Shortly after takeoff
Not knowing that they would one day
Suffer a similar fate

Seven men and women were accepted by NASA
To explore the heavens
To conduct scientific experiments

Seven families and three nations
Watched in awe as the spaceship lifted off
They dreamed of their fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters
Up there in the skies
Houston got reports of their findings
Scientific knowledge advanced
Until the communication stopped

Seven families waited at Cape Canaveral’s landing strip
Eagerly awaiting their loved ones’ return
They did not expect their joy to turn to tears
They did not expect to hear news of the Columbia
Exploding over Texas
Scattering all over the largest continental state in the US

Seven men and women were lost that day
Seven families learned that their loved ones
Would not be returning
Seven families suffered the same pain
As seven other families
Seventeen years earlier
Three nations lost their sons and daughters
The first Israeli and the first Indian in space

Lost.

Why did this happen?
How?
Praise the Lord
He can do wondrous things
He can work through tragedies
Who knows?
Perhaps this was the tragedy
That will cause many lost souls
To consider where they will go
Maybe people will be saved for eternity
Because God used an exploded space shuttle
And seven lost lives
To bring them to Him

May God have all the glory!

The crew of the Columbia
David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark,
Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson,
William McCool, Ilan Ramon
Photo by NASA

Disaster in the Skies

January 29, 1986 in the Philippines, January 28 in Florida. I was in second grade at the time, and my mom taught kindergarten at our school in the Philippines. I usually hung out in her classroom before and after school. The launch of the Challenger on its tenth mission had been at 12:38 AM Philippine time (11:38 AM the the day before, EST). I believe it was before school that we were to watch the historic launch. My mom said, "Let's go see the spaceship!" I was excited because spaceships and astronomy have always fascinated me. At the time, the entire elementary shared an Audiovisual (A/V) Room, where classes went when lessons involved movies. (I remember watching Back to the Future at a sleepover in that room in 4th grade, two years later.) We ran from her classroom to the A/V Room, where teachers were gathered to watch the launch at Cape Canaveral. Excitement turned to horror as we watched this projected on the big screen:

Photo by NASA, Kennedy Space Center

Christa McAuliffe was the first teacher and the first private citizen to join a space mission, as part of the first Teacher in Space Project, and it was a huge deal. As I was in second grade, I don't remember a lot about the aftermath, but I do remember running to the Audiovisual Room, and standing in horror as we watched the unthinkable disaster unfold. It is a moment I will never forget.

It's hard to believe this year marks the 37th anniversary of that awful disaster.

The final crew of the Challenger
Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnik
Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Ron McNair
Photo by NASA

NASA Orbiter tribute poster for the Challenger
Graphic design credit: NASA/Lynda Brammer.
NASA publication number: SP-2010-08-162-KSC

An Understatement

I wrote this poem February 10, 2007 in response to a sermon by our pastor on God's holiness, from 1 Peter 1.

NASA/Hubble

Awesome

Amazing
Wondrous
Wonderful
Powerful
Terrifying
They don’t even come close!

Loving
Caring
Dazzling
Holy
Wise
Just
Merciful
Our words hardly scratch the surface
of what God is.

What words can describe
God’s wondrous love for us?
How can we begin to express
His awesome holiness?

No words can adequately tell
His amazing care and mercy
That an omnipotent God would deign
To save a poor lowly sinner like me!

His power knows no bounds
Yet His love has no end
His holiness goes beyond anything
That I could even begin to imagine!
His wisdom is so much greater
Than man’s most brilliant breakthroughs
His justice fairer and more terrifying than any can fathom
His mercy and peace far beyond than all comprehension

I can do nothing before such a wonderful, terrible, awesome God
But fall down at His feet
And cry “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

His brilliance goes beyond
All the blinding starry host
Who am I that the dazzling God of the universe
Would gaze at the darkness of my soul
And shine His radiant light of forgiveness
On my unworthy blackened heart?

All of my days I will praise His wonderful name.
As the moon shines the light of the sun,
O holy God,
May my life shine Your love and holiness
On a world in need of Your grace!

Stars and Electrons

I wrote this poem March 15, 2003. I have always been fascinated and amazed by the sheer massiveness of the stars and galaxies. I was even more amazed in the introduction to chemistry in college when we learned about atoms. I had learned about them in science class previously, and I remember learning in elementary that the atoms in one grain of sand were more numerous than all the leaves on all the trees in the world. In college, our textbook said that if you were to expand an atom to the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be the size of the period at the end of this sentence. I forget how many tons the nucleus would weigh. The electrons that orbit the nucleus are even smaller! Stars and electrons, despite their massive distance in size, both mindbogglingly gigantic and mindbogglingly microscopic, have a lot in common.

NGC 4414, a galaxy in the constellation
Coma Berenices
Image by NASA

Titanic balls of fire
Placed by God in the heavens
Mere specks in His eyes
They glow in the sky
Far larger than I can imagine

How is it that the God who is so much larger than the stars
Can care for me -
One who is a mere speck
Compared to the stars?

The stars orbit in an endless round
In their clusters and galaxies they orbit
And the God who made these galaxies
Huge beyond my imagination
Cared enough to send His only Son
To die for me!

Tiny balls of matter
Placed by God in the atoms
So much smaller than specks in our eyes
So much tinier than we could begin to imagine

Electrons orbit in an endless round
In large numbers they orbit
Around the nucleus of the atom
The atom - like a galaxy to the electron
And how many atoms are in a single cell?
Countless millions of atoms in a single grain of sand!

How is it that the God who created the unimaginably humongous galaxies
Also created the unimaginably tiny electrons?

What a wonder
That such an amazing Creator God
Could care enough
To send His only Son
To die on a cross for me!

Proposed Laws of Nature

Have you ever wished you could lobby for a new law of nature? Not just a legal law that can be broken, but a natural law that is impossible to break. Things like the laws of gravity (though, granted, I propose exceptions to that below) and physics. I've been pondering this lately, and these are my proposals so far:

• Snow may fall and ice may form anywhere except on roads, driveways, sidewalks and vehicles.
• Rain must cut it out before floods accumulate. If it must continue to rain at that point, the rain must relocate to locations more in need of water.
• Natural disasters must confine themselves to locations uninhabited by people or animals. I would suggest Mars.
• Hailstones must be no larger than your average pea.
• Tsunamis must always crash out to sea, never inland. If there are boats or surfers in the proposed path, the tsunami must wait until they are out of the way.
• There needs to be a limit on how thick fog can get. I would suggest a minimum visibility of 75 feet.
• Wind must be considerate and not destructive.
• Clouds must block the sun over the horizon at sunrise and sunset, at least during March and September.
• Skin must be unburnable.
• Wounds and maladies of all sorts must heal as fast as they do for Wolverine. However, replacing bones with adamantium would not be necessary.
• Vision may diminish to a point where glasses are needed for minor correction, but it must never progress to the point of blindness. The other senses must never diminish.
• Teleportation and human flight must be achievable and normal modes of transportation.
• Food, water and coffee must always be available to those who need them.
• Smoke and exhaust must be odorless and harmless.
• Fire must not stray from its intended location, provided it is intended for use in cooking, keeping warm, and campfires (and other beneficial uses, as needed). If set with malicious intent, it must be impossible to set.
• Meteors must avoid crashing on planets and spacecraft.
• The Northern and Southern Lights must be visible to more of Earth, more often. When forecast, it must be visible. It is all right for it to be somewhat rare, though, as that would preserve the novelty. Just less rare than it currently is.
• Science, healthcare, sports and the arts must always be held in high regard, and never repressed or under funded. They must be easily affordable both to provide and to patronize.
• Food must always be beneficial to a person's health. An excess of food must not lead to an excess of weight.
• Pimples must disappear, never to return, the instant a person turns 16.
• Back orders on products, especially if they are essential, must be impossible.