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Heavy History on Sky Candy Today

Charlie Martin | 4:42 PM on January 31, 2025
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

I'm afraid this is kind of a sad week in the sky. 

This period in NASA history has had three major accidents with loss of life. The first was Apollo 1, which cost us Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. 

As with most air or space accidents, it was a result of a bunch of failures and poor design decisions. The worst of them was operating for the test with oxygen at higher than atmospheric pressure. The effect on combustion is impressive.

Things you wouldn't normally think are flammable burn like mad.

One person who remembers the accident.

But it didn't stop the Apollo program. A few years later, Apollo 11 was launched and delivered to men to the moon. Apollo 14 launched on this day in 1971.

The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed by an explosion caused by the inter-component seals in the solid fuel external boosters failing due to unexpected cold.

There are apparently Challenger accident truthers. Just ahead of time, I have no tolerance for them.

Richard Feynman refuted NASA's insistence that it couldn't have been the seals with a glass of ice water. As he said, Nature can't be fooled.

Then of course was the Columbia accident, caused by missing heat shield tiles, leading to burn-through and subsequent catastrophic failure of the airframe.

All aboard were killed.

May their memory be a blessing. 

We aren't going to let it stop us.

And that's enough of that. Let's look at some pretty stuff.

There seems to be a nearly infinite variety of spiral galaxies. They interact with one another really all the time but over intervals of millions or even billions of years.

They are even visible with home hobbyist telescopes.

Some galaxies are not so nice and symmetrical, but they have their own beauty.

I lost an image of the Seven Sisters last week, so here it is now.

A lot of people say looking at the stars, the Milky Way, or other galaxies makes them feel small. I think instead it should make us feel big. Every atom in your body either came directly after the Big Bang or was made in a supernova or neutron star,

We're all part of this, and so far as we know right now, we're the only part who sees it and can wonder at it.

So this week I ended up feeling somber but hopeful. As my late friend Frank Kelly Freas once said, "What if Isabella had said no?"

As always, I love to see comments. That connection is what makes this worthwhile.

Charlie Martin

Charlie Martin writes on science, health, culture, and technology for PJ Media. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]

Category: COLUMNS
Tags: SPACE

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