The Final Frontier

Years ago I remember watching the BBC's Children's news programme Newsround break the news about the demise of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which exploded shortly after take off one January afternoon. The bloke presenting the programme was just a few days into his job, and you could see in his face the way the news was effecting him personally.

It was one of those rare moments in history when our dreams temporarily died. When something we all took inspiration from collapsed in the face of grim reality.

And this weekend, almost exactly 17 years on, another Space Shuttle breaks into pieces and a team of astronauts are lost.

The circumstances surrounding this disaster somehow bring this closer to home. When Challenger exploded all those years ago there was an awareness that the whole enterprise was fraught with danger. Blasting off into outer space attached to massive tanks of rocket fuel is always going to be risky business. It took serious courage to do something like that, and even as a kid I understood the danger.

This time the disaster is different.

The Shuttle trips are almost routine. Safe. The old macho Astronaut shtick has long been replaced by a genuine mix of races and sexes united by skill, dedication and expertise. Its an enterprise that's become sciences finest and best funded project. It attracts single minded individuals who have an extraordinary passion for their work. They are the finest in their field, and the Shuttle has long been their baby.

For all the hype and razzmatazz surrounding nearby Disneyland, it's the Kennedy Space Center that is the real custodian of dreams. OK, the rides are pricey, and only a select few get through the gates. But the race into space is something we can all identify with.

Wealso know by now that science fact is rather more mundane than science fiction. Hans Solo, Captain Kirk and Dan Dare are still a world away. Space 1999 came and went, yet we were still expending extraordinary courage and energy just getting away from gravity. The effortlessness of science fiction just didn't materialize.

Space exploration was and is still about trying to cheat reality. This world is an extraordinary place, and it's going to take more than a vision of flying saucers to get us out beyond the Milky Way. This is a cold, hard planet and we can't escape it. The finest minds, funded with billions of dollars and we seem as far away from conquering space as we've ever been.

Columbia's disintegration just underlines just how small we are in the face of our vast universe. Human beings have yet to make any impact upon the natural order of our solar system. The enormity of it all is once again back in focus.

The seven astronauts lost were our finest. Enthusiastic. Passionate. Dedicated. Unquestionably these people carried with us a dream of the future. Nothing fantastic or beyond reach, but the sure convection that we were going to crack this thing called space exploration through sheer hard work and human ingenuity.

We've been taking for granted that the Shuttles were infallible and that our dream was in safe hands. Now its back to basics again. The dream is over. Mere mortals after all. It's not a good feeling.

B