Sadness and celebration

They died in the morning – in a clear blue sky. What else is there left to say about the seven astronauts who perished in the fireball that was their spacecraft, Columbia, 200,000 feet above mother earth only 16 minutes away from a landing "home"?

More than a million words of mourning, praise, sorrow, hope and consolation have been uttered since yesterday’s tragedy. Flags fly at half-mast all over the United States. The flag is at half-mast, too, in the hearts of mankind. For no matter the nationality of the seven who died in the pursuit of the dream of soaring beyond the stars and rocketing to the farthest reaches of outer space (whether American, Indian or Israeli), it is man’s questing spirit that propelled the Columbia and those missions and space capsules and shuttles which preceded it – the Jupiter, Friendship, Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor.

Brave astronauts went up in them. Brave astronauts perished. Brave astronauts came safely home. That’s the genius, courage, defiance of danger and death, risk-taking as opposed to timidity and cowardice, boundless curiosity and optimism, that sets such men and women – like their peers in other undertakings – a notch above the rest of striving humanity. Their example enriches mankind’s self-confidence, and inspires, and ennobles us all.

It’s been said that they died in a fiery explosion over Texas, coincidentally almost above the Johnson space center in Houston from which NASA had launched them 16 days ago on a "science mission" in space. This is not, however, why US President George W. Bush’s voice was close to breaking when he confirmed the tragedy and expressed his sorrow and condolences. It was a personal loss to him, as it was to all Americans, but far beyond that practically everyone on this planet who doesn’t viscerally hate the United States.

On Cable News Network (CNN) and BBC, Saturday night’s coverage and all Sunday’s coverage of the event was non-stop. It was fascinating to see the seamed and furrowed faces of all those great astronauts of the past, as they were interviewed – exhilarating to know that many of them were still, after all these years, alive and successful. There were Scott Carpenter (the second US astronaut to orbit the earth), Jerry Linenger who had been on the MIR during the 1997 fire and safely came back to earth and Alan Bean, who had been with the 1969 moon landing and taken part in Skylab 1973.

I think Bill Nelson, now a US Senator (Democrat, Florida), who had himself flown the Columbia space shuttle in 1986, said it best. He remarked that there is always a risk – but pledged, "We will persevere." Nelson predicted that the US and mankind would be "back soon on the road to Mars". You could read a double-entendre into that, but this was obviously said in sincerity and not in mischief or malice.

Nelson remembered that it was only 11 days after he and his fellow astronauts had safely "re-entered" the earth’s atmosphere on their shuttle, the Columbia (yes, the same one that disintegrated in its reentry attempt the other day), the ill-fated Challenger blew up.

Indeed, digging into the records, we find that the Challenger had completed nine flights into space and back in three years by 1986. On its 10th mission, however – on January 28, 1986 – just 70 seconds after lift-off, the Challenger exploded. Millions watched in horror on television as the space shuttle simply burst into flame. Seven died, including a schoolteacher named Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian trained to take part. The program had been suspended for two years, pending investigation into the causes of the mishap. It was discovered that a defective joint in one of the solid-rocket boosters had led to igniting the explosion.

As one astronaut explained yesterday, there are a thousand things that could go wrong – but most of the time, everything went right. This is why space shuttles have come to appear "almost routine" to most civilian-watchers.

Yet nothing is routine. And what happened the Columbia reminds us of it.

Actually, the Columbia was the first American space shuttle launched on April 12, 1981. Before you read anything into that, let’s wait for the NASA report.

* * *

It was the Russians – the Soviets, really – who first sent man into space. They beat the Americans into space, as the Americans themselves put it.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union had surprised the world by launching a 200-pound satellite they called Sputnik, which orbited the globe every 96 minutes, emiting a "beep-beep" as it circled the planet. A month later, Moscow launched a second satellite, Sputnik II, this time carrying a live dog, named Laika, into space orbit.

On April 12, 1961, the Soviets sent their first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into space. Although his space capsule was scorched upon re-entry, and a hatch blew when he was still four miles above earth, Gagarin successfully ejected, and came down by parachute. On July 26 that same year, I saw him in Havana, Cuba, where he was Fidel Castro’s guest of honor on the entablado in the Plaza Civica on their national day. He was a handsome, somewhat short man (probably only 5 feet five), and very modest. He died a year or so later in a crash of his air force jet – but you can see Gagarin’s stirring monument, rightly celebrating his feat, in Moscow’s Star City.

The Americans were frantic at having lost out, so the space race began.

On October 1, 1958, US Congress had authorized the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – which, in turn, initiated its first enterprise, Project Mercury.

Gagarin had made a single orbit of the earth in his Vostok I capsule, but that was enough. In contrast, the first attempts by the US had resulted in failure. The late President John F. Kennedy was the one who picked up the challenge, but did not see the fruition of his dream. But had asserted on May 25, 1961: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 entered lunar orbit like its predecessors on Apollo 8 who had also gone near the moon but had not landed.

On board the Apollo 11 were astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins. It’s important to remember that the command module in this flight was the Columbia. That’s where Collins remained behind to monitor the landing on the moon. Donning spacesuits, Armstrong and Aldrin had climbed into the lunar landing vehicle, named the Eagle, but which looked more like a giant spider. The vehicle was steered by Armstrong to a smooth landing on the cratered surface. Stepping on the moon’s powdery surface, Armstrong proclaimed it, in the now famous words, "One small step for man, one giant step leap for mankind."

Not long afterwards a bouquet of flowers, Time-Life reported, appeared on John F. Kennedy’s grave in Arlington, with a note reading: "Mr. President, the Eagle has landed."

Everyone remembers with exultation that first historic moonwalk, of Apollo 11 when man first trod the moon.

Few remember what happened with the first Apollo mission. Days before its launch in 1967, one of the crew members, Gus Grisson, told a reporter: "If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business." On January 27, 1967, participating in a series of pre-launch tests, Grisson and teammates Ed White and Roger Chaffee were sealed within the cone-shaped capsule for a five-hour endurance experiment. A flash fire erupted. The cabinet in which the astronauts were sealed, strangely enough in retrospect, had no quick-release hatch. The trapped men died of asphyxiation.

It is a risky business, as Grisson had said. Last Saturday night (our time) we were grimly reminded of that. We weep for the seven who died. We celebrate their courage.

* * *

President Macapagal-Arroyo is scheduled to return this morning, or this noon, from her snap sortie to Kuwait. At 10 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) she is scheduled to meet two special… well, envoys from US President George W. Bush who arrived Saturday from Washington, DC.

As we mentioned yesterday, these are Karen Brooks of the US National Security Council and Mary Thigh of the Department of Defense. (They will be accompanied to the Palace by US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone, Jr., who himself returned from the US capital Friday night.)

By way of background, I’m told by my sources, Ms. Brooks is quite close to Bush since she has worked with him for some years, prior to her joining the White House staff under the office of the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Brooks, in fact, is among the staffers who occasionally jog with Bush or accompany him in work-outs in the White House gym. Yep, Dubya is a fitness buff.

As for Ms. Thigh, she is one of the staff "chiefs" in the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The American group is expected to lay "solid evidence" before GMA at the closed-door meeting to demonstrate that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is concealing weapons of "mass destruction". They will also inform GMA about Bush’s plans – which is, as everybody knows, to go in with or without the "by-your-leave" of the United Nations.

The President will have to make up her mind: Either listen to her "say not yet" advisers (like Bobi Tiglao?), or openly express her support for Bush and the need to punch in to "disarm" Saddam and, of course, topple him from power. The Americans, I’m informed, won’t ask GMA to commit to send troops, or any military. They know our Army, Navy, Air Force, etc., don’t have any gasoline – and have their hands full chasing the scruffy Abu Sayyaf, the NPA, and so forth. But they’ll seek a "verbal commitment".

GMA will have to take a stand. The Americans are "counting heads". Somos ò no somos? Whether anyone likes it or not, moreover, the Yanks are going to attack Iraq. If we’re not on their side now – the hint is – then we’re not, period. I don’t believe we can sit on the fence on this one. That’s how Bush and the Americans are taking it – personally.

Even Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Muhamad is going to meet with Bush at the White House earlier than GMA, because she hesitated to set a date, then took off for Kuwait. Mahathir is scheduled to go to Washington, DC before the end of February, this month. Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong is next. GMA indicated, I hear, she had to go to Spain first, which is about March 21 or 22 – so her tentative schedule to see Bush was pushed back to April.

Anyway, I guess, she saw the Emir of Kuwait.