Versus Nurture
Available February 2012

The Best Sniper Ever
Available February 2012

WEEKLY COLUMN:
JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

The loudspeaker crackled on a January day, and the halls of an elementary school named for astronaut Scott Carpenter went silent for a while. The year was 1986. To date, I can almost hear the discomfort that seeped through Ms. Springer’s second grade classroom with the news: The space shuttle Challenger had exploded over Cape Canaveral, ending the lives of all those onboard. We observed a moment of silence just then, bowing our heads and hushing our lips. It was a moment that felt like it lasted forever, for the occasion was simply too big for our young minds to comprehend.

When the space shuttle Columbia came apart over Texas on Saturday morning, a mere 15-minutes from completing its mission successfully, I was old enough, and perhaps mature enough, to make sense of the news filtering in. But no matter your age, it’s something you never really comprehend.

In retrospect, it would seem to me that the Challenger tragedy was tough on old Ms. Springer, kind soul that she was. She told us the story of Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first teacher in space. This captured our imaginations, of course, and we asked if McAuliffe was a teacher at Scott Carpenter. She wasn’t. But in that brief time between question and answer, we wept as if she was.

There was another first-ever aboard the Columbia this weekend. His name was Ilan Ramon and he was the first Israeli in space.

“I’m kind of the proof for the whole Israeli people,” Ramon said not long ago, “that whatever we fought for… is becoming true.”

And, indeed, his countrymen felt the same way. They’d turned to him in a period of struggle, a father of four, the son of an Auschwitz survivor and an air force colonel who fought in the Yom Kippur War. He brought into space a Torah scroll, and in so doing transcended not just the Earth but the grief he left like the rest of his belongings back home. In recent months, as the Columbia launch neared, his name became synonymous with that which his people hope to achieve in the world of tomorrow.

I only wish I’d known his name sooner.

Here’s another six I wish I’d known: Rick Husband, whose fatal mission was a lifelong dream; William McCool, father of three; Laurel Clark, mother of one; David Brown, a Navy pilot and doctor who dreamed of going to Mars; Michael Anderson, an inspiration to black children everywhere; and Kalpana Chawla, an Indian-born woman living the American dream.

I’ll tell you what, though: After watching hours and hours of continuous news coverage this weekend, I feel like I know all seven intimately, and, I might add, I truly respect them all. We forget sometimes just how heroic space travel is, that the fine folks at NASA aren’t just shooting people into space for kicks but to find ways to better mankind.

In a tearful speech to the nation, George Bush spoke of the routine nature with which we now send men and women like the Columbia seven into orbit. It’s true. Space flight has become commonplace to a fault. Though the idea was pure science fiction just decades ago, I’ve personally never known a world without it. That it would take a tragedy like this to get one’s attention is a terrible, terrible shame. Yet it’s also a testament to how far we’ve come, a reminder—even if not gentle—to our having made the future our own.

But no matter how wondrous space flight can be, it’s no wonder we pass it off as an almost everyday event. We’re too concerned with things of this world to pay much mind to the worlds unexplored. We’re caught up with matters provincial, consumed by network television and inescapable battles at home and abroad. We’re each afflicted by human diseases, infections like hate and apathy. For some, it takes great loss, or a break in routine, to push the symptoms aside.

Like little kids, and like Ramon’s many Israeli fans, the astronauts still saw magic in the air. They dedicated their lives to literally going above and beyond, in hopes that they might bring that magic home. I therefore find it disheartening that we were made to rule out terrorism as a possible cause of the shuttle’s demise. It’s such a sharp contrast to the purity of their mission.

Ramon’s background made him a noteworthy target, of course, which is why extra security was hired for the shuttle’s liftoff and scheduled landing. Barring a loose screw, however, and maybe even including such sabotage, I can’t imagine this destruction was brought about purposely at 39-miles high. It’s a sign of the times if that’s our first impulse, but so it goes.

Therein lies a staggering metaphor. In this era of American-Israeli solidarity, when our nations join hands and forces in the fight for three freedoms we believe to be self-evident—Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—it’s all too fitting that an Israeli would perish amongst six Americans on a mission to reach for the stars.

Technically speaking, Ramon belonged to America no more than McAuliffe belonged to my elementary school. That’s just a technicality, though. In the brief time between question and answer, and in going forward, we weep for him like we weep for our own. In truth, Ramon was an American in the fullest sense of the word, for there exists no geographical boundary against which the spirit of the pioneer can be restrained—be it of this Earth or elsewhere. Americans like the Columbia crew prove it all the time.

And so, the president assures us that we’ll not turn our backs on the space program, in much the same way as we’ll not turn our backs on the other challenges of our time. “Mankind,” he said, “is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand.”

As Ronald Reagan put it in 1986, “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.”

Still, on a day when much of the global community mourned, Reuters quoted Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi, an employee of the Iraqi government, who said of the space shuttle Columbia, “We are happy that it broke up. God is avenging us.” As debris from the space shuttle came down in a Texas town called Palestine, I suppose a sad irony was complete.

And here it was just last week when Ilan Ramon said, “The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile.”

Well, the world is fragile—sometimes wonderful, too—but peace is something we’ve still got to work on. Of course, we may or may not see it in our lifetimes. Then again, we may or may not put a man on Mars, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try.

I can’t stop thinking about that day in Ms. Springer’s class, the memory compounded by some of the things I’ve seen since—the fall of the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall, the Los Angeles riots, OJ Simpson, Oklahoma City, Clinton’s impeachment, Election 2000, September 11th—and now this. Perhaps life is defined by the moments in history that pass through it. It may well be that each small step for man is, indeed, a giant leap for mankind. To boldly go where few men and women have gone before was what sent six Americans and an Israeli into space and on to shake the hand of God. Sometimes life is a cross to bear.

To escape this world remains divine. In our moments of silence, this much we know.

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