jbs

jbs

I was in the Air Force and stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in January 1986. Vandenberg is the launch site when we want to launch a polar orbiting device because of its position on the left coast. The base had been preparing a launch site for the shuttle, we even had the Enterprise on base a few times for test fittings and to prepare the path from the runway to the launch facility (all the traffic signs were posted very low so the wings of the shuttle would clear them as it was towed across the base).

We always knew when a launch was scheduled, it was always big news at the base because we knew that one day the Shuttle would launch from Vandenberg. My workmates and I on the telephone system maintenance team always got prior notice for launches of any sort to prevent us from disrupting any of the data circuits used to help monitor the shuttle in flight, circuits which were routed through the wire distribution frame in our office. We had a red light switched on at that frame for launches that basically said “Don’t Touch.” We just called it the Frame Light.

That fateful day in 1986 I was working on a static problem with an operator’s console. I worked on it from the operators room because the Frame Light was lit and I couldn’t touch or check the wires at the distribution frame. The operators shared their room with the team of analysts that created the work requests for users of the base telephone system. One of the analysts had a radio playing at a moderately low volume.

Now, the other side of the wall near to the operator position I was working on was the back end of the telephone equipment room. As I worked on the console I could hear a minor alarm on the phone system in the other room – it sounded a bit like the bells on an old fashioned phone. Minor alarms are, appropriately, minor and so I ignored it. Besides, I wasn’t the only technician on duty, there were several other technicians still in the equipment room that would take care of it.

Only a few seconds after the minor alarm, though, the major alarm sounded. The major alarm sounded quite like a gong being struck once each second. Now I looked up – staring at the wall between me and the telephone room, as if I could see the cause somehow. I wondered out loud what that was. But again, because of the other technicians in the equipment room, I didn’t pay any more attention to it.

That didn’t last long, however, because only a moment later the critical alarm engaged. This alarm sounds very much like a recess bell at elementary school to call the children back to class. And every bit as loud, but inside a building as it was, it demanded immediate attention. Well this couldn’t be good, I was thinking.

In fact there was a distinct pattern to this sequence and pacing of the alarms, a pattern that one should never hear in the middle of the day. I thought, “No, surely not!” (Well, something like that – though I might have used more colorful language). But it was true. The alarm’s meaning was clear as only a second later as each of the operators in the room announced almost in unison that their consoles went dead. A couple of folks that had been talking on the phone chimed in that their calls dropped. It was clearly true – the Dead System Alarm meant the phone system had completely crashed. No one on base using that system would have dial tone.

Now, the system sounding that alarm was not the only system on the base, there was a civilian system to supply the various homes in Base Housing, a separate command system, and another full system on the other half of the base. There were also a handful of private phone systems managed by defense contractors. But I wasn’t thinking about that right then. The analyst that had his radio playing shushed us all. He turned up the volume on the radio and we all heard the news. Even more than the video and photos I would see later, that Dead System Alarm is burned into my memory, associated forever for me with the destruction of the Challenger.

The rest of the day is essentially a blur as the news went to 24 x 7 coverage of the disaster. The now too familiar Y shaped explosion wiped anything else from my mind. We speculated, of course, about what could have happened – perhaps sabotage, perhaps some explosive bolts had fired inappropriately.

Mostly we mourned the loss of the shuttle crew – the first to include a civilian teacher. I no longer remember when the reality of what had happened finally sunk in. I’m sure it was days or weeks, possibly months. I wish I could tell you about the emotions – but my journal entries carry only the facts and speculations. I have only these two lines and paragraph:

28 January 1986 24:00

“The Shuttle Blew Up. I have no words to describe what I feel inside. It’s too big.”

“We are an age of explorers. All frontiers are frought with danger. Columbus was an explorer. He faced his possible death with courage – he did not give up when it became tough. He discovered a new world. We are at the extreme edges of our knowledge. A new world is just about to come into view. We CAN’T give up now. Life is nothing if we don’t push the frontiers. Senetor Glenn said human history is lined with Triumph, … and tragedy.”

Vandenberg never did launch the shuttle after that.

Oh, and the reason the phone system crashed: A phone system can only handle a small percentage of simultaneous “off hook” requests. They very seldom need to handle more that that tiny fraction. January 28, 1986 at

jbs

I was at Girl Scout camp when Columbia exploded. That’s how my daughter remembers that camp.

But if I had the opportunity to be in space, I’d go. It’s dangerous, and we should try to make it safer and not take unreasonable chances. But I can’t look at the stars and not yearn to be out there.

The scientist in me sees the constellations as somewhat random arrangements of stars from one point of view. But a tiny bit of me wonders whether God arranged something like Orion in a less-crowded part of the sky to beckon us to explore. It’s part of our nature to want to go there.

There’s a short article in Pravda today:

Gagarin was not first astronaut

“Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin’s famous space flight, …”

While today’s Pravda is roughly equivalent to the National Enquirer, I have no reason to doubt this story.

It makes Gagarin’s feat all the more commendable – he surely knew what happened to the first three.

By the time I was old enough to really prep for a career, my interests had moved on to other things anyway, but I’m sure that Challenger had its effect to. I felt that same sick-to-my-stomach feeling when Columbia was lost, too.

I’m glad that Rutan, Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are trying to forge the way for private manned space exploration. I hope that they succeed!