Message posted by Jeff on February 14, 2003 at 18:47:22 PST:
I am along time reader of this board. I have not been on the site in a few weeks and am just catching up. My sympathies as well to the families of the crew. I live south of Ft Worth about 25 miles. I took my kids out Saturday morning to watch the shuttle come in as we have done before. We saw it light up just after 8:00 am. I saw the same as the pictures on TV. It looked like anti-missle flares from a jet fighter as you would see on TV. Before I had only viewed the re-entry at night (spectacular). So when I saw the flares I thought maybe they were some type of gas balls that I could not see at night because at night it is so bright. The path takes it straight over my house, and I mean straight. After it went behind a row of trees we ran inside to switch CNN on and watch the landing as my kids think it is cool it only takes 15 minutes for it to go from Texas to where Mickey lives. A couple minutes after we came in we heard the explosion. It was so loud it shook the house and we ran outside to see what had happened. It was so loud I did not even think to associate it with the shuttle. My wife had stayed in bed and it even made her set up to see what happended. I have heard the sonic boom before which usually sounds like two large booms, this was definately an explosion. We went back in after being unable to figure out what the boom was. Back at the TV we were getting upset because no one was breaking in as usual to show the landing. I thought all the TV stations figured it was not good enough news with all else that is going on in the world. I told my kids I would check one more channel then we had to turn it off as we were preparing to go to church. The last channel was MSNBC or FOX with breaking news that mission control had lost contact with the shuttle, and the rest is history. One interesting note...the fireball was bright green as evidenced by the video you see on TV. At night it is a regular red and orange flaming fireball, very spectacular as I said before . Is this normal in you alls eyes? Would the daylight turn the fireball into the bright greenish light? I have not heard anyone on TV talk about it so I guess it is normal. Again my sympathies to the families. The astronauts understood the risk. At least they died doing what they love. My guess is, if given the same choice some would even go again. The next lift off will have a full crew as it should, and if I had the choice I would be first in line. The space program must continue and those who perished must be remembered by us all.
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