This is meant mainly for those who saw Saturday's reentry from near St. George. I've been very troubled that I was celebrating as I watched Columbia while those on board knew they were about to die. An unsolicited email from another of our group confirmed I was not the only one feeling this way. So it came as some comfort a few minutes ago when I received word from NASA indicating the crew was unaware of their situation until after Columbia had disappeared from our line of sight. Patrick
I hope this is not off topic or insignificant... I was an undercover detective working on an investigation. It was Christmas eve in NYC - 4 decades ago. During the final minutes all of the other officers moved in. Most of those caught were rounded up without incident. There was a brief, apparently insignificant, exchange of gunfire, as a few thought they could bluff their way out. They were quickly routed, the arresting officers and others were congratulating one another and even cheering the huge success. It was the culmination of almost 2 years of investigations into a multi-state operation that cost the lives of dozens of (mostly) young women who had been kidnapped, hooked on drugs and 'put to work' on the streets. One was the 14 year old daughter of one of my superiors. I was very young at the time. It was my 3rd undercover case. The shouts of success and encouragement continued for what seemed, to me, like forever as everyone was field processed and loaded up for the trip to precinct. Then someone noticed I was missing. Some had assumed that I had faded into the shadows as I often did before. But then they realized this was the end of the case and I should have been accounted for. ...They found me in a pool of blood between one of the cars in the alley and a fence. A stray bullet had struck the front of my skull. It just missed my temple. All I could do was lie there and listen and wait and hope I would be missed before it was too late. Even though I did not know if I would be found in time, I never begrudged my fellows one single cheer. A very good thing was done that night. Their joy was all for the right reasons. I am very new to this group and I have not had the pleasure to meet any of you, yet. But I am very much looking forward to doing so. All of the messages I have seen this weekend have reminded me of that night. You have all have been doing what you do - helping each other (and know nothings like me) to see, experience and learn more about our universe. That is what those 7 were doing too. Your cheers were for all the right reasons. I believe they would have been proud to hear them. Rog ---------------------- Patrick Wiggins wrote:
This is meant mainly for those who saw Saturday's reentry from near St. George.
I've been very troubled that I was celebrating as I watched Columbia while those on board knew they were about to die. An unsolicited email from another of our group confirmed I was not the only one feeling this way.
So it came as some comfort a few minutes ago when I received word from NASA indicating the crew was unaware of their situation until after Columbia had disappeared from our line of sight.
Patrick
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That was very moving, thank you for sharing it. Greg --- RLKelm <rlkelm@attbi.com> wrote:
I hope this is not off topic or insignificant...
I was an undercover detective working on an investigation. It was Christmas eve in NYC - 4 decades ago.
During the final minutes all of the other officers moved in. Most of those caught were rounded up without incident. There was a brief, apparently insignificant, exchange of gunfire, as a few thought they could bluff their way out. They were quickly routed, the arresting officers and others were congratulating one another and even cheering the huge success. It was the culmination of almost 2 years of investigations into a multi-state operation that cost the lives of dozens of (mostly) young women who had been kidnapped, hooked on drugs and 'put to work' on the streets. One was the 14 year old daughter of one of my superiors. I was very young at the time. It was my 3rd undercover case.
The shouts of success and encouragement continued for what seemed, to me, like forever as everyone was field processed and loaded up for the trip to precinct. Then someone noticed I was missing. Some had assumed that I had faded into the shadows as I often did before. But then they realized this was the end of the case and I should have been accounted for.
...They found me in a pool of blood between one of the cars in the alley and a fence. A stray bullet had struck the front of my skull. It just missed my temple. All I could do was lie there and listen and wait and hope I would be missed before it was too late.
Even though I did not know if I would be found in time, I never begrudged my fellows one single cheer. A very good thing was done that night. Their joy was all for the right reasons.
I am very new to this group and I have not had the pleasure to meet any of you, yet. But I am very much looking forward to doing so.
All of the messages I have seen this weekend have reminded me of that night. You have all have been doing what you do - helping each other (and know nothings like me) to see, experience and learn more about our universe.
That is what those 7 were doing too. Your cheers were for all the right reasons. I believe they would have been proud to hear them.
Rog
----------------------
Patrick Wiggins wrote:
This is meant mainly for those who saw Saturday's reentry from near St. George.
I've been very troubled that I was celebrating as I watched Columbia while those on board knew they were about to die. An unsolicited email from another of our group confirmed I was not the only one feeling this way.
So it came as some comfort a few minutes ago when I received word from NASA indicating the crew was unaware of their situation until after Columbia had disappeared from our line of sight.
Patrick
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Patrick, We call our son in Idaho. We were really upset as we explained how excited we were and he said "you saw it blow up?ยด thought he meant the burn and said oh yaw its was great. He was very quiet and sounded somewhat disgusted, then I realized he meant something else and found out what happened. You can imagine how we felt. Today we took our negatives to Snelson professional photo lab and they spent much time blowing it up and showing us much more detail. There is little doubt there was a problem overhead. He made us some good prints and a higher quality CD. We fedexed the negatives off to NASA today along with the video. I will try to send a higher resolution copy from the new CD. Wayne -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-admin@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 11:39 PM To: utah astronomy listserve Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Comforting This is meant mainly for those who saw Saturday's reentry from near St. George. I've been very troubled that I was celebrating as I watched Columbia while those on board knew they were about to die. An unsolicited email from another of our group confirmed I was not the only one feeling this way. So it came as some comfort a few minutes ago when I received word from NASA indicating the crew was unaware of their situation until after Columbia had disappeared from our line of sight. Patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
I checked the web to see if Jim's picture was in the D News today (Tuesday). Did a search on "Gibson" and got "Utah photo may show breakup of space shuttle" but when I clicked on it it tried to take me to http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,455029547,00.html?textfield=Gibson . All that got me was "Not Found The requested object does not exist on this server." Has anyone been able to get to Jim's picture today? BTW, kudos to Jim for a fine interview on KSL TV this evening. Patrick
Patrick, our Interner server was down part of yesterday and that's probably why you weren't able to find the story and photo. It's at this location now: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,455029547,00.html Despite my repeated explanations, the artist who put the captions on the photo got one of them wrong. The point shows where the shuttle was when the photo started, explaining the jiggle at that point on the image -- as Jim said, that's where he started the exposure and it probably jiggled the camera a minute amount. Contrary to what the note on the photo says, it is NOT where the shuttle reentered the atmosphere. That happened hundereds of miles before the photo began. But I guess I didn't make my point as forcefully as I should have, and by the time the paper was delivered to me, it was too late to change. Also, because the Internet server was down, I couldn't see it on the web until it was too late. Best, Joe
I checked the web to see if Jim's picture was in the D News today (Tuesday). Did a search on "Gibson" and got "Utah photo may show breakup of space shuttle" but when I clicked on it it tried to take me to http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,455029547,00.html?textfield=Gibson . All that got me was "Not Found The requested object does not exist on this server."
Has anyone been able to get to Jim's picture today?
BTW, kudos to Jim for a fine interview on KSL TV this evening.
Patrick
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Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169
participants (6)
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Chuck Hards -
Greg Taylor -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins -
RLKelm -
Wayne Reese