Is it just me...

[Kaiddin]

Is this really what so many Europeans are thinking? All of the following posts are from a news group I subscribe to. All by people who are European. One Dutch, one English and one French. While there are Europeans that have posted expressing simpathy, loss and respect, most are reflected by the following:

Hi,

I do agree that it is a disaster, but aren't you blowing this well out of proportion?????
Also, in Zimbabwe 40 people died today, why doesn't anybody mention this, don't they deserve to be morned aswell?????
Why are all tragedys from America being blown up so much :-((

Ratwoman

I feel the same, anytime anything happens in America, every little point is discussed, analysed, rediscussed and reanalysed. The first 10 pages (at least) of todays daily paper were to do with this incident. I can guarantee it will be in the paper every day for the next month. What about the British farmers who are being killed every day in Africa? What about the people who are being killed on the streets in our own country? Thursday night at least 20 people perished in the snow and they has a small mention
in the paper. Things that happen in our own country seem to be irrelevant to the British people, but then it could have something to do with Blair wiping Bush's arse.

Charlie.

> It isn't JUST 7 people and their family and support personnel that are
> affected.. it is far more reaching.. and that has nothing to do with
> American egos.

ROFLMFAO

Fran

I'm at a loss.

[First of Two]

That is what happens when people cease to be able to look beyond their own noses.

Just make sure you don't wind up like that, and you'll be fine.

Be secure in the knowledge that you're better than they (the posters, not Europeans in general) are.

[Joe Dizzy]

Well.. it's a shame about the people who died and the families and friends they left behind. It's a blow for the space program, I guess.

But a national (or even international) tragedy? I'd have to say no.

Accidents, sadly do happen. This was one of them.

[Dan Stack]

But a national (or even international) tragedy? I'd have to say no.

I'm curious as to your perspective as to why not? (I'm actually not looking for an argument, just trying to understand different perspectives.)

I can give my own perspectives. For me, this was a tragedy. It is a national tragedy if others in this nation feel the same way - 0r in a similar way. I know I had a few tears when I first digested the news.

Why is it a tragedy? Well, for me, and for, I think many Americans, it is becuase a part of our identity if associated with the space program. And a blow to it is a blow to all of us. Americans - and humanity in general - have been big on pushing frontiers. This loss is a loss of a vehicle designed to carry people on journeys into new frontiers and a loss of people who had dedicated their lives to that journey. It is doubly sad because this was a purely scientific mission - many of the recent missions have been more "cargo run" style missions to the ISS.

Some time back there was something of a big story how it was intended that the ISS would always have a crew, that it would be the beginning of a time when there would always be humans living off of Earth. This loss makes that unlikely - many speculate that the crew of the ISS will have to use their Soyuz Capsule to evacuate the ISS. And again there will be no humans living in space.

I believe we, as humans, are on a journey, one that will always take us to new frontiers. Why? To quote Gene Roddenberry:

Why are we now going into space? Well, why did we trouble to look past the next mountain? Our prime obligation to ourselves is to make the unknown known. We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are.

We have stumbled on that journey. Even without the loss of life, that would make it a true tragedy. Add to it the loss of life to those dedicated to that journey makes it a double tragedy.

Is it a tragedy different from those associated with war, famine, and disease? Of course it is. For most, it is not a blow to the body of humanity, but rather to its spirit.


[Edit - adding the two following quotes]

It feels a little awkward to be quoting science fiction and its writers when trying to explain why this is a tragedy, but in a way it makes sense, as science fiction is tightly linked to our dreams of space.

I think G'Kar of Babylon 5 also has some words which express how I feel.

Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this foe we can never surrender.

The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No-one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.

[Joe Dizzy]

I'm curious as to your perspective as to why not? (I'm actually not looking for an argument, just trying to understand different perspectives.)

I can give my own perspectives. For me, this was a tragedy. It is a national tragedy if others in this nation feel the same way - 0r in a similar way.

It was a tragedy, in the sense that every accident which involves loss of life is a tragedy.

I just wouldn't consider it a national tragedy because a lot of people felt the same way about it.

But I'm not an American, so maybe the space program really is essential to America's national identity. It just never seemed that way to me.

[C5]

Well... this is a tragedy, no argument from me here.

But there's one thing I'd have to agree with : as far as the media are concerned (be they American, European or wherever), some deaths are more equal than others. I saw that all too often, even for French events - some celebrity who died, 20 minutes prime time; ten thousands people killed in an earthquake, one sentence at the end of the news.

I'll say no more on the subject, but I understand why some of the posters quoted above may say that, even if I'd not have worded it that way nor completely agree either.

[Dan Gurden]

No. that is not what all Europeans think. But I can see why some people get confused...

I think the problem is that the vast majority of Internet Users are still american and tend to think and post as if it were for America rather than the whole world.

In fact on these very boards in the initial rounds of collective sympathy, one poster stated that the only time they had felt the same level of grief/anger/numbness, was when the Challenger was lost and on September the 11th.

Unfortunatly this seemed to ignore thousands of other disasters, with equal bodycounts (whether immediate or far worse, slow acting) worldwide, two of which immediatly spring to mind would be Chernobyl and Bhopal... Which has little to do with the actual point the author was trying to convey.

Unfortunatly while some of these comments may be made at the height of emotion, and thus anothers pain and suffering was not relevant to the first post. Suddenly one persons emotion is seen as a statement of how the rest of the world simply doesn't matter...

And this is why when we postwe should re-read the post and ask ourselves if the points are clear or relevant and either re-write or delete as appropriate. Thus avoiding flame wars.

Its sad that self-censorship has to be a priority if you want to be an adult, but even without the Internet its a valid life skill. And until the human species decides to change it will remain so.

[calguard66]

I think it has much to do with our national self-image.

All Americans are decended from explorers and adventurers one way or another... whether they walked from Asia across the Bearing landbridge during an iceage, sailed on the Mayflower, shipped steerage to escape famine in Ireland, paddled a raft from Cuba, were smuggled from China aboard a tramp freighter, or any one of a thousand other stories.

We pushed West across a vast continent, tamed a wilderness, and grew from 13 separate and isolated colonies to the most powerful nation in the history of the world. Even the most chairbound homebody is decended from somebody who left everything they ever knew in hopes of a better life.

Space is our remaining West. It is very much the last frontier for a nation that craves seeing what's over the next hill. Craves it in it's very soul.

The Columbia, and the Challenger before her, are national tragedies because each astronaught carried a part of the nation with them. Part of our souls have been lost, scattered in the air above Texas.

And yet, just as the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots, so the spark of adventure must be fanned by the sacrifice of the bold. Every cloud has a silver lining. I hope that this spurs us to greater achivement, and a rededication to our future among the stars.

As for those in other, less fortunate nations, who would prefer not to hear the United States mourn her loss; watch something else... I'm sure the East-BFE-istan News Network has something interesting on caribou ranching.

Originally posted by Joe Dizzy


It was a tragedy, in the sense that every accident which involves loss of life is a tragedy.

I just wouldn't consider it a national tragedy because a lot of people felt the same way about it.

But I'm not an American, so maybe the space program really is essential to America's national identity. It just never seemed that way to me. [/B]

[Cybrludite]

I would say that it is an international tragedy, in that three nations lost heros on Saturday. Five of them were born in the United States, one was a naturalized citizen who came from India and was the first astronaut born there, and one was an Israeli, again the first of his nation to go to space.

[Dan Stack]

Some interesting comments. For some reason, I'm not really feeling defensive today, just tryint to shine some light into the darkness.

One reason I think events like the loss of the two shuttles is such a big deal for many Americans is far, far, more than the loss of life, but rather the intangibles that are lost with it.

Similarly, as much as the loss of life was horrible on September 11, that event was so much more - it was, in many ways, a succesful attack on the soul of America - the feeling of security that Americans have had in their homeland. It is difficult to describe to a non-American how it effected us.


I think the description of Americans being totally ignorant of the rest of the world is overexaggerated, though I could probably find you some examples who fit the stereotype . I do wish international news coverage was better here, but I suspect it is similar elsewhere - for example one thing I noticed when I was in England way back in summer of '94 (in the lovely tourist center of Bassildon ) was about 60% of the news was British (centering on a rail strike), 20% was about America (mainly Clinton) and perhaps 20% about the rest of the world. I'll be the first to admit I was only over for a week or so it certainly stands to reason that I was not getting a representative sample. And I'm still scarred by seeing "Blobby" dunk the nice news lady in a fountain.

Anyways, maybe I'm more informed than the average American (I probably am), but I recall near-constant coverage of events like the Chernobyl disaster, the Union Carbide Plant in India, the end of Apartheid in South Africa, floods in Germany, many foreign elections, etc.

I do agree with C5 about the schewing of coverage. Some events do seem to get a bizarre amount of coverage. For example, getting any news about India in America, unless they are on the verge of war with Pakistan, is near impossible. But Chirac mentions America... Duck! Similarly, A&E labelled Princess Diana one of the hundred most important people of the millenium. I'll be the first to say she did tremendous things for the needy, but one of the top hundred people of the past 1,000 years? Similarly, unrest in Iraq - tons of coverage. Unrest in the Ivory Coast - passing mention.

[Capt.Hunter]

One problem is perhaps the sheer size of the USA. Over here in Blighty, our BBC News 24 channel has to cover world events in a lot of detail in order to fill time. In the US, there's so much going on in the country at one time that it could fill a programme even without covering world events.

Events like the Columbia disaster affect Americans more strongly than most Europeans can imagine, because Americans have a lot more national pride than most Europeans. Or rather, they show it more. The flag-waving since 9/11 would make most Britons (I don't know about our friends on the continent) cringe slightly. To us, it borders on jingoism. You have to understand, over here, national pride often has very negative connections to racism and fascism - the English flag of St. George has been hijacked as the symbol of the British National Party (the biggest bunch of f**ked-up, racist, Nazi-wannabe assholes I've ever had the sheer bile-churning displeasure to even be aware of, to put it mildly).

There is a valid point in some of the messages at the top of this post - we do treat some deaths (and by extension some lives) as more important than others. I've been re-reading the LUG Way of Kohlinahr sourcebook recently, and thinking that some of the Vulcan philosophies could vastly improve life on Earth right now. The part about realizing that one's own suffering is no better or worse than anyone elses might be useful here.

[Kaiddin]

From the same news group this morning:

For many of us in the USA, the space program represents a dream.. a dream started many MANY years ago when man first turned a telescope to the heavens and saw things that had never been seen before or truly understood.

It opened their eyes to the universe. And it begged more questions to be answered.. some of those people where harassed by others for their views, and ostracized for it.. others still were condemed for the things they claimed as a result.

Then we had this guy who told us that he would ensure that the USA would put a man on the moon.. he never lived to see that dream of his come true.. but it did come true.

There are people here in the USA who saw that dream come true.. and other still who lived and still live that dream.

To us, many americans that is, space is a dream.. a dream of adventure.. of possibilites.. of the chance for us to one day also be part of that elite and walk on the moon, or ride in a shuttle and view this great world from miles above the surface.

In the space program, we too can dream, even though we may not live to see it, many of us really believe that there will come a day when
space travel is open to the rest of us.

The chance to do what many others have done in history.. become real explorers.. see things and do things never done before.. or only done by a few.

Columbus sailed the atlantic ocean when many told him he was nuts.. others have traveled to the top of the highest mountains above sea level, others still have journeyed to the depths of the oceans, and to the *ends of the world* (polar ice caps).

The only really great place left is space.. and in that we dream.. a dream of what it would be like to step foot on another plant, as Neil Armstrong did the year I was born.

For many people, space and the universe is just another confimation that, 1, we are not really alone out here. there are stars out there,
ones we see from the ground, that could have planets like ours orbiting them, with people just like us (dreamers) on them wondering if there are other life forms out there. 2, that it is a confimation that a god does really exist.. how in the world (hehe) could we have just formed by a big bang.

Others dream about the possibilites of being able to perform experiments in a near perfect environment that could one day lead to cures for cancers.. one of the things going on up there this time was testing on cancer cells.

Space is a dream for most Americans.. just like royalty is for many in England.. how many girls had dreams of being a princess in a castle with a handsome prince as her hero?

How many have ever wondered *what IS out there.. or is there even anything out there at all*?

I sit and look at the stars and space.. and I see people up there, living out their dreams.. dreams of being part of a group of very lucky, very elite people who will see our world, in a way that only a few handfuls get to.

It is a dream of exploration.. and wonder.. and when something like the orbiter being destroyed with 7 people on board who spent their whole lives working, only one day to wake up and realize that they too have the ability to step higher than they ever thought, then reaching out for that new dream.. and grasping ahold of it.. and riding that dream into space, it hurts.. because within us.. within me, part of that dream dies along with them. I hurt for the loss for their families.. I hurt because they were 16 minutes from touchdown and the completion of that journey and that dream..

The space program is about reaching for your dreams.. some of us will grab that dream and ride it all the way.. others will die trying.. but
in the end, we cannot stop trying no matter what happens to some of us along the way.. if we do, then we lose our humanity and those who died
reaching will only have died in vain.

I guess that answers the question as to why I was upset when the death of 7 dreamers.. 7 humans.. 7 people who dared to reach for their dream were killed.

Jake

The only thing I would add is that the astronauts were not just Americans. One of my gaming group is from India and he was intensely proud of the fact that an Indian woman was among the group of astronauts. From what I've seen, Israel and India saw their representatives as national heroes. Doesn't that make it an international story?