Thirty years ago today, the heights of human imagination had a tremendous shock with the loss of the Challenger. Yet in the days and weeks following, there was a resounding consensus to push forward and onward.
The experts involved did a retrospective analysis of what went wrong and how they could improve moving forward - and that took about three years. They took the time needed in order to see what precipitated failures in the project, trying to understand what went wrong and to prevent those errors in the next generation of equipment.
People not only remember this event because it was the first fatalities during a launch, but also it was the first mission for a civilian - a teacher, who was brave enough to show her students what you could do with a little effort and a lot of dreaming. The catastrophe changed the culture of one of the most amazing endeavors the world has ever known - and made the quest for space even better as well as catapulted other projects, like the Hubble Telescope or the New Horizons spacecraft.
Reviews of seventy-three seconds were essential to reframing the next steps. However, there was a limited timeframe in which they looked backward, and it was all focused on how to move forward. And while we may now think back on it, we have healed and take new steps toward new goals with improved tools.
You can take any tragedy and apply three lessons to your life, because life is short enough to not squander blessings, family and friends because you are doing what you don't want to do. When you focus on the good in your world, more good will come - and that's the best lesson of all from three decades past a devastating national event.
- Quit looking at what you don't have or what you have lost.
- If you aren't putting demands on yourself, you aren't growing.
- Focus on where you want to be and what you love in life.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/28/weve-lost-em-god-bless-em-what-it-was-like-to-witness-the-challenger-disaster/
