Dartmouth students reacted with bewilderment and sadness to Saturday's explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, which tore to pieces 39 miles above the Texas countryside while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The shuttle was in the last 16 minutes of a 16-day mission.
Kala Sherman-Presser '03 first learned of the crash during a moment of silence held for the astronauts before a swim meet.
Like many Dartmouth students, Sherman-Presser was unaware of many specific details about the incident. She was unsure what to think during the moment of silence at the meet, but she nonetheless remembers feeling "shocked."
Betsy Williamson '05 had a similar initial reaction. She first learned of the disaster while watching the news with a fellow member of the track team, she said.
"It was really hard when they started to discuss their families," she said, characterizing the whole incident as "really, really sad."
Other Dartmouth students commented on how little publicity the American space program receives except during moments of crisis.
"I think it's a terrible shame that so many people only think about the space program when disasters happen," George Gorospe '06 said. "No one talks about what they do," he said, referring to the astronauts who perished in the crash, "but only why they died.
Megan Peck '06 voiced similar sentiments. "You hear about the space program so rarely, except when something like this happens."
Details about the crash and the ongoing investigation into its causes continue to emerge.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Sean O'Keefe said yesterday that Harold W. Gorman Jr., a retired Navy admiral who helped lead the Pentagon's inquiry into the USS Cole bombing, will lead a government inquiry investigating the reasons for the Columbia disaster.
Authorities have said that there was no indication that the shuttle was damaged by a terrorist act, as the shuttle was out of range of any surface-to-air missile, one senior government official said. Security was also extremely tight on this mission because Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, was among the crew members.
Ramon, shuttle commander Rick Husband, and astronauts Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla. Laurel Clark and William McCool died in the crash.
70 people have also gone to hospitals because they touched debris from the crash and were concerned about exposure to toxic chemicals, Sue Kennedy, emergency management coordinator of Nacogdoches County, Tex., said.
There were at least two reports of human remains from the crash found in east Texas and Louisiana. A Hemphill, Tex. resident discovered a charred torso, thigh bone and a skull along the side of a rural road on his way to work.
Nearby, two young boys found the remains of a burnt human leg on their farm.
NASA said the first indication of trouble Saturday came when they suspected that a wing of the shuttle was damaged during liftoff but did not see any immediate reason for concern.
"As we look at that now in hindsight ... we can't discount that there might be a connection," shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said Saturday.
"But we have to caution you and ourselves that we can't rush to judgment on it because there are a lot of things in this business that look like the smoking gun and turn out not to be close."
A team of 20 engineering experts from the United Space Alliance, a key contractor for NASA, is being sent to study the wreckage. All of the ruins of the shuttle are being shipped to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana for analysis.
NASA also observed the anniversaries of two other space related tragedies this week: the Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 1986, which caused seven fatalities, and the Apollo spacecraft fire that claimed three lives, on Jan. 27, 1967.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
