Just discovered it is 25 years since the Challenger launch explosion put the brakes on the US space programme and changed the lives of more than just the seven folks on board. I can see the explosion happening and the SRBs spiralling off as clear in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. A real tragic event. More here.
I know the remainder of the fleet is due to be grounded this year, but I am a child of the space age. I'd still give anything for a ride into the blackness on that big white bus. My admiration for those who do knows no limits.
Still not acheived my ambition of watching something go up in the flesh, but maybe if I start saving today we'll have enough in the bank for when the Orion/Aries or whatever they do build starts to fly.
And of course this means that in a day or two it will also be 25 years since Jean-Michel Jarre's Rendez-vous Houston concert, the tv broadcast of which is forever etched in my memory due to the snippets of crown footage they slipped in between the songs that then turned up on the album as well. "Kids, get off my car". "The most amazing sight ever seen by the human eye".
