This article was originally published in The Cornell Daily Sun, Volume CII, Number 77, 30 January 1986. It was the guest feature article, appearing on page 5. See Source article (in new browser window/tab).
At 11:39 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, I was reading The Hobbit in an empty classroom in Baker Lab. In Cape Canaveral, Florida, hundreds of spectators looked on as the space shuttle blew up in a short burst of flame, and the debris floated down with the smoke for the next hour. At 12:30, I was sitting in Goldwin Smith for my first day of English class while scientists were scurrying to and fro in search of answers. At 1:30 p.m. I stopped by the TV lounge to see what was up before having lunch;I saw a lot more than I wanted to see.
This is not about the space shuttle, or Reagan's Star Wars plan; this is about people. This is about that elusive thing called “human nature” that writers have been writing about for thousands of years. This is about you and me. This is about questions, not answers. Maybe you can supply those.
I popped my head into the lounge and asked what was on. Seven or eight pairs of eyes were glued to the screen, and I had to ask twice more before I was answered. So I sat to see what had happened and was forced to see the whole incident as it was filmed live, as the friends and relatives of the crew saw it, eyes wide with fear, mouths agape. The camera kept filming. My schoolmates kept watching. And so did I.
Do you want to know something funny? There were no neat sound effects. A low rumbling, I guess. No flashes of brilliant, gleaming colors. A quick orange and red glow as the rocket exhaust seemed to suck up the ship. No fabulous explosion like you see in the movies. A puff of orange and lots of smoke, billowing out into lazy clouds, like the kind you watch as a kid in the summer when you're laying on your back searching the sky for animals. Not “out in a blaze of glory” . . . just out like a candle. Se terminó. Seven lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye.
I could have turned away. But I was curious. I had to know what happened. And the camera kept filming. It was the camera person’s job to keep filming.
There was a schoolteacher on the ship, the first civilian to go into orbit. Almost. Her parents were watching proudly as their daughter reached heaven before them. Twice.
And the students here at Cornell were growing in number as word of the tragedy slowly got around. Ten spectators. Eleven. The cleaning people. Students returning from classes. And then they did it.
They showed the other camera’s target, the proud faces of Mr. and Mrs. McAuliffe, as the shuttle was taking off. And then they showed their faces as their daughter and the other six people perished in flames before their eyes.
Perhaps someone could explain this to me. Perhaps one of you out there can analyze this morbid fascination the media have with letting us in on the horror of death first hand.
This is sensationalist. This is intolerable.
This is human nature?
Stop the world. I want to get off. If you can convince me that this is human nature, then I'll stop now because I don't want to be in this race.
George Lucas? Stephen Spielberg? Who made us insensitive to these things? Why was I able to look on and see the fiery burst and the streaming smoke without turning away? It's simple. I’ve seen it all before. On TV. In the movies. Comic books, cartoons, Time magazine. And there was Peter Jennings looking at me with hardly a trace of emotion, speaking quickly so he could say what was to be said before another network did. And then there’s the matter of that camera, the one that caught, entirely by accident, the anguished faces of McAuliffe's parents. Why did that person continue filming? Beyond that, who ordered that the clip be shown on the news? How could Jennings keep a steady voice and still sleep at night after that?
I looked around the room as the 14 people watched with rapt attention. Or should I say 12. The cleaning woman turned away, more sensitive than to be able to watch the faces of Mr. and Mrs. McAuliffe change from pride to shocked denial again and again on the boob tube. And I was looking at her, and all around me. On the television screen, Mrs. McAuliffe’s lower lip quivered as she looked away and looked back again, not wanting to see this terror yet not being able to turn away, perhaps praying that somehow all will change, perhaps too struck to think anything. Mr. McAuliffe's brow furrowed and his face hardened against his emotions as Jane the cleaning woman shook her head from side to side, still not looking at the screen, getting up to leave the room. The rest of the students were staring at the screen as if hypnotized. 1 met the fleeting glance of another cleaning person, who could look no more. And then I got up and left. When I passed by 10 minutes later, half of the people were still there, and on the screen they played the same takeoff scene and the same hot, impersonal deaths over and over again. Over and over again.
I don't know what to think about my fellow students. I guess perhaps I’m judging them too harshly. or that I’m blowing things quite out of proportion. But it doesn’t feel that way.
I know one thing. The next time I pass Jane mopping the floor in the hall, I know I can look her in the eye and say hello.
Can you look in the mirror?
— Sami Besalel
When originally published, Sami Besalel was a Junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.