Challenger ready for take off; Colombia ready for reentry

https://youtu.be/yibNEcn-4yQ

https://youtu.be/-O_DMyHdq_M

Do you remember the Challenger disaster? I do. I remember my father was home watching it around 9am or so. Can't remember if it was a weekday or if my father had begun his years and years of working on the small three people or so team in Australia that actually tracked each space shuttle in orbit for NASA. This is because my father was an electrical engineer and was fortunate to be continuously put on the team for years that tracked the space shuttles for NASA from Tibindilla and Parkes for the government owned telephone service he worked for. I remember he was also tracking alot of Voyager 1 and 2 missions from the satellite dishes in aforementioned places around five hours south of Sydney. So I can't remember if all that work for him started before Challenger exploded or after or if it was a weekend or else why wasn't he at work. I'm guessing it was more like 730am on a weekday and before going to school and he had the day off work. Noone had to explain anything, it's clear to see what happened. I was only 9, just couple days after Australia day by the looks of it. Four months shy of ten. Long time ago. There was a woman teacher onboard I think.

When the shuttles and satellites orbited over Australia they weren't visible from the tracking stations in America so tracking them was outsourced to Telecom Australia which inevitably was done by my father and two or three other colleagues from Parkes and Tibindilla dishes and whatever staff were locally around. My father was driven, he completed a community college degree part time in electrical engineering in a second language while working full-time for the national Telecom company in that field. That was after getting a degree in law and economics in his own country at a prestigious university there. Not a practical man though, very flawed. But definitely driven.

We'll I'd forgotten about Colombia. After numerous satellite and shuttle tracking jobs in the 80s my father retired in 1996 with a redundancy when the national phone carrier was privatized. Unfortunately, like his own father realized after meeting his wife in Spain (my mom) in the 1960s, my grandfather, who  I'd never met but was apparently a shrewd businessman with various modest lines of business interests, quickly realized his future daughter in law was no good and didn't want her around. I totally understand why now. It's a pity my father chose to retire at 53. At the time I thought he'd earned it which he had but I realize my mother was a welfare mooch and would fake mental illness, whatever, for a free pension for herself and her hubby. With zero regards for taxpayers or her family or anyone. And in truth the lack of work over the decades constantly degraded her more and more. 53 is young to retire. Anyway Colombia was in orbit. I'd come from France and America and Spain and was heading to China and was in the middle of an eighteen month kind of Sydney Australia limbo. My mental state was really something else, but I never ever regretted not taking psychiatric meds and in those days self medicated with marijuana and beer. I was also disinterested in working. I remember Colombia going down but it was vague. Furthermore I actually saw a real spaceship around those dates, possibly a month later in March up close and personal plus Bush's war in Iraq kicked off on March 21st which was a big deal and something to follow.



Today's music for I-95 or whichever highway....

https://youtu.be/85oieI5EQBo

Almost 2am... Got to sleep. Only been sleeping around five hours nightly last two nights... Should probably write a detailed picture of my old buddy Adam in Spain one of these days, very artistic fellow