Ouverture...

Source: Omega Deone Wilhite on FB

The Challenger Disaster happened 28 years ago last month, 28 January 1986. Dr. McNair, along with Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory B. Jarvis became the sad reminders of the sometimes grim price of exploration and adventure.

I open African American/Black History Month ("ouverture" - en Francais) with some recollections I've posted previously on this blog, as well as Langston Hughes' "I Too" poem reenactment, born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. Mr. Hughes and Dr. McNair were fraternity brothers in the Greek Letter organization known as Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc (part of the "Divine Nine"). I do not know if either man ever met the other...

NASA: Ronald E. McNair, PhD
#P4TC: A 25th Anniversary

Discovery article: The Physics of...Karate

I recalled having met Dr. McNair when I was an undergraduate Engineering Physics major at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro back in '84. He's an alumni of the university, and we celebrated him being the 1st black astronaut from an HBCU. I was in Air Force ROTC, marched in the parade in his honor after his first mission, and introduced him at the Army/Air Force ROTC joint banquet. It was a busy weekend.

"Whenever you're in Texas, you should give me a call."

So I did. I lived in Austin, Texas at the time, stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base (now the airport). Back then, I called information; asked for Dr. Ronald E. McNair in Houston, Texas. That was as close to "Google it" as we got back then.

I got to speak to him for a good three hours. I found out some things:

• 5 weeks before his dissertation defense, someone purged his data (also known as sabotage). Without data, he'd essentially have failed to get his PhD. He said he stayed up for 3 weeks and re-accomplished 5 years of research. He slept for a week after that.
• He was planning to leave NASA and go into academia. Challenger would be "his last mission." That was sadly true. It devastated me, and inspired some creative writing in his honor.
• A lot of his determination he learned as a participant on the school karate team, which a the time. According to my Calculus instructor and his teammate Dr. Gilbert Casterlow (Sensei), you could get a disqualification for "unnecessary redness of the skin." The rule was designed not to favor African Americans, obviously.

Recalling this makes me determined to stay in science, contribute, help when and if I can, and stand on the shoulder of this and other giants (he was actually only 5'6", but you get the idea).

“When getting an education is a revolutionary act & dreams are the province of men,” Stanley Tucci.