Well, for those that haven’t heard, we have had some not so fabulous news at the Whiting house today. No one is hurt, sick, or injured. We still enjoy many blessings—the gospel, a wonderful family, and many more material possessions than we need. But, Jack has experienced quite a devastating event—
He had his launch early this morning—1:55 A.M. to be exact. He said the experience was exhilarating. He did his countdown, checked the data, and said the fateful word, “Go!” SUCCESS! His part of the mission went exactly as planned, and he realized that despite what he thought, his heart wasn’t REALLY going to jump out of his chest after all. Things were looking great…stage zero complete….stage one complete….stage two…..not so complete. Unfortunately there was a failure during this stage and the rocket was not able to get the satellite into orbit. In fact, this 270 million dollar piece of equipment is floating somewhere near Antartica as we speak (or as I write and you read).
I found out this morning when my mom called and said she had heard something about it on the radio. After it had been confirmed, we cried together. Then I called my friend Stephanie and cried some more. Then my sis in law Kari came over and I cried some more. (Side note--SO excited that they are moving into our ward.:)) I finally started to feel better when I talked to Jack—I first wanted to make sure his part went okay, which it did. No, this is not a tragedy of epic proportions—no one has been hurt or died. But, it is a tragedy for all these amazing men and women who worked on it for over 10 years. But, that is the name of the game with science and technology—ordinary people attempting to do extraordinary things—there are bound to be errors. The amazing thing is they keep trying. I mean, for goodness sakes, I get frustrated when our drip hose for the garden doesn’t work or my blender shorts out! I just want to say I really admire ANY person who is willing to work so hard on something and know that perhaps, it may literally fall to the ground and be destroyed. And I think it is amazing that right now those same people are sitting around trying to fix that problem. That is the kind of thing that makes our country great--the wonderful hardworking, innovative people who "just keep swimming." (Thanks Dori.) Well, despite this bit of a downer post, I hope you have a great day and go accomplish something hard in honor of the Taurus rocket launch!
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2 comments:
What a bummer. I'm sorry to hear about that. It is exciting that Jack got to experience his part flawlessly though.
Wow! That really must have been exhilarating for him to experience that! Not many people get to have an event like that in their lives.
I think we all have experiences in our lives where we work so very hard on something and it seems like it is going a long smoothly and then suddenly it doesn't. This is where the Lord steps in right? One big difference is that with most people their projects aren't years long.
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