Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Pupils honor shuttle heroes
By PETE BOHACZYK
NEWS-JOURNAL CORRESPONDENT
PORT ORANGE — When children in Ruth Nickell-Cortes fifth grade class at Horizon Elementary School came back to school the Monday after the Feb. 1 tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia, they were somewhat unsettled.
“There were a lot of emotions among them that they wanted to share and were very verbal about what had happened. Because of this I decided to have them make journal entries to express their feelings about sending or not sending more shuttles into space.”
Some drew pictures that represented the shuttle and they used the number seven a lot because of the seven who were killed. Most pupils were heartfelt because of the two women aboard and that many of the crew had boys and girls – families of their own.
“I asked them to jot down their feels on their computers at home and to bring them in the next day.”
Some expressed their feelings that the space program should continue and some felt that it should not because of the danger to crewmembers.
Desirae Shamp, 11, wrote in favor of the program. The journal entries are printed as they were written.
“Dear journal: Stephanie P. and I were playing outside when we heard the terrible news. My nabor told us what happened so we ran inside to tell my dad. At first he did not belive us until he turned on the news. After we went back out to play. I kept thinking what happened next. I was thinking if they would send more people to space. I think they should keep sending people to space because we need to know about planets and there are some people that still work at the space station. When I heard about the crash it reminded me of the crash into the twin towers.”
Brendon Wolf, 11, also wrote in defense of the program.
“Dear Journal, It will be hard to forget Saturday February 1, 2003 because a fatal accident happened. I was up stairs in my room playing playstation 2 when my dad yelled ‘Zach and Brandon come down here quick!’ Then we saw it on the t.v. It was scheduled to land on February 1, 2003 at 9:16 a.m. It never made it because something went wrong and it blew up. There were pieces found everywhere in Texas. Some pieces landed in people´s back yards. I think there were six Americans and on Israelian. I don´t think the space launching should be stopped, but before it goes up it needs to be checked many more times than it already is.”
Cheyanne Bontempo, 11, wrote against continuing the program.
“Dear Journal, I will never forget what happened Saturday 1, 2003. I was with my dad and sister and we were just about to go to the store when the space shuttle Columbia was lost. Instead of going to the store we stayed home and turned on CNN. My dad even said that morning ‘I wonder why we did not hear the two booms from the space shuttle.’ A lot of my family called because they were devastated that morning. I think NASA should not send people into space anymore. Two different times space shuttles have crashed and people have died. Why would you use a space ship many times in a row. They should have used their common sense. It´s NASA fault that people have died. I think the president should stop them from sending people in space.’
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