Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Qualifier

I took my son who is about to move off to college with me this weekend to the Johnson Space Center in an attempt to hurry up and make some memories that will make him remember me fondly instead of how he will probably remember me.

While we were there, we were looking at the space shuttle exhibit.

And I noticed this picture of the astronauts lost in the Challenger explosion from sixth grade.

If you notice the text next to the picture, when it talks about Christa McAuliffe it says that she would have been the first teacher in space. For some reason that line stirred up the curmudgeon in me, and I couldn't help but say, "really? We're really going to go that far with the qualifiers?"

With space travel, there's bound to be a lot of firsts. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, but then there was Alan Shepard the first American in space. Then we further qualify it with Valentina Tereshkova's trip to space as the first woman in space. Furthermore there was Sally Ride who was the first American woman in space. And on and on it goes. We get Christa McAuliffe who, certainly I'm not going to deny her bravery or pioneering spirit, but saying that she's the first teacher in space is kind of ridiculous, right?

How far does it go? If Lance Bass ever gets to space, will he be the "first former member of 'N Sync in space"? Or if I one day get there, will I be "the first overweight California native Scorpio living in Texas with four kids in space"? You gotta give it a rest eventually.

1 comment:

dwarzel said...

Silliness.

Back in the day (for I, too, was in the sixth grade at the time of the Challenger disaster), she was often referred to as the first *civilian* in space, as all prior astronauts possessed ranks and were, at least nominally, officers in the navy or air force.

"Civilian" strikes me as perfectly reasonable. I wonder what they're trying to prove by narrowing it like that...