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This is going to be one of those "Where were you and what were you doing events. Of course I'm referring to the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and it's crew of seven. I was in bed.

I have a Timex Internet Messenger watch. It is a pager on the Skytel network and it also allows me to receive e-mail. The e-mails I receive are severely truncated however. The watch only allows a certain number of characters to be transmitted for e-mails and by the time it receives the headers such as who the e-mail was sent to, who sent it and the subject line, there is not much left for the actual body of the message. But with the headers and subject line and what does make it from the body of the message I can usually get a real good idea of what e-mail is about and whether or not I need to check e-mail immediately and find out more.

Just this past week, I signed up to receive breaking news alerts from CNN via e-mail and I set up my watch to receive them. This morning at 9:29am, my watch started vibrating to let me know that a message had been received. I pressed the button to read the message and saw that it was breaking news from CNN. By the time the headers had finished, the only amount of the message that made it through was, "NASA reports losing contact with space....."

I wondered if it was the space station or the shuttle, but thought it might just be a temporary thing, so I stayed in bed and didn't think about it more. Besides, Linda and I were.....well, it's really none of your business. Let's just say we stayed in bed.

Then, at 10:13am, my watch started vibrating again. I checked it and after the headers, the message I got was, "The space shuttle Columbia, carrying...."

I told Linda that something must have happened, because this was the second alert I had received. We jumped up and went to the computer we keep in the bedroom and went to CNN. That is when we learned what had happened. We cut the TV on and I've been watching it and listening to it all day.

Below are the two e-mails I received.

The first e-mail

Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 09:29:05 -0500
From: BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: CNN Breaking News
To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM

-- NASA reports losing contact with space shuttle Columbia at 9 a.m.
EST prior its scheduled landing at 9:16 a.m.
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com /AOL Keyword: CNN for the latest
news.

The second e-mail

Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 10:13:05 -0500
From: BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: CNN Breaking News
To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM

-- The space shuttle Columbia, carrying a crew of seven, broke up
Saturday morning 200,000 feet above Texas. More soon
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com /AOL Keyword: CNN for the latest
news.


Free Republic is a right wing web site I check out frequently because I think it is important to know what the other side is thinking. Plus, some of the nut cases which frequent this site are fun to read. But there is a thread that is largely non-political, at least at the beginning, that is a very interesting read.

It is a moment by moment account of some posters watching the space shuttle Columbia as it came across the US and then broke up. Some of them are watching NASA TV at the same time. It is quite interesting to read how they go from exhiliration at seeing it cross the sky in their location to sadness as they realize what was happening. Click HEREto read it.